Jessica the Cool Librarian has started a new group blog to discuss library matters (and related topics) as a community. I’ve joined on as one of the moderators, and as a mod, I encourage anyone and everyone to sign up and start posting and commenting. Behold, Library Talk!
I was going to call this post “Knee Deep in the Hoopla,” but decided a Starship reference would be a crime against good taste.
Anyhoo…
MPOW’s general public blog has gotten a couple of comments. From patrons. Yes, patrons are actually reading our blogs and making comments. This makes me very very happy indeed, because honestly, I wasn’t sure how long it would be before we started getting comments, but I feared it would be quite a while. And yet, we’re getting comments.
(Swelled head moment: the two comments we’ve gotten on the general blog have so far both been on posts I’ve written.)
I particularly like the comment on the post I wrote today. It’s appreciative, and with a nice dab of style and humor.
On the eve of Election Day, MPOW’s teen blog has had a patron-submitted name chosen by patron vote. The blog has been dubbed “OPL Teen Hot Spot” and the YA librarians are now soliciting logo designs from our teen patrons!
One of my favorite authors is Ray Bradbury. His manic enthusiasm for life, art and what many people consider “trash culture” (like monster movies and carnivals and comics), his approach to writing, his beautiful beautiful prose, his wide-eyed race towards tomorrow. I love the 10-year-old boy in the old man’s frame.
His novel Fahrenheit 451 is, as everyone reading this blog knows, a crucial piece of work, at least as important today as when he first ratataptapped it out on a public library typewriter all those years ago. Some people still believe some books, including Fahrenheit 451, must be censored or banned or burned. The censoring and banning of art and information is something I oppose in a fairly rabid way, which makes Fahrenheit 451 a wonderful nexus for me. Bradbury + anti-censorship = crazy delicious. (The only tastier equation is Bradbury + creepy carnivals. Something Wicked This Way Comes is like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or mashed potatoes and gravy.)
So, I’m flattered in all kinds of ways that the Pelham Public Library in Ontario has included me in the blogroll on their blog, Fahrenheit 451: Banned Books. And I’m awfully impressed with the blog in general: it’s a “discussion on censorship through the Pelham Public Library, Fonthill, Ontario. This discussion takes place in conjunction with the Fahrenheit 451: Banned Book Club for teens.” What a great way for a library to use a blog! What a great discussion for a library to promote and foster!
I’ve been blogging for 5 years now, and I’ve only just started to really think about why. No, that’s not entirely right. In 2001, you didn’t need a good reason to blog. In 2006, I think you do, and with the premiere of MPOW’s blogs, I’ve been thinking about my reasons and the reasons for libraries to blog. Allow me to elaborate. (Or bail out now and go read someone else’s blog.)
I originally started blogging because…well, because I had friends with blogs who were egging me on to start a blog myself. I’d been wanting a website of my own, having no less vanity than most people you’d meet (and a finger or two more at certain times of the year). I wanted to post poetry and prose I was writing at the time (or, more often the case, planning to write at some point), which meant a website with changing content. Blogs were the easiest way to do that, so I got my own domain (www.goblin-cartoons.com, and the reason why I chose that name is a whole nother not very interesting story), signed up with free, not-yet-owned-by-the-Google-Monster Blogger, and gave the whole thing a go.
Flash forward to today and look at all the tools we have to create and manage dynamic content on the internet: blogs, wikis, mashups, etc. We’re positively swimming in dynamic content! If you know your onions, you use the right tool for the job.
So, why keep up a blog? What’s a blog good for that other tools aren’t?
I don’t write much poetry these days, but over the years I’ve found that I like writing short rants and raves, ponderings, narrative sketches, feuilletons. A blog is berries for that–but you could do that with a wiki, too, right? Where blogs really shine is in the pairing of posts and comments. Like peanut butter and jelly, blog posts and comments are a delicious and delightful combination, and one is not nearly as good without the other. When you have blog posts and comments, you don’t just get to publish your blatherings, you get feedback from friends and strangers. You get conversations. Ephemeral, yet archived and preserved for posterity, conversations. I’m something of a nut for conversations. And you get these posts and conversations delivered in a hot-off-the-presses fashion. When a blog is updated, it’s immediately obvious. “This just in: Josh has more to say about Library 2.0! Wait, we’ve got another update: someone’s commented on yesterday’s rant, calling Josh a lamebrained gasbag!” Being impatient, I’m a fan of immediacy, too.
What does this mean for libraries? Blogs are immediate conversations between the library and the public, ephemeral but preserved. Wow! You can have conversations with your public face-to-face, over the telephone, through snailmail and email and instant messaging. With blogs, you can have conversations that are preserved and on display, immediate and eternal, like a fly in amber.
And what does this mean for me? I get to have immediate, ephemeral, preserved conversations with friends, with family, with fellow librarians who I’ve never met face-to-face. It’s something I love to do, and blogs are the tops for that.
So here I am, saying my piece. Anyone want to join in on the conversation? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
It’s been more of a wait than impatient l’il ol’ me would’ve liked, but the public blogs for MPOW are officially open! The main blog is called “Hoopla,” and we also have a Children’s Department blog (“Around the Corner“), a Young Adult blog (currently called “Teen Blog” until the winner of the YA contest names it) and a Reader’s Advisory blog (“Notes From A. Reader“).
I’m very excited about this. I wish I could take all or most of the credit for them, since it was basically my idea to have a blog on our site, but my coworker Susie did at least as much work as I did convincing our Web Committee and the rest of our staff to blog, and she did all of the work installing the blogs and getting them set up, and other staff members did some of the designing of the blogs and posting on the blogs. Really, that makes this all more exciting and satisfying, because this isn’t a me thing, it’s a we thing.
And one of the exciting things about having blogs? You don’t need to live in Olathe, KS, to get a library card at MPOW. We’ve issues cards to people who live in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida and even Paris, France. Now it’s even easier for our out-of-state patrons to keep up with what’s going on at the library and to engage in conversations with us. And for those people reading this blog who don’t live in Kansas, feel free to subscribe to MPOW’s blogs and to leave comments. Global public libraries. Pretty neat, huh?
Happy Blog Day for the Olathe Public Library!
In general, I find WordPress to be easy to use and a really nifty blogging engine.
But–I find editing and modifying the sidebar to be a major exercise in frustration and futility. Even reading the support docs and replicating the code, I can’t get the sidebar to do what I want. I’m trying to add a little “Banned Books Week” button to the sidebar (something that would’ve been a snap with Movable Type), and I cannot. Get. The. Button. To. Appear.
Sheesh!
The Kansas Libraries & Librarians Flickr group has gotten a mention on Library Stuff. Which is exceedingly cool.
I’m feeling sluggish and spacey this morning, and that’s not a good thing. It’s usually not a good thing, but today it’s a particularly not-a-good thing. This afternoon, I need to be energetic and…gee, what’s the opposite of “spacey”? “Earthy”? (What happens when Kevin Spacey meets Eartha Kitt? Wait, nevermind.)
This afternoon, I’ll be making a short presentation to the Library Board, informing them and seeking their approval of the forthcoming public blogs on my library’s website. Now, I realize the Library Board is just a group of reg’lar folks, Abbie an’ Slats types. At the same time, I get nervous making presentations at the best of times, and this is the Library Board we’re talking about!
Oh, well, nothing to be done for it, I suppose. I’ll just stick to my usual tactics of guzzling loads of coffee and muddling through myopically like Mr. Magoo.
UPDATE: The presentation went well. The boardmembers asked good questions and were very appreciative. And they liked my bowtie.
My friend Gregg, who has recently started down the path of librarianship, ended his Livejournal a little while ago. Thankfully, he can’t keep his blogging mouth shut: he’s got himself a brand-new blog: Bookpusher. Welcome back to the intarwub, Gregg!
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