Welcome

Steven M. Cohen

PubSub Concepts, Inc
Library Stuff

Presentation URL
http://www.stevenmcohen.info/il03152005

What We Will Be Talking About Today

+ Marketing Your Weblog
+ Guidelines and Policies for Weblogs & RSS Feeds
+ Automatic posting notification systems
+ Weblog Extras, Plug-Ins, Audio Posting
+ Templates
+ Intranet v. Internet
+ Customized RSS Feeds
+ Bookmarking Tools and Folksonomies
+ Library Vendors and RSS

Quick, Quick, Quick Intro to Blogs and RSS

+ Website, listed chronologically, with written content and links.
+ Most use software for easy publication.
+ Calendars, Permalinks, Archives, RSS, blogroll, comments.
+ Easy Easy Easy Easy Easy…
+ Every blog will have an RSS Feed, but not every RSS feed comes from blogs.

+ Examples of blogs

- Library Stuff
- Resourceshelf
- Tame the Web
- Search Engine Watch Blog

+ Examples of Feeds

- New York Times
- USA Today
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- AP
- Much much more

+ Steven's Aggregator
+ Bloglines

So You Have a Weblog - Now What?

+ Marketing is Key

- If a blog is on the web, but nobody is there to read it...
- Put up a "how to" page
- The value of a "soft release"
- Talk to the right people (the ones that make the decisions)
- Put out a press release
- Talk to the local newspaper
- Put it in your newsletter
- Link to it on your website
- Use the blogosphere (especially the library blogosphere)
- Flyers, bookmarks, classes

Marketing the Professional Library Weblog

Stand out in the crowd
Ease of use
Best way to publish without trade publications (on your own terms)
Finding your niche
Marketing the Librarian
Write everyday

Guidelines and Policies

+ Professional Librarian Weblogs

- Loose guidelines work best (for me anyway)
- Does your library know? Will you tell them?
- Do you put your blog on your resume?
- Guidelines on comments (Free Range Librarian)
- Other guidelines from LISNews.

+ Library Weblogs

- Need to be more in depth (liability)

- Posting policies for library staff
+ Don't talk about patrons
+ Don't post about staff members
+ Make sure that the information is accurate
+ Is there going to be a holding period for approval?
+ Who gets access?
+ What gets posted? (news, new materials, library events)
+ How often can staff post?

+ PLA Blog guidelines on a wiki
+ Corporate blogging policies
- Feedster
- Charlene Li

- University of Minnesota - services and guidelines

- McMaster University - RSS Policy

Discussion - Should libraries have blogging policies?

Automatic Posting and Notification Systems (APNS)

+ Pinging Technology
- sends notification of new blog post to centralized service
- Examples:
- http://www.weblogs.com
- http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
- http://api.feedster.com/ping
- Ping-o-matic
- Pings.ws

+ Trackback
- Tells you who is linking to your posts.
- You have to play with Trackback to get it working
- Some say that trackback is dead (PubSub can do the same thing very easily)

+ What's so great about APNS?
- Gets your content out into the blogosphere quicker (almost instantaneously)
- Who is talking about you? Who is linking to you? Feed the ego.
- Think about marketing again.
- Cross blog conversation

Weblog Extras, Plugins, Templates, Audio Posting

+ Macros are extremely important.
+ Easily embedded if you know html or other coding languages (css, javascript)
+ Don't touch those macros!
+ Blogger example

+ Plugin Directories
- www.mt-plugins.org
- Blogger help
- Wordpress Plugs Wiki

+ Examples of blogs that have gone "the extra step"
- Thomas Ford Public Library (MT)
- Roselle Public Library Blogger Book Club (Blogger)
- Construction Diary
- Hillsdale Library (Blogger)
- Princeton University Libraries (MT)

+ Free templates are available.
+ UThink example.
+ Search?
+ Sometimes, the basics are all you need (content is king)
+ Post to your weblog from the road (literally!)

+ Audio posting - The Gates

+ The "call in show weblog" concept.

Internet v. Intranet

+ Weblogs can be useful in both situations (What are you trying to accomplish?)

Internet

+ On your library web page
+ News, press releases
+ New Acquisitions (Waterboro Public Library)
+ Virtual Reference Collection
- New databases
- Electronic libraries (Lexis example)
- Problems with databases
- New policies
+ FARQs

Intranet

+ Communication among staff, libraries, consortia
+ FARQs
+ Backend CMS only
+ "We've shifted books again"; "The biographies are on the second floor now"
+ Everyone is involved
+ Meeting/event planning

Discussion: Will weblogs work on my internet/intranet? Why not? - DISCUSS

Customized RSS Feeds

+ Customization is the future of RSS.
+ The future is now
+ Be a hero @ your library (law firm example - outcomes)

+ Let's do it with Bloglines (class account)

- PubSub (examples)
- But what if my news resource doesn't allow me to customize? Fear not!
- Feedster
- Blogdigger (ITI Groups)
- Amazon / Amazon Wish Lists
- HubMed (Be a Hero!)
- Econtent
- RSS Weather
- DayPop
- Topix (zip code)
- Yahoo News (ALA Pres Releases, other examples)
- Wired News
- Moreover
- ODP Directory Feeds
- Find Articles
- Ebay
- Fedex/USPS/UPS
- Ingenta Connect
- Find Articles

+ Open tagging systems

- Collective intelligence
- The power of the masses
- Categorize your own bookmarks on your own terms (yikes)
- Subscribe to category bookmarks
- Subscribe to others' bookmarks.

- Examples:

Furl
del.icio.us
Connotea
Cite U Like
Digg It
Unalog
Technorati
Tagsurf
FeedMarker
Tagsy
Wists

+ Is there a place for open tagging structures in libraryland?
- Let's meet in the middle of the right (totally structured) and left
- The masses will probably decide the structure
- Readers Advisory example

+ Discussion: Open Tagging Systems are neither open nor tagging systems - DISCUSS

RSS @ Your Library

+ RSS in Your ILS (Jenny Levine)
New Books
Automatic RSS Feed with most weblog software
Library Elf
University of Alberta/NEOS - New books by subject heading - How'd they do that?

Thank You

Contact:

AOL IM - nylibrarian
Skype - stevenmcohen
Phone - 631-645-4516
E-mail - stevenmcohen [at] gmail.com