Lesson 9: Intra-Library Blogging

Up to now, we've talked about blogs used for communicating with patrons and blogs used for communicating with librarians in other libraries, but there is one final category of library blog to discuss. Some library blogs serve as a means for staff members in one library to communicate with each other, which I've termed intra-library blogging.

This topic was covered briefly in Lesson 8, with the mention of blogs as cataloging tools, but there is more to intra-library blogging than this. Coleman, Thiess-White, and Fritch (2011, p. 42) report that for Kansas State University Library, intra-library blogs play an important part in allowing employees to schedule work hours, list useful websites for answering reference questions, and keep a record of the types of reference questions library workers are often asked. In essence, these blogs are online reference libraries for librarians, and just like physical libraries, they are ever-changing.

Julia Rodriguez (2010) says it well:

Web 2.0 technologies allow for that information to be placed into a forum on which others can build and contribute, with the added benefit of bringing together the combined intelligence of all participants and organizing this knowledge in a way that can be shared, searched, and passed on to new workers. (p. 108)

That’s a tall order, and a library blog can take care of it all. Intra-library blogs may be the most effective of all: they target a specific community and provide information about the organization that cannot be found elsewhere. They see a need and meet that need. Who could ask for more?

References

Coleman, J.,Thiess-White, D, & Fritch, M.E. (2011). Social software for training andmanaging reference staff. IndianaLibraries, 30(1), 40-48.

Rodriguez,J. (2010). Social software in academic libraries for internal communication andknowledge management: A comparison of two reference blog implementation. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 15,107-124. doi: 10.1080/10875301003788323