Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2007/ The Blogging Librarian: Avoiding Institutional Inertia A Framework For Blog Deployment Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Hello My name is Brian Kelly and I’ll be talking about how blogging librarians can avoiding institutional inertia. Resources bookmarked using ‘ili2007' tag UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Contents Best Practices For The Library Blog: Purpose Resources Architecture Barriers: IT Services  Librarians Organisational culture  Fundamentalists Addressing The Barriers: Encourage enthusiasts Risk Assessment “Let’s Do It!

Blog Policies Best Practices For your blog there’s a need to define: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/blog-policies/ Best Practices For your blog there’s a need to define: Its purpose Its scope Its target audience You will also need procedures which will ensure these policies are being addressed Note the policies may evolve

Resourcing Your Blog Best Practices How much effort is needed to deploy & sustain a blog: Technical expertise: can be minimal if externally-hosted solution used. Writing blog posts: effort is dependent on scope of blog, target audience, expertise in writing, … And will posts be checked prior to publication? User engagement: will you allow comments? If so, effort will be needed in deleting spam, responding to comments, … Monitoring your blog: how well-used is your blog; what are people saying about it; …

Architecture For Your Blog Best Practices Various options for hosting your blog: Externally-hosted blog (e.g. Wordpress, Blogger, Vox, …): In-house blogging software (e.g. Wordpress, …) Other in-house solution (e.g. VLE such as Blackboard) Alternative approaches such as use of social networks I chose the externally-hosted Wordpress solution for my UKWebFocus.wordpress.com blog as this was very easy to deploy and meant no waiting for an in-house solution

The IT Services Barrier Barriers Do you experience problems in getting IT Services to deploy software for you: It doesn’t fit in with our corporate IT policy Allow users to comment? That’s a legal nightmare! You’ve got a CMS – you should use that We’ve looked at blogs and decided that they are full of junk You’ll get viruses if you use a blog … Do you have any similar stories of ways in which IT Services seek to stifle innovation?

The Library Barrier Barriers Can the culture within the library be a barrier to blog deployment: Blogs are vanity-publishing Everything must be peer-reviewed We might be sued Our LMS doesn’t support blogs Let’s way and see – it might just be a fad … Web 2.0: Addressing the Barriers to Implementation in a Library Context, QA Focus briefing document no. 103

The Fundamentalists The Accessibility Fundamentalist: Barriers The Accessibility Fundamentalist: I’ve checked the blog with Bobby and it fails It uses AJAX – and AJAX is evil The Standards Fundamentalist: It doesn’t comply with HTML / CSS standards It uses JavaScript – and this is banned by the council The Ownership Fundamentalist: We need to own the technologies we make use of Do you have such fundamentalists in your organisation? Note that WCAG 2.0 (draft) guidelines remove much of the dated aspects of WCAG 1.0 and acknowledges potential benefits of Web 2.0

Public Sector Conservatism Barriers Questions: Is conservatism in public sector organisations a barrier to innovation? Is the UK/Europe more conservative than the US? Thoughts: Web 2.0 companies need to develop & deploy applications and build large audiences quickly Public sector bodies don’t have such pressures – but do need to address issues such as sustainability and accountability Nobody gets sacked for pointing out possible problems in innovative services We need to be aware of the limitations of our sector, and seek ways of exploiting innovation whilst managing possible risks.

Encourage Enthusiasts One approach to blogging is to support the enthusiasts: “Seek forgiveness, not permission” – quote for ILI 2006 Use on small-scale activity (possibly to support an event, with no need to support on an ongoing basis) Social blogging might help in developing skills – do you have an unknown blogger in your organisation? Addressing The Barriers Note that blogging (like public speaking) is not for everyone – so requiring all staff to blog may be counter-productive

Risk Assessment Addressing The Barriers Need to assess risks of use of blogging services: External service becomes unavailable or changes terms & conditions Performance and security issues Data protection & other legal issues Note that you should: Apply similar critique to in-house services Address the risks of doing nothing Addressing The Barriers Risk Assessment For Use Of Third Party Web 2.0 Services, QA Focus briefing document no. 98

Demonstrating Value Addressing The Barriers Demonstrate the value of your blog service by using various tools and techniques: Monitoring your blog statistics Monitoring what people are saying (and remember to respond) Many tools are available to help you Addressing The Barriers Note: beware of blog spam

Building A Community Addressing The Barriers Strengths of the library sector: User-focus Culture of sharing We can exploit the strengths by using social networks to share experiences, resources, … Addressing The Barriers http://library20.ning.com/group/usingblogeffectively Ideas: Use of services such as Ning, Facebook, etc. for discussing ideas Creative Commons (CC) licences for our training resources, blog posts, etc. Note CC licence for blog masterclass workshop materials

Conclusions At Umbrella 2007 conference Lynne Brindley, CEO of British Library said, wrt Web 2.0, we should “just do it” So ‘let’s do it’, but let’s also address the: User requirements Risks Sustainability And let’s do this as a community, sharing our successes – and our failures!

Questions Any questions., comments?