1. Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
The Blogging Librarian: Avoiding Institutional Inertia A Framework For Blog Deployment
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, UK
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Hello
My name is Brian Kelly and I’ll be talking about how blogging librarians can avoiding institutional inertia.
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2. 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!

3. Blog Policies Best Practices For your blog there’s a need to define:
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

4. 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; …

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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
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

14. 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!

15. Questions
Any questions., comments?