David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

John Blyberg is Blogging

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I met John at Internet Librarian – we were on a panel in the public libraries track. He also gave a presentation later in the week on his library’s site (www.aadl.org).

And… he has a blog – http://www.blyberg.net/

Check it out! Seems a bit heavy on code (warning for non-techies), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve subscribed!

Reading Lots of Blogs

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Meredith, in her Survey of the Biblioblogosphere: Attitudes and Behaviors, says “I don’t know how those of you who read more than 200 blogs manage to do it! I can barely keep up with 120 blogs (many of which I rarely read in their entirety). I guess there is a different between subscribing to a blog and actually reading all of the posts.”

Right now, I’m “reading” 174 feeds. But here’s what I really do:

  • “Keeping up” with 174 feeds doesn’t mean in-depth reading of those feeds
  • Some I browse through quickly
  • Some, I think “not interested” and move on to the next post in my feed reader
  • Some are photo blogs – I look at the photograph, think “cool” and move on
  • Some I spend more time on, read, click through the links, respond to (in Meredith’s post’s case), etc.
  • Some feeds don’t update very often, so reading them isn’t all that hard
  • Some posts are about the same thing that 20 other posts will be about, so I can skim/skip them

Generally, I read those 174 feeds the same way I flip through a magazine or a newspaper – I skim the headlines and the text for something interesting. If I find something, I stay for a while. If not, I move on.

Corporate Blogging Guidelines

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I found these via the Working Smart blog. It’s a nicely done set of blogging guidelines for the blogger’s company (Thomas Nelson Publishers). The Guidelines walk an employee through the blogging process from start to finish – very cool.

You should definitely go read them if interested, but here are the high points:

  1. Start with a blogging service (like blogger, livejournal, etc).
  2. Write as yourself (ie., use your real name, don’t be anonymous, etc).
  3. Own your content (make sure readers know this is your personal blog, and not the companies blog).
  4. Write Relevant. Write Often.
  5. Advertise – if you wish.
  6. Be nice.
  7. Keep secrets (no sensitive, confidential, proprietary, etc info).
  8. Respect copyrights.
  9. Obey the law.
  10. Remember the Handbook (the company policy handbook).

Now – I’ll bet someone can adapt this simple but useful format for a library!

One Year Blogging Anniversary

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I’m celebrating the (approximate) one year anniversary of my blog. Woo hoo, party party! So bear with me a sec as I reflect upon my year of being online, and think a little about the next year.

Last August, I started to blog about library technology types of things semi-regularly. One year later, I’m still blogging, I’m still having fun, I’m meeting new people, and… well… just take a peek at some of what’s gone on with my blog-ish stuff in the last year:

Blog: I started blogging with Blogger in 2003, but really truly started this blog in August of 2004. Some stats:

Furl: Around the same time, I started using Furl for bookmarking. I now have:

  • Number of links: 334
  • Number of Topics (Furl’s name for tagging / folksonomies): 78
  • Most viewed links: Yahoo! Webmessenger (116), followed by Men’s Business Attire (77)

Flickr – I also use Flickr for my blog (whenever you see an image in a post of mine, it’s most likely coming from my Flickr account).

  • Number of images: 118 photos
  • Most viewed images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidking/13591400/ – It’s a slightly funny Google Maps image (166 views)
  • Number of images marked as Favorites: 6 images marked as favorites…
  • Number of tags: 160

Future plans for this blog: Once I get around to it, I’m going to purchase a domain name, get a web hoster, etc – so I can have my own “place.” Still finalizing domain names in my head… I’ll probably go with some version of my name – much easier than creating some wonderful “blankety blank Librarian” type of name (although “blankety blank librarian” would be kinda funny… ). Plus, there’s that whole self promotion thing… (which, of course, highly rules out the name “blankety blank librarian” … bummer 🙂

So, all you fine readers who have actually dropped my RSS feed into your aggregator – stay tuned! When/If I actually do this, I’ll send plenty of warning, along with the new domain/feed URL.

And that’s all for now – it’s been a fun year, and I’m looking forward to even greater fun this year!