I have really been enjoying the Feel-good Librarian blog over the past few weeks. Stories from the reference desk of a midwestern library told with good humor and a sense of respect for both our work and the work of our patrons.
Category: blogz
blogging banned in vermont, sort of
Just in time for my last week of work, the principal of a nearby high school has banned blogging from high school computers. Granted it’s not as simple as that, the banned site is more of a social software network than a blogging site. The principal also has one good point — that kids should be cautious about how much personal information they put on web sites, as should we all — but both his strong and misapplied reaction and the slanted news article turn “blogging” into an oogyboogy man when this same issue could be seen as an opportunity to do some good education about the Internet generally and blogs and social software in specific. From my public librarian perspective I’m just happy people know how to use the tools. Blocking one site does absolutely nothing to solve any real or perceived dangers of sharing information on the Internet, period. [thanks shannon]
some rss reading for those who are interested
I’ve gotten at least one request — which means there are probably more silent readers wondering — if I could define my terms somewhat more, maybe give some more background reading on some of the stuff I talk about, specifically RSS. I’ll point you to a few pages that have been helpful to me:
- FaganFinder’s “what is RSS” page is a big, deep explanation.
- Here’s how the Cincinnati public library explains it to their users which includes link to
- Steven’s article on RSS for non-techie librarians and
- Karen Schneider’s 15 minute tutorial for those who want to get started first, then learn what they were doing.
when is a blog not a blog?
Small update and interesting sidenote. Even though the web4lib content is being presented in blog format, it’s not really a blog. That is, you can’t comment using the comment form without being a list member. Not that this is a bad thing, but it is definitely a repurposing of the blog format in a way that produces unexpected results. Anyone who doesn’t know about web4lib should read up on it. Maybe it’s the librarian in me, but I think the list of guidelines for list behavior is sane, thoughful and thorough.
web4lib blog
Web4lib’s content is available for reading and permalinking in blog format with and RSS feed and interchangeable skins! [unalog]