I love my job.  As a Collection Development librarian I get to buy DVDs, music and downloads for my library system.  This means that I get to follow technology trends-which soothes my inner geek-and also share my passion for intellectual freedom.  Forget the, I  "heart" the First Amendment bumper sticker; I want the first amendment tattoo-Congress shall make no law….  

But for all that passion and love of my job, there's a tradeoff, isolation.  No matter how much I'd like to, I'll never be able to visit branch libraries as frequently as I'd like to discuss collections.   And while I don't consider my library unusual, the collections in our libraries have undergone some significant changes recently.  Since 2004, the year I joined Collection Development, we've added streaming music and video, done away with nearly all analog media, begun offering downloadable audio and video, as well as begun floating our collection amongst our libraries.  

In light of all this change, the Collection Development department began blogging last year as a supplement to our other communication methods.  For most staff, our communication with them was more of a broadcast of information either through email, or our Tech News newsletter which while effective in its way tended to be somewhat formal.   Our blog with its more conversational tone, we hoped would start a dialog between us and staff, and also since we've added librarians and switched around a few selection areas, help branch staff put a face to a name.  

Overall, our blog has been fairly successful at both of those goals, modest though they are.  Since we began, the blog has been visited over 8,000 times and visitors have left 170 comments on our 206 posts.  And while we'd like to see a lot more comments, we're happy with the efficiency that blogging affords us in our communication with staff.  Since blogs are by their nature, archival and searchable staff can locate postings easily-a benefit anyone who's ever lost an email that included a link you needed to retrieve quickly, can appreciate.

The Nuts and Bolts

Before we began we discussed a number of technical and strategic items.  Which software should we use for our blog?  Should the blog be internal and password protected or open to the public?  Who would be posting and what level of administrative rights would they have?  What sort of content would we focus on and how often should we post?  

We decided to use Wordpress as our platform over Blogger because we wanted to quantify the success of our blog and Wordpress offers a free statistical package that is surprisingly robust.  By using Wordpress, we can track which posts are the most popular, see how people are finding us, as well as a number of other useful reports all of which can be run either by day, week, month, or all time.  Since both Blogger and Wordpress are free this choice was easy.

We chose to make our blog open to the public, rather than internal and password protected.  We began our blog with no real marketing push other than an introductory email, and some announcements at a meeting of supervisors.  We had no idea how well the blog would be received and wanted to make it as easy as we could for staff to find us initially.  

Internally we decided that anyone within the Collection Development department would be able to post to the blog, though only a few of us would have full administrative privileges.  By allowing support  staff to post to the blog we could  build off some of the work they were already doing, such as posting lists of newly purchased items  that had been going into a public folder in Outlook email.  These email postings are popular with some staff and we wanted our blog to offer the same information in an alternative stream rather than replace email.  Since the public folders in Outlook are emptied every two weeks automatically, the blog also allowed us to offer an archive of these lists.  Because support staff could publish the list with only a few clicks and a cut & paste the duplication of effort for these lists was minimal.

The content of the blog tends toward the short and sweet.  We want content to change often giving staff a reason to visit frequently.  Though we'll occasionally post longer articles, many of which appear in our Tech News newsletter also,  we tend to blog more in snippets of brief text with links for greater detail.  The most frequent topics are not surprisingly publishing news and technology.  Since our blog is public some purely administrative content goes through our more traditional communication channels.    Finally, since our aim was to create a dialog with staff we opted to allow comments with minimal moderation.   The first time a visitor leaves a comment , it must be approved by myself or another administrator.  Once a comment by a visitor has been approved though, all subsequent comments publish to the blog immediately.  

Though libraries and situations differ, many communication challenges are the same from library to library. Blogs with their archival nature, ease of searching, and conversational tone can provide a channel for fast , efficient, information sharing and communication between staff in libraries large and small.

Posted by: Jim McCluskey

This is my last Shelf Space entry. I’m not going to lie and say that I’m sad to go – as it turns out the whole deadline every week thing isn’t really for me. It makes me a little crazy. Good thing I didn’t use that writing degree as a journalist.

You’ve patiently listened to me prater on about vaguely book- and blog-related topics for three weeks. For my final week, I thought I’d turn it over to a few friends of mine; people I met through this electronic medium and for whom blogging means more to them just rambling with an audience (like me). They are all published – or soon will be. Three of them are authors, the fourth an illustrator. They are all at different places in their publishing careers. Because of that, blogging isn’t something that they do just because they have big mouths and no social life (like me). Blogging for them, one would assume, must also contain at least a smidgen of self-promotion (that all blogging is self-promotion is an entirely different debate). I thought I’d ask what it’s like to blog from their end.

I roped Tanita S. Davis, Elizabeth Dulemba, Sarah Miller and Colleen Mondor into answering a handful of questions about what it’s like to be a creative professional – and a blogger. Here are their answers:

JP: Were you already published when you started your blog? How far along were you in your career? Did you have an agent?

SM: Sorta kinda. I started blogging publicly in late May and Miss Spitfire was released in July.

TD: I was published, but only in magazines and at a small house, and the two chapter books I’d written had already gone out of print! I had no agent, and was just finishing my MFA.

CM: I was published several years ago with some nonfic articles on Alaska aviation. I started the blog after Bookslut, , but I found my agent via the connections I had made there. I would say I was advanced in my career as far knowing my subject, but just starting out in terms of publication.

ED:I tried some experimental blogs before I was published, but didn’t really have the hang of it until after my first picture book came out.

Why did you start? Why do you continue?

SM: I’d been blogging privately on MySpace for a year or so, and more and more, my entries centered around my own personal book-news. By then, I was working with Little Willow to build a website, so the public blog was probably an offshoot of that. I figured there were people besides my 25 MySpace buds who might be interested in my literary goings-on. (My 93-year-old grandpa doesn’t have a MySpace profile, but he has been known to look at my Blogger page from time to time.)

ED: I thought it would be a good place to document my successes, visits and book signings, if for nobody else, then for myself. And that’s exactly what it has become. So, along with being a good resource for others, it’s also a great memory book for me. By labeling and bookmarking my posts, my blog has become a good resource for other budding illustrators; I get e-mails all the time thanking me for the information I share. I also link to particular posts from other areas of my site. For instance, most events on my calendar link to posts describing how the event went - hopefully it also shares good information for those looking to hire me for their own event.

CM: I was e-mailing with lots of bloggers and authors due to the Bookslut column and several urged me to start a blog of my own. Primarily I would thank Cecil Castellucci and Gwenda Bond for being supportive in the beginning. I did it to become part of the larger literary community that I had only scratched the surface with via the column. I continue because I have met so many friends and found so many good books via the lit blogosphere.

TD: Have to quote A. Fortis from our first post in 2005 on this one: “As writers we already have a natural tendency to want to foist our words on the unsuspecting public, so why not start a blog?” The blog was started – as a team blog. There were supposed to be five of us. It was launched as a means to keep in touch with our writing group – thus the tagline “the WritingYA Web Log.” The original group in WritingYA petered out after about a year, and the myriad people who had faithfully promised to be a part of the blog never materialized. It was down to A. Fortis and me, and we held on grimly for a while, and then less grimly, as time went on. After the first six or eight months, it got easier. We finally found the community – and discovered quite a few blogs who were already successfully doing what we wanted to do – the Greenlake Library Blog, Fuse #8, the kind of frighteningly smart Chasing Ray, Big A, little a, Book Buds, Paper Tigers, Chicken Spaghetti – a whole bunch of nice librarians, booksellers and readers who were communicating about a topic that was near and dear to us. We connected – and we still connect – and we have changed the way we think and talk and share about books. We’re much more confident about it now – we know all you other Word Nerds are out there.

SM: Now that I’m not a bookseller anymore, blogging makes me feel like I’m still in touch with the reading world, and that I still have a voice. I particularly enjoy having an outlet to spread buzz for books I like. It’s not as personal as hand selling to individual customers, but at least I can still hold up a great book and holler, “Lookit!” Plus, through blogging I’ve ’met’ some really nifty people -- Jackie, Miss Erin, Little Willow, Barbara O’Connor, Kirby Larson, to name a few -- and this lets me keep in touch with them, as well as a few old pals from my Halfway Down the Stairs days. There’s a cozy feeling of community in the kidlitosphere, and even though I don’t travel widely through cyberspace, I like my little neighborhood.

JP: Has your blog changed over time? How so?

CM: I’ve gotten a bit more comfortable talking about my personal writing then I was in the beginning and I get a lot more feedback now on many things I post about.

ED: My blog has evolved over time, and now I couldn’t imagine not having it, but I no longer worry about what I’m going to write about, as there seems to be an endless stream of subjects I can cover. Once you get on a roll with the theme of your blog, it would seem it starts to drive itself.

TD: Oh, definitely, yes. We neither of us were savvy with the links and the HTML, for one thing. And our topics were narrower – within the scope of our own opinions. We didn’t read other blogs as much and tended to stick to our little corner of opinion. Now we’re both fairly widely read about young adult literature and read reviews and interviews and discussions from newspapers, other blogs, scholarly journals, etc. Our opinions are broader, and our involvement within the blogging children’s literature community is much greater, and our blog topics reflect that involvement. And also? We can rock the HTML. We can make our lines scroll AND blink. (We be unutterably cool now.)

SM: At the very beginning, it was pretty much a festival of Miss-Spitfire-and-me. I was mostly blogging to keep my friends & family informed, but before long my audience expanded into strangers. Longabout August, I noticed *I* was getting tired of posting every piece of Spitfire-news that passed across my radar. It made me a little self-conscious, even. So I spread out, with more reviews, bookshop anecdotes, and The Week in Hand Sales feature -- stuff I hoped could be interesting even if you didn’t know me personally. Now that the bookstore’s gone, I’ve had to adjust and fine tune again. State of the TBR Pile took over the weekly hand selling totals, but I still miss being able to tell stories from the frontlines of bookselling. Folks seem to enjoy my WIP Progress Report sidebar, but I haven’t decided yet how much of the process itself I’m willing to share.

JP: I loved The Week in Hand Sales. I’ll miss that.

JP: What are you hoping to come from blogging?

SM: When you get right down to it, I like keeping my finger in the pie. Besides, it’s just plain fun to jabber about books.

ED: I hope to pay it forward a bit in my career, which is why I like to write about what I’ve learned. I also want to drive traffic to my site and my books. I’d like to have readers who know all my books, not just one!

CM: It’s mostly connections that I look for via the site - the chance to meet more people who enjoy literature and promoting literature like I do.

TD: The payoff for me in blogging is community connection and involvement. As a writer, this is crucial – simply because writing can be really isolating and lonely and devoid of a daily sense of accomplishment. By now, everyone is quoting the statistics that blogging is good for people’s health I don’t know about all of that, but I do know that blogging keeps me reading – and reading makes me a better, more thoughtful writer.

JP: How do you think blogging has affected your career? Has it?

SM: I’m not aware of many concrete effects. More people come to my website through my blog than any other source, but I don’t know if that translates or snowballs into any other measurable effects. I think it’s interesting that my blog-fans and book-fans are not necessarily the same group -- I’ve heard people say, “I love her blog, but I haven’t read her book yet.” That was unexpected -- I get a big kick out of it, and it’s also good to know blogging keeps readers aware of me even though I’ve been taking my dear sweet ever-loving time getting Book #2 out into the world.

ED: I have lots of subscribers and people who respond regularly to my posts, so my blog has definitely drawn attention - Especially since I started “Coloring Page Tuesdays,” hits to my site have increased exponentially. Many other bloggers now link to me, which I think also drives traffic my way. Of course, I don’t think I’ll ever know the full breadth of benefits, but there definitely seems to be momentum related to my blog.

CM: This is a tricky one as so many of the people I’ve met were through Bookslut first - I can never be sure how much of a component Chasing Ray has been in my career. I think the site mostly helps in that it is a way to reach out to people who are interested in my writing and that certainly is always a positive.

TD: I don’t know yet… I don’t feel like I can yet say that I have a “career.” I’ll get back to you next year at this time and let you know! In all seriousness, it gives me a thrill to know that there are people ready and eager to buy my books. I am tremendously grateful – and sort of elated and horrified and hope it’s good enough and- -- okay, enough of my neuroses. If there’s any way in which blogging has affected my career, it’s putting a face to some of my readers. Yay, and …yikes. On the other hand, I now know a whole lot of people who can’t review my book! Which is a potential negative, from some people’s point of view. I’m not worried about that, I’m just grateful for the friends I haven’t yet met who are nevertheless cheering me on. That means so much.

JP: Has your agent or any industry professionals (editors, art directors, etc) expressed any opinions about your blogging?

SM: My editor reads my blog, though I don’t know for sure how regularly. I think it’s a way of vicariously touching base. My agent doesn’t read my blog unless I send her a link to something newsworthy. Other than that, nada.

ED: From industry professionals, I get more responses to my e-newsletters than I do from my blog - but that’s another subject! One of my most recent posts covered the 1st Annual SCBWI Southern Breeze Children’s Book Illustrator’s Show (which I put together in my new role as Southern Breeze Illustrators’ Coordinator). The response from everybody involved has been tremendous. Where else would this event have been covered so thoroughly?

TD: My agent would love to talk about my blog – he’d love to be able to point people to it, but, it’s not just about me or my books, and so I kind of feel he’s a little confused as to why I bother. My agent HAS thought that some of my Summer Blog Blast Tour interviews and Under Radar Reads coverage has been nice – mainly because I actually highlighted another writer who is one of his clients. He was thrilled. But other than that, nope – the blog is my little semi-anonymous corner of the world, and I don’t think anyone particularly cares about it but me and my peeps.

CM: My agent is focused on my book(s) pretty much - she likes that I have a site and a column as they show me to be dedicated to spreading the word on my work. Beyond Michele though (Michele Rubin - agent), I have engaged in dozens of email exchanges with authors/illustrators/publicists and editors through mentions at my blog of different books I’m reviewing and also over the multi blog projects I’ve worked on (Summer & Winter Blog Blast Tours, Guys Lit Wire, One Shots, Recommendations Under the Radar, etc). Everyone seems to be very excited over the possibilities of organization they see in the blogosphere and through the work I’ve done in that vein, I’ve gotten a lot of support. Also, several editors have contacted me directly after they’ve read entries on my AK aviation memoir as well, and asked that I forward their info to my agent so she can be sure to send a manuscript to them.

CM: Basically, the blog helps a lot if you’re a writer, especially one just starting out. I will add though that it means nothing if you don’t reach out to the larger lit blogosphere community - you have to work at it if you want to be noticed.

Tanita S. Davis’ first book for teens, a la Carte is out on June 10th (I remember this because it’s my birthday).

Elizabeth Dulemba has beautifully illustrated a healthy handful of children’s books. Sarah Miller is finishing up her second novel, and Colleen Mondor should be turning in her final revision of her memoir this week, before turning her attention back to the other two writing projects she has going. All of them are far better, far more thoughtful bloggers than I am, so I hope you take a look at them if you aren’t already familiar.

Thank you ladies, and thank you ForeWord for hosting me!

Posted by: Jackie Parker

Posted by: Jackie Parker

Posted by: Jackie Parker

One of the questions that seems to pop up a lot when people talk about blogs is WHY bloggers blog. I know why I blog. Mostly. And I’ve talked about that before.

What I’m more interested is why YOU read blogs. I don’t consider myself an authority on anything. I might be able to scrape together an argument that I’m knowledgeable in my little field of libraries and teen lit, but I’m not any better than countless others. I’m just enthusiastic, or crazy enough to have one day decided to share my thoughts in a public way. So I’m not quite sure why you read me – or the others like me.

Why do you follow the blogs that you follow? What makes each one stand out to you? What makes some blogs stand out from others that have the same general subject matter? How is it that we begin to feel a connection with a person we’ve never seen, let alone met? Yes, if you frequent a blog, you probably share some interests with the blogger, like Leila’s Dr. Who and cheesy horror movies or Sarah Miller’s headcheese. But SOMETHING makes you return again and again.

I realize that I’m asking questions that might not always have clear or easily definable answers.* Perhaps it’s guerilla journalism for the arts & culture section starved - editorialized. Maybe we are just, at least with books, covering things that don’t get the attention they deserve in the mainstream. Perchance it is the decline of society’s need for authoritative sources (you must allow me that - I am a librarian after all)?

Is it our enthusiasm? Our earnestness? That we’re talking about books and issues we care about, and that excitement shines through? Is it that we seem like normal people who aren’t pretending to be anything other than what we are? Because we aren’t claiming to have the answers or the final word? It is the voyeurs that I’m especially interested in, those who read, but never comment. You know who you are. Now’s your chance. Talk to me. Add to a dialog. Tell me why you give us your time. How have we earned your attention?

I don’t know.

Anyone?

*(Ok. Sidebar on the conversation for a second. I’m writing this in a café and there’s a guy behind me who keeps sucking in his snot in snorts so loud I can hear him over my headphones. I really want to turn around and tell him, “Grown-ups use Kleenex.” But I just can’t. My mom wouldn’t approve. Back to the… um, whatever it is I’m writing.)

Posted by: Jackie Parker