Top 10 Library Related Blogs
I have 43 subscriptions in my "Information + Libraries" folder in GoogleReader. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about dropping a few as I am finding that more and more the unread items are building up. I'm sure I can cut it down simply by taking out a few that are no longer being updated but that doesn't sort out the mountain of unread items. So the actual number of subscriptions doesn't matter it's the frequency at which they are updated. Should I then just drop the prolific authors? Surely not if the content they're posting is relevant and interesting. It's clear I'm going to have to find some other way of identifying which feeds to keep.
There are two ways I could approach this
- I could create a wonderful algorithm that takes into account the frequency of posts, their relevance, how often I skip over them, link through to them, mark them as favourites or to read later.
- I could get drastic and say if I were forced at gunpoint to choose just ten, which would I keep?
You've guessed it, I'm going for the latter. These blogs made the list because they are consistently entertaining, informative and inspiring. Without further ado here they are:
- In the Library with the Lead Pipe - a group blog discussing issues that impact academic, public and school libraries.
- Info-mational - written by Char Booth, E-Learning Librarian at UC Berkeley.
- Information Tyrannosaur - written by Andy Burkhardt, Emerging Technologies Librarian at Champlain College.
- Joeyanne Libraryanne - written by Jo Alcock, Resources Librarian at the University of Wolverhampton and current ILS student.
- Librarian by Day - written by Bobbi Newman, transliteracy guru.
- Librarians on the Loose - written by Emma Illingworth and Sarah Ison, librarians at the University of Brighton.
- Library Bazaar - written by Fiacre O’Duinn, a librarian in Hamilton, Ontario.
- Libreaction - written by Andy Priestner, Head Librarian at Judge Business School.
- Organising Chaos - written by Laura, aka Woodsiegirl, law librarian and current ILS student.
- Swiss Army Librarian - written by Brian Herzog, a reference librarian at Chelmsford Public Library, Chelmsford MA.
Graduate Trainees
This year in Oxford we have 23 graduate trainees working in different college and OULS libraries. Last week I attended the first of their weekly training sessions. This included a discussion of their hopes and concerns for the year ahead and a presentation from a former trainee who has gone on to qualify and is now working in a government library in her first professional post.
My part in the session was to talk about the use of web 2.0 tools in libraries. This was really just an overview of some of the tools being used with examples of libraries in Oxford who are successfully engaging with their readers using social media. I began by asking them which tools they were using personally. The majority of the group were on Facebook but there were only a few on Twitter and just one who writes a blog. This is all about to change however as they become authors on the new Oxford Trainees blog. Their first task is to publish a short post introducing themselves and the library they are working in. The first one was posted yesterday and I'm very pleased to see that it was written by Charlotte Brooke the new trainee at my library
I'm really interested to follow the development of this blog. I think it is a much better platform than a static website to get the trainees talking and sharing their experiences from the year ahead.
New home
Wow, I've finally done it and moved my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org and you know what, it really wasn't that hard. The hardest part was trying to choose a theme from the thousands now available to me!
For those of you who have ever wondered how the transition works here's a brief run down of the steps I've taken today:
-
1. Found a host - DreamHost - and set up an account. This includes registration of a domain.
-
2. Used the one-click install available from DreamHost to set up wordpress.org
-
3. Followed the instructions sent by email from DreamHost to set up my Wordpress admin account and import my existing wordpress.com blog.
-
4. And finally the really fun stuff, chose a new theme and worked on the look of my new blog.
Now I know I've got a long way to go to get my head around all the plugins and extras on wordpress.org but I'm pleased with what I've achieved in just a few hours today.

