Readings (3)

This week’s readings were focused on the ethics of blogs. I really liked Jakob Nielsen’s discussion of anonymity and trust, and the efforts that bloggers go to (or should go to) to increased the reader’s trust. His reference to the blogosphere’s “positive feedback loop” reminded me a lot of the authority criteria used when evaluating sources, and citation indexes. And this point is reiterated by Karen Schneider when she states that librarians are “the standard-bearers for accurate, unbiased information”.

I thought Darlene Fichter’s article on how to promote your library through blogs was very straightforward and I liked some of her suggestions under “building new ties” such as a blog for teachers and blogs in other languages.

The most interesting thing about the case studies was how different they were from each other. I thought that the Garfield County Public Library System’s blog was fun and had some amusing links. On the other hand, the Virginia Commonwealth University suggestion box (and responses) was amusing in a slightly different way, but it was encouraging to see that students did actually have suggestions about different reference sources and databases! (And, I learned you can major in Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.)