ILI 2007 Conference - October 2007

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The following proposals have been accepted by the Internet Librarian International 2007 Conference held at the Copthorne Tara Hotel, London, on Monday 8^th - Tuesday 9^th October 2007.

The Blogging Librarian: Avoiding Institutional Inertia

Title: The Blogging Librarian: Avoiding Institutional Inertia
Speakers: Brian Kelly (UKOLN) and Kara Jones (University of Bath)
Abstract: At previous ILI conferences speakers have described various benefits which use of blogs can provide within both academic and public libraries. However the deployment of blogs within an organisation is not necessarily easy: there are often significant barriers which need to be overcome in order to initially deploy such services and then to ensure that blogging services are sustainable and provide a demonstrable return on the investment.
In many cases, such barriers may, perhaps surprisingly, reflect not concerns over licensing costs and resource implications, but organisational cultural barriers based, perhaps on conservatism, but also on issues such as reliance on third party services, and related concerns over data protection, IPR and other legal concerns.
This talk will describe strategies which have been used within a variety of contexts in the UK to overcome such barriers and describe various best practices which are being developed to help provide sustainable and cost-effective blogging services.
Date And Time: The talk is part of the "A105 - Blogging Inertia and 2.0 Scepticism" session in Track A on Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts And Virtual Libraries which will be held on 8^th October 2007 from 16:00-17:30. The talk will last for 15 minutes.
Materials: About - [MS PowerPoint] - [HTML]

Using Blogs Effectively Within Your Library

Title

Using Blogs Effectively Within Your Library

Facilitators

Brian Kelly (UKOLN) and Kara Jones (University of Bath)

Abstract

The dust is starting to settle after the initial heady rush of blogging onto the library scene. While the benefits of blogging have been well documented, it is now time to take a step back and look at some very practical elements involved with identifying potential barriers to implementing a sustainable blogging service within your institution.
This workshop will offer real user experiences with issues of using blogs (weblogs) and blogging in your library. The session will start with an update on blog fundamentals - how the tools for blogging have developed, blog-specific search tools and blog aggregators.
Next are issues involved in setting up a blog, such as selection of software and hosting decisions. Using examples of best practice, we will move on to policy and procedure considerations such as blog scope, writing style and frequency of publication. Finally we'll discuss how to measure the success of your blogging efforts, focusing on user feedback, return on investment and impact assessment.
This workshop will be of interest to those who are new to blogging, or those who have experimented with blogs but would like to learn more about strategies and metrics for developing a sustainable and cost-effective blogging service.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the workshop session participants will:

Have learnt about up-to-date blog features and tools.
Have identified potential issues with the implementation of blogs within an institution.
Be able to outline policy considerations which best fit their individual or organisational purpose.
Have learnt about tools for measuring blog success.
Have heard about and discussed examples of best practices which participants will be able to make use of in developing a sustainable blogging service locally.

Interactive elements

The workshop session will include brief presentations, demonstrations and group exercises. The interactive elements for the workshop will include:

Comparing hosted blog sites.
Group discussions on identifying issues for consideration in the development of a blogging policy
Demonstrations of tools which can be used for measuring blog success.

Date And Time

This Masterclass session will take place from 14:00-17:00 on Sunday 7^th October, 2007.

Materials

See the masterclass entry point

Biographical Details

Image of Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is UK Web Focus, a post funded by the JISC and the MLA which advises the UK's higher and further education communities and museums, libraries and archives sector on best practices in use of the Web. Brian is an experienced presenter, and has spoken at all the previous Internet Librarian Conferences held in the UK. Brian works at UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management, which is based at the University of Bath.

Kara Jones is a science subject librarian at the University of Bath, UK. Over the last few years she has developed an interest in social technologies and sees weblogs, wikis and podcasts opening doors for those of us who don't really know our XHTML from our CSS, but still want to develop online resources that engage our library communities.