CILIP Promoting Blogging

A little while ago I had an email from CILIP asking if I minded having this blog aggregated to a CILIP blog called CILIP members blog landscape. At the moment there are 15 blogs aggregated here, all by members of CILIP. Although it's only a small percentage of the UK library bloggers it is an interesting overview of what is being blogged about. Unlike the forums on the CILIP communities site it doesn't require you to login with a CILIP membership to view the blog so it's open to everyone.

In addition to the CILIP blog, this month's edition of Update (CILIP's monthly journal) contains what I hope will be a regular column LIS Blogwatch. Matthew Mazey scans over 100 blogs for this column and it's a great round up of some of the hot topics although publishing deadlines mean that the 'October' issue has hot blog topics from August so most bloggers will have come across them already. I think it's more a way of bringing the conversations from the blogosphere into the consciousness of people who haven't really got into the idea of reading blogs. Hopefully some people will follow the links and find their way into the online conversation. I'm glad to see this column is available online and I hope it will continue to be published online in future.

And finally... check out another Update article online - Dave Pattern's 'Are you Happy with your Opac?' reports on his survey of OPAC satisfaction and the University of Huddersfield's approach to upgrading the catalogue. A must read for anyone who every considered that their OPAC might suck...

UK Public Library Blogs

I've come across a couple of blogs, finally, for UK public libraries! Both describe themselves as 'semi-official' and have a mix of library news, reviews and general information. Paige Turner has been writing on behalf of Swansea Public Libraries since December 2006 and writes short interesting posts on all sorts of topics. She also publishes pictures of new libraries in Swansea and some more personal posts about the library world in general. I'm not sure what the intended readership of the blog is as it feels much more like a personal blog than an institutional one but I certainly enjoy reading it! Sutlib Reader is a very new blog started this month and presenting itself as "The (semi) official blog of Sutton Libraries". Only 4 posts so far but I like the idea and according to the author it has the support of the Head of Libraries so I look forward to seeing how it develops. Congrats to the first UK public library blogs I have found!

And another one...

UK blogging librarians springing up everywhere - to tie in with the Plymouth Libraries' Flickr account mentioned earlier here's a link to a blogger from the South West... Library Notes is written by a librarian working towards Chartership and it shows how blogging seems to be gaining popularity as a useful way of keeping track of reading and professional development. I'm especially looking forward to reading the posts about Umbrella as I won't be there in person, just via the blogosphere! Found via the Umbrella wiki Clippers2007

Found! UK Blogging Librarians...

Not only are they UK blogging librarians but they are UK blogging public librarians! I've been following Michael's 025.04 blog for a couple of weeks but hadn't noticed that at the bottom of his profile lurked another blog. Signpost Libraries has some interesting ideas and seems to be linked to experiments with Talis Signpost. Unfortunately it also seems to have come to an end but I mention it because it looks like a good example of library staff collaborating via a blog. I'm off to leave a post on 025.04 to ask Michael about the project... and continue the hunt.

CILIP Sub Branch Blog

My local CILIP Sub Branch has a blog! One of the committee has been inspired by Karen Blakeman's talk to set up a blog and Hampshirelibrarian has already posted on internet browers and search engines. Unfortunately the comments are restricted to members of the group and there is no obvious way to send a message asking to join in but I'm in the process of emailing the committee to find out more. If people get involved I think this could be a great community blog for folk working in libraries in the region to discuss 2.0 technology and share general library ideas and problems.

A challenge for UK library bloggers!

Brian Kelly of UK web focus has written another post on the subject of UK library bloggers and he's now on the lookout for volunteers to join in his experiments and this is his challenge...

"Well I’m still carrying on with the experiments (especially the experiments which relate to the needs of the smaller libraries, museums and archives - such as my current experiment in email delivery of blog postings).
But I’d be even more keen to carry out a community experiment - perhaps with a small group who would be willing to contribute their experiences using a Wiki, could be presented at ILI 2007."

I think this is a great idea and a good opportunity to build a UK library blogging community sharing ideas and thoughts about 2.0 things - if you're in the UK please consider joining in!