Will you think less of me if I don’t always blog both ways? I worry that I am the only one thinking retroWeb thoughts and I am afraid to share them.
Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 is a powerful movement that offers great power for users, and for librarians, and for the growth of libraries. Most days I feel part of the movement. Most days I am thrilled by it.
While I am excited about discovering my voice in this blog, and as I build wikis and other things interactive, I prefer some of my communications to be slightly more static.
In our blogevangelism, I fear we may lose sight of the importance of schema for young people. Some things–like catalogs and parts of library interfaces–may be more useful when they stay put, when they remain familiar for users. While I am adding elements of interactivity to my old-fashioned pathfinders, I am not sure I am ready to throw those robust babies out with the blogwater.
I also worry that in our passion to share the excitement we feel for this medium, we may force bloggers to blog before their time. I speak as one who failed miserably twice before discovering a voice and a purpose and an audience. Those early blogs went nowhere. Perhaps, I needed those two public failures and frustrations. Perhaps I should have waited.
Colleagues quietly confess to me that they want to blog, that they feel guilty that they don’t blog, that they feel on the outside looking in on this movement. But they have no idea what to say or whom to say it to. I suggest they might not actually NEED to blog themselves. Or maybe there are more pressing needs–visiting classes, lessons, family, etc.
Should they want to demonstrate constructive use of this tool, they may not really need to hurry to find their own voice. They might help a teacher set up a journal/blog project for learners or help a teacher get started. Gigi Lincoln, my colleague and fellow cohort member, brilliantly began her Night Blog http://nightwiesel.blogspot.com/ with true inspiration. I am proud of my helping my colleague Sarah create her Hurston Blog http://hurston.learnerblogs.org.
For those of you pressured to blog, I say don’t push. Wait. The inspiration will hit. The right project will come along. The right issue or user group will face you. It is not necessary to blog before your time.
4 responses so far ↓
I certainly agree that there is no NEED for every librarian to blog. I blog because I enjoy writing, so it isn’t “work” for me. For about 3 years, I mainly futzed around and did a lot of reading and commenting. I didn’t start writing on Infomancy until May of 2005 (wow…not even a year yet!).
Please don’t throw out pathfinders - they are an essential element of providing guidance through the ever increasing chaos of information out there. The whole point of School Library 2.0 (as I see it at least) is not to take away from current practices but to integrate those same practices with new tools. The two blogs you shared here are excellent examples of how a tool like blogging can facilitate these conversations like a book group unconstratined by time and distance.
Speaking of which…when do we do a blogosphere wide reading of a book like the one book, one city movements?
Thank you for your reassurance, Chris. I love my pathfinders and I absolutely agree that we need to integrate successful “old” practices with the new tools.
What a wonderful idea! A blogosphere wide read! Care to suggest a first pick? Anyone?
I’ve been chewing on this for a while now - feeling like I should blog but not really knowing where to start. And I am excited about the web 2.0/library 2.0 movement: more excited about the potential of technology tools than I have been in a long time. But I am not there yet - so I appreciate this post. I read a ton of blogs for a variety of reasons, and I have always been more of a reader than a writer, but I think the more I read and consider what I read the closer I am getting to envisioning what I want mine to be, when I get started, if I get started. So as a reader, not a writer, I appreciated the sentiment and think you are on to something.
Hmm…maybe one of those new books written like a blog/about blogging. I remember seeing on in VOYA on the YALSA best teen reads list I think.
“Goldschmidt, Judy. The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez. Razorbill/Penguin Putnam, 2005. 202p. $12.99. 1-59514-018-2. VOYA October 2005. Raisin Rodriguez copes with a blended family and a new school by keeping a painfully honest—and funny—blog. Unfortunately for Raisin, her blog goes public and everyone in her new school reads it. Nauteca (age 12)reported, “When my teacher said it was for girls, I got interested. I liked that they were telling the truth about their friends and weren’t so sheisty and mean.” Alexandria (age 12) thought, “This book is really funny. I like Raisin and her friends. I’ve had to move around a lot, so I know how hard it is to start over in a new place and how much you miss the friends you left behind. But this book shows the humor in the situation too. And Raisin’s blog is hysterical to read.””
http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200602TopShelf.pdf
That or a favorite of mine was Robynn Clairday’s Confessions of a Boyfiend Stealer - A Blog
http://www.yabookscentral.com/cfusion/index.cfm?fuseAction=books.review&review_id=5491