Excercise#2

Differences in the style of blog posts...

1. It  was pretty interesting to see how the style and approach of writing can differ in the blogs as I read through the five blogs I subscribed to for this assignment. There are some similarities between the blogs that shared the same interests as seen in The Distant Librarian, Librarian by Day and David King, focusing on web 2.0 and recent technology trends in the libraries, but there are also a lot of differences as the content and theme differed. Overall, all the five blogs offered postings that were quite engaging and effectively communicated the messages to the readers.  

The first blog that I subscribed to was the Librarian's Commute, written by Olivia Nelllums. Her style of writing resembled more like a personal diary, where she noted down her day to day experiences and happenings around her in a academic library setting. She has also included some pretty images from her surroundings (I guess) which added a sense of 'belonging', a more personalized feeling.

The Distant Librarian by Paul R Pival offers a lot of information on Web 2.0 tools and technologies that are very useful for library professionals, a 'must know' for all librarians in the digital era. The postings included a lot of videos, screenshots, tips and tricks on using technologies that are extremely relevant and handy in the world of Library and Information Science.

The blog Librarian By Day is maintained by Bobbi Newman focuses more on the digital library world, and offer interesting views on the current issues rocking the library land. The readers of this blog can connect to a host of interesting articles and watch videos on topics that are relevant to the libraries and library profession, especially the one article written by Emma Cragg and Katie Birkwood called  Beyond books: What It Takes to be a 21st century Librarian: From Connecting With People to Keeping Up With the Latest Technologies, There is a Whole Lot More to the Job Than Stamping Due Dates:

In the Library With Lead Pipe is maintained by a group of writers and the postings are more like essay style on various topic, ranging from social networking tools to welcoming homeless in the libraries. The postings are quite lengthy and include references to the sources that provide authentication of the postings.

David Lee King has a very useful blog where he shares an interesting article on the use of social media in organizations, offers many tips on video cameras and lighting, presentation skills and other interesting topics related to the library. The postings are short,but includes screen shots, video links and images that enhanced the appearance of the blog, making it more engaging and visually appealing.

2. I personally like to read blogs that offers information on the recent trend in technological advancements, that talks about the various tools and applications that can be used in libraries today to proactively communicate with the online community, and also to share and organize knowledge and information in a more efficient and logical order. For example, in one of the five blogs that I subscribed to for this assignment, I leaned about a great tool called 'postpost', which allows you to get the best news and information from Facebook all in one page, which I believe is an excellent tool for managing information and saves a lot of time as it brings together postings by the contacts you are interested in.

 3. I have subscribed to three different types of library blogs from the list in the week 3. ACRL stands for Association for College and Research libraries. Its blog is maintained by Academic and Research librarians and the topics revolves around issues related to Academic libraries and librarianship. 'Gargoyles loose in the library' is a blog maintained by a librarian at University Laboratory High School, Urbano-Champagne, and expresses news and views from the high school library. St. Joseph County public library or the SJCPL blog has a pretty engaging and attractive blog, which offers topics ranging from the list of New York Times bestseller to Valentine's Day play list, with active participation from the online community of library users.
4. Library blogs should have interesting and engaging postings, while maintaining consistency in style and approach. Writing posts that sparks discussion or a debate also is a good way of making a library blog successful as there are usually certain number of people in every community who follow the local community library's blog in a regular basis, or in the case of academic or special libraries, faculty and students can be drawn into the blog if a discussion is started on a current and interesting topic.