Blogging and Professional Blogs
I have been following two blogs by librarians for a few weeks. Through reading these blogs, I have learned some interesting information about libraries, librarians, technology and blogging! The two blogs I followed were “The Librarian in Black” and “In the Library with the Lead Pipe”. There were several underlying topics that I picked up on and was able to see some trends in library science.
Librarian in Black is a blog created by Sarah Houghton, the director for the San Rafael Public Library in California. She created the blog in 2003 as a way to find all the information she needed and put it in one place to find. She focuses on information that is directly related to librarianship, web design, technology and current trends in libraries. Although she hasn’t posted since December, her blog entries were very interesting. She focuses a lot on user privacy and web use and development. One entry that was of particular interest to me was one on Adobe spying on users access of e-readers. Adobe was obtaining user data without permission or even letting users know what was happening. Another entry that Houghton wrote was on Choose Privacy Week. This is a program that is trying to help people understand and know their rights to privacy. Throughout her blog, I realized that Houghton is very interested in the Code of Ethics. She talks about privacy rights and technology do’s and don’ts quite frequently. She also addresses personal topics such as harassment and how it has affected her in her private and professional life.
In the Library with the Lead Pipe is a blog maintained and created by an international group of librarians. It is an open access and peer-reviewed journal. They publish articles by other librarians and are interested in promoting the good of librarianship. I found that this blog focuses on communication, digital humanities and higher education, along with developing new techniques and information and web design. The most current entry has been an article on “Radical Librarianship”, thinking outside the box in LIS. It asks questions on whether political engagement should be a part of librarianships and allowed in the library. Another article that I enjoyed was from December and talked about research methods being implemented in LIS. Through this blog, like Sarah Houghton’s blog, I kept finding topics leading back to the ALA Code of Ethics, along with how technology is impacting LIS and new trends in libraries. These seem to be the biggest issue discussed in both blogs.
After finding these two blogs, I think I will continue to follow them for personal enjoyment. They are interested to read and help me to understand more about the field of library science. It is nice to have ideas presented that think about librarianship as a developing and changing field.
http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org