Blogs

Mohammed A Hassouna Alaa Abu Quke

Eng. Abd Al Ghani Abu Jabal

The Islamic University of Gaza Computer engineering Department

Overview

What are Blogs? What kinds of blogs? Reasons to read blogs Why use blogs ? A few caveats on publishing blogs Conclusion References

Whos blogging or reading blogs?*

Approx. 8 million American adults say they have created blogs Blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is You will be part of the 38%

* Rainie, Lee. The State of Blogging. (2005) Pew Internet and American Life http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp

What are Blogs?

"Blog/WebLog: a web page containing brief, chronologically arranged items of information. A blog can take the form of a diary, journal, what's new page, or links to other web sites."

Scott, Peter. (2001) Blogging: Creating Instant Content for the Web. Internet Librarian 2001, Pasadena, CA http://library.usask.ca/%7Escottp/il2001/definitions.html

Blog title Post date (in reverse chronological order) and title

Links, Previous posts, or Blogroll

Post and links to other sites/blogs

Comments

Archives

What kinds of blogs are there?

Pundit, news, and political blogs (citizen

journalists)

Personal journals and diaries For fun For personal and professional development Business/corporate blogs

What kinds of blogs are there?

Organizational and project blogs (including blogs for

communities of interest and practice)

For professional development For organizational knowledge management

Not all text-based: Picture, audio (podcasting), and video (screen or vodcasting)

What kinds of blogs are there?

For libraries

Librarian blogs

Personal and professional development Issue and resource tracking

The Shifted Librarian-http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ Librarian.net-http://www.librarian.net/

ResourceShelf-http://www.resourceshelf.com/
ResearchBuzz-http://www.researchbuzz.org/

What kinds of blogs are there?

For libraries Library blogs

For external community (news, marketing, resources) For internal community (intranet, committee, project)
Georgia State University-http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/ UThink at UMinn-http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ Thomas Ford Memorial Library Staff Exchangehttp://www.fordlibrary.org/TFMLstaff/

Six reasons to read blogs

Current awareness and personal information management Conversations taking place and subjects being discussed here that aren't elsewhere Faster updates Easy to explore other fields For fun!

Six reasons to read blogs

Biggest Reason?

You can get regularly updated content without having to check the sites often. How? Through the magic of RSS. . . .

Why blog?

Easy method of web publication

Not necessary to know HTML Content is easily reusable and distributed via RSS; can add updated content to websites

Management of information for personal or organizational use

Why blog?

For organizations

Marketing and external communication

Reach your users Give the library a more personal face Another channel for feedback Keep groups updatedcan be easier to search and archive than listservs and e-mail Project tools

Internal communication

Why blog?

For individuals

Professional Development

Current awareness and personal information management Self-marketing Reflection

A few caveats on publishing blogs

Private vs. public or theres no such thing as total anonymity Blogging ethics Organizational policy

How do you publish a blog?

Numerous weblogging tools Client or server-based (they host or you host) Client--they host (free and paid)

Livejournal (free) http://www.livejournal.com/ TypePad (paid) http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/ WordPress.com (free) http://wordpress.com/ Bloglines even lets you create a quick and dirty blog

Getting Started with Blogger

Blogger-http://www.blogger.com/

Quick and easy blogging tool with very basic functionality They can host (Blogspot) or you can host on your own server Free!

Conclusion

Blogs are a simple way to keep up with current information and to publish your own information easily Use programs like Blogger and WordPress to get started Happy Blogging!

More information on blogs

The Internet Courses: Weblogs-Dr. L. Anne Clyde, Professor, Faculty of Social Science, The University of Iceland--http://www.hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html Weblogs CompendiumPeter Scott http://www.lights.com/weblogs/ Blogging 101-Jenny Levine (The Shifted Librarian), http://www.sls.lib.il.us/infotech/presentations/2005/ol a-blogging.pdf

More information on blogs 2

Weblogs in a nutshell--Elisabeth Riba http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/nutshell.htm The Communications of the ACM's December 2004 issue (47: 12, 30-59) on the blogosphere