More blogging....

In Blogging Strategy 101 I think they make a good point that if you are using a blog for marketing (I think that library blogging can sometimes be considered as marketing the library) you have to appeal to the culture of the blogosphere which is used to reading about personal opinion/experience and a lot of linking. I also agree that it's important to post on a regular basis instead of sporadically, even if that means only posting one a week or once a month. I think this predictability is good for keeping readership because you don't want people checking everyday expecting a new post and being disappointed when they don't see one because in the past you've posted everyday, and now can only post once a week.

I was very impressed with the Darien Library Blogs - I found they presented their blogs in a very professional manner, there was a great variety, and they were well organized. I also like the idea of adding the definitions at the bottom of the main page to help people who didn't know what blogs and RSS were. The main criticism I would have is that I found they didn't publish new blog entries on a regular basis (I looked at a few for this and didn't see any consistency).

I'm always a fan of Jakob Nielson, his no-nonsense approach to usability, and his unabashed photo gallery. I think that at the very least library's should take these to heart when they are creating their blog- except for maybe the last one. I think that if a library is just testing the blogging waters it might be worthwhile to test it using a hosting service, such as blogspot, before investing time and money into download and buying software.