GSU Library Blog Expansion

Last week, I called a meeting of the library bloggers so we could discuss some issues, including standards (or "best practices") and suggestions for technical and interface improvements.

Thanks to our Web Development Librarian and Web Programmer, the major changes we wanted have already gone into effect.

Previously, our main news page consisted of PR announcements and was infrequently updated, while a list of the five most recently posted items on the specialized blogs was buried in the descriptive information in the right margin. The page has been reconfigured to emphasize the specialized blogs by displaying the headlines of the items posted on all of the blogs. Essentially, it's a feed for the library blogs. Each headline has a timestamp and the name of the librarian and link to their blog.

The other major change is that the Social Sciences News blog is gone, which I figured would happen eventually. This was started up by five librarians who were initially concerned they wouldn't have enough to post on their own. Not surprisingly, they became the most prolific bloggers of the bunch. However, I am concerned about some of the divisions. Two of the librarians have each opted for three blogs, one for each of their subject areas. This brings up two issues: posting frequency and overlap due to posting the same item in more than one blog. We'll see how it goes; I'm pretty sure some of the blogs can be "reconstituted" at a later date Meanwhile, the two education librarians will have their own space, while the behavioral sciences librarian has opted for one blog for her three areas.