Category: library

Another year, another blogday

Yes, I feel all proud, because it’s coming up to birthday-time for the UK Library Bloggers Wiki...it’s toddling along nicely all by itself (with just the occasional spammer attack – it’s really quite satisfying to get to ban and block people!), with people generally seeming quite happy with the process of adding their blogs themselves.

Since I last looked in July 2010, there have continued to be additions in various categories.

                                          July 2010                                        March 2011
Institutional bloggers              135                                                     152
Individual bloggers                 90                                                       107
Chartership blogs                    5                                                         6
Information professionals         8                                                         8
Suppliers                                 8                                                         8

Total:                                      281 blogs

So, a growth in institutional/workplace bloggers, and individual/personal bloggers too, and a solitary, brave Chartership blog.

I wonder if the 2 years without any change, then last years small growth in Chartership blogs is because people are already blogging, and then decide to Charter, and incorporate that aspect of professional development into their existing blog? Or are fewer people Chartering? Or are those who are Chartering using other methods to log their progress?

I’ve also decided to remove the Yahoo Pipes combines RSS feed link for Institutional and Individual blogs from the front page of the wiki – it was initially done as an experiment, and now that people are able to add their own blogs, unless I then go in each time after I get the wiki has been edited alert”, get their RSS feed, and go edit the Yahoo Pipe, it’s never going to be current/accurate. And I’m afraid I just don’t have the time to be fiddling like that constantly!

Of course, I haven’t clicked on each of those 281 blog links, so I’m quite sure that at least some of them are now defunct – my plan to go through them, and remove the dead blogs to another section has definitely slipped to the bottom of my to-do list. Maybe I’ll be more inspired to do it if I get a prize. Can I get a prize?

It’s aliiiiiiiiive!

So, we unleashed the UK Library Bloggers wiki into the wild back in March, and crossed our fingers that it would be ok, out there in the Scary World, all on its own.

And so far, it seems to be doing just fine, yay! There are of course the regular spammer attempts to “subtly” insert adverts for dissertation work, and all sorts of less…erm…wholesome products within the entries, but the email alerts about text amendments that go to the administrators of the wiki (Phil, Jo and I) means that the first person online and able to, goes in and removes that material and blocks the creator. This has worked really well so far, and unwanted content doesn’t stay on the wiki for any real length of time.
And the best bit is the librarians and info professionals who’ve been adding themselves to the wiki! I created a backup in March before we “unlocked” the wiki, and at that point there were 115 institutional / professional group blogs, 83 librarian blogs, 5 Chartership blogs, 8 information professionals blogs and 8 industry supplier blogs.
There are now (as of 5th July 2010) 135 institutional library blogs, 90 librarian blogs, and still 5 Chartership blogs, 8 information professionals, and 8 industry supplier blogs.
So, the biggest increase has been in institutional blogs, with a small increase in personal library bloggers.
I will (at some point in the near future) be going through the wiki and checking all the links of the ones added prior to the unlocking off the wiki, and removing the “dead” ones. I’m planning on moving those entries into a “dead blogs” section – I think it’s worth keeping the links available, for interest.
So: if you haven’t added yourself, go do it now – you’ll be in good company!

Happy birthday, UK Library Bloggers wiki! Be free!

Yeeesh, it’s been 2 whole years since I started building you out of the results of Google, Yahoo,Technorati and other random searches. Very quickly I realised that I couldn’t bring you up properly on my own, so Auntie Jo, Auntie Christine, and Uncle Phil stepped in to help. Without them, you might have gotten a bit unruly, and grown up all scraggly and without any discipline. I think that together, we’ve done quite well, keeping you nicely in shape and making sure you’re as well informed and as up to date as possible.

And now that you’re all grown up, we’ve realised that the time has come to set you free in the world, to let you make your own way, meet new people, make your own changes, grow and develop in ways we might not be able to help you with ourselves. So….we’ve unlocked you, and now anybody (who registers with PBWorks) can edit, update and add to you. We know it’s a risk, but we think you’re old enough now to be able to look after yourself. Just avoid the bad people who might want to corrupt you, and be nice to the people who want to add useful things to you.
And remember, you can always come home if you need to, mmkay?

West librarian email update

Information Overlord kindly pointed me towards Wests reply to the staggeringly badly thought out “Librarian name” marketing email.

Wisely, they’ve put their hands up and confessed to being *rses, and apologised. A good response, but why did a massive (I believe, I’m not overinformed on the US legal information suppliers marekt) company whose focus is on supplying information to legal and information professionals, ever think that it would be ok to insult the best informed sector of their users?
And who authorised that email going out? Did they look at it and go “Yup, that’s just the tone we want to set!”
Apparently, it “won’t happen again”. I’m just surprised that it happened at all.