UK librarian blogs – the list so far

I’ve pulled the previous entries into one alphabetical list, with a few categories. Will be back later with more detailed discussion of what I’ve learned by doing this. And, as always, if you know of other librarian blogs, let me know and I’ll add them in!

Institutional Library Blogs / Professional Group Blogs

aRKive

Appears to be the blog of the Reid Kerr College library, or someone related to the Library, but unable to confirm as it doesn’t have any ‘about’ section that I can find. Lots of posts about library topics, books, IT…

Brit Lib Blogs Google Group

There’s a Google Group for British librarian bloggers! Unfortunately it looks to be pretty much unused at the moment.

CILIP Blogs

CILIP has various blogs by either staff, or links to relevant blogs, available from the Communities section.

Varying levels of activity on these blogs – the PTEG blog has one post from November 2007, while Lyndsay’s CILIP Blog has been going has been going for almost a year, with at least one or two large postings every month.

Engineering Info @ Imperial College London Library

Regular posts of topical news and press releases from relevant Government departments for users of the Library.

English liblog@chi

English Library blog at the University of Chichester. Covering UC library service information, with updates on new stock and services.

FADE

Fade Library is the Library Service of Liverpool PCT. A wealth of regular health related posts, and a good sense of humour –

Why is the library called the Fade Library?

As the North West Grey Literature Service we naturally ‘Fade to Grey’! Musical puns apart it stands for Frequently Accessing Documents that are Esoteric (if the musical pun wasn’t bad enough we suffer from librarians who like playing with words!)”

From the Chief Executive’s Desk

Regular, personal postings from CILIPS Chief Executive Bob McKie on library topics. This may be a personal viewpoint, but as it’s hosted by CILIP, I’ve placed it in the Institutional Blogs category.

Galway Public Libraries Blog

A regularly updated site, giving info on events, new stock and other library news to users of the Galway Public Library service

Glasgow School of Art Library: Fine Art and Design News Updates

News for students of Glasgow School of Art, with postings about library services, print and electronic resources, and links to relevant news articles.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Library Land

A group blog for members of CILIP South East’s Hampshire and Isle of Wight Sub Branch. Not updated since September 2007 and may be defunct.

Information Matters

Blog from the Library and Information teaching staff at the University of Brighton. Mainly focussed on University course information / material, but a fair amount of general library information. Updated one or two times a month in general.

ILS Matters

Blog from the LIS Department of the University of Worcester. Entirely focussed on internal news, but with very friendly and informal postings.

In Through the Outfield

Who knew? The British Library blogs! Blog of Ian Infield, Manager of the BLs Business and IP Centre. IP / technology focused, with lots of nice, honest posts, with some useful BL info thrown into the mix.

Mental Health Update Blog

John Gale at Bethlem Library produces “easy to understand summaries of research articles, all the latest information from the Department of Health and news stories from specialist journals.” Multiple regular posts with good summaries of relevant research and news.

Open University Arts Library
Open University Maths and Computing Library
Open University Library News for Science
Multiple blogs from the Open University Library, catering to their dispersed users through regular blog posts on topic specific blogs, about library services, training, and online resources.

Perth College Library

Library news for users in Perth College, with posts about new acquisitions, IT information, and also custom sub blogs created by the library for specific student projects.

Perth College Library Webspots

A blog for the staff of Perth College Library, where they can share weblinks and information relating to CPD, initiatives and new resources.

School Library Association

“The SLA weblog contains news about the SLA and topical information of general interest to our members.” Lots of regular postings, but the format of the postings is a hyperlinked headline, which could become frustrating with regular visits.

Shush!

The Information Services Library blog of the University of Northampton. Lots of posts of technical tools useful for students (and others), linking news nicely to course topics and educating students on developments in some of their favourite online tools.

SINTO

A blog on library and information management issues for members of SINTO – the information partnership, a consortium of library and information services in South Yorkshire and the surrounding area. Regular in depth posts, and covering a wide range of library topics.

SLAINTE Pageflake

I’m not sure whether this counts as a blog, but as it incorporates many of those elements, I’ll put it in here with the institutional blogs. When launched, there was a blog section, but that appears to have disappeared now. The flake covers news of relevance to all sectors of Scottish libraries, and is a joint effort between Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland (CILIPS).

Tales from the CDG Tardis

The blog of Amanda Quick, President of the CILIP Career Development Group. In her own words: “As President of the group from April – December 2008, I will be blogging myself hoarse.” Blog was started in late March 2008, and already there are lots of posts on a wide range of library related topics. Another one I’m unsure whether it’s personal, or CDG / CILIP linked, so I’ve put it in the Institutional category.

UCL Library Services blogs

Not one but 4 separate blogs from University College London – Anthropology, Communication, First Reading (currently on hold), and Library News for Artists. Each blog gives regular information on library and departmental news, relevant upcoming events, and new stock.

University of Bath Library: Science News

Updates from science subject librarians at the University of Bath, with information on new stock and resources.

UK eInformation Group blog

Edited by Karen Blakeman, with regular posts on Web 2.0 topics. Mainly a bulletin board type of blog, with brief postings linking back to fuller source material.

What’s New On the CyberLibrary

Infrequent (2 to 3 monthly) posting on news relevant to public libraries and their users in the South West of England.

Individual Blogs

025.04: Michael’s blog – fighting library apathy, one Dewey Hundred at a time

Lots of posts on library issues (and an interesting recent visit to Bulgarian libraries!) by Michael, an E-Resources Librarian in Bolton.

He also blogs as part of a group for Signpost Libraries Blog, “Signposting you to book and DVD reviews, and online resources for your community. Brought to you by Bolton and Wigan libraries.”, although this seems to have been abandoned since August 2007.

The Batty Librarian

A blog from a UK school librarian, with her “musings, book reviews and confessions”. Frequent postings on life, and the library.

Enquiring Minds Want To Know

The joint blog of Jennifer Vass and Davina Gifford, law librarians for commercial firms in London. Posts two to three times a month on library, legal and Web 2.0 issues.

Information Literacy meets Web 2.0

Blog of Peter Godwin, a librarian in St. Albans. He posts regularly on information literacy and Web 2.0 topics.

Information Overlord

Blog of Scott Vine, Senior Information Officer with a London law firm. Regular posts on library, advertising, legal and Web 2.0 topics.

Joeyanne Libraryanne

An Academic Information Assistant at the University of Wolverhampton, studying for a Masters in Information and Library Studies via Distance Learning, and focussing on technology developments, and enhancing academic library services.Regualr posting and commentary on library issues.

John Wright: research support librarian

John Wright blogs about life as a Research Support Librarian within the library service of the University of Wales, Bangor.

The Librain

The blog of the Learning Resources and Information Services Manager at Nicholas Chamberlaine Technology College in Bedworth. Posts cover developments and musings about the future of school libraries.

Library etc.

Blog of Neil Stewart, law librarian at a law school in central London. Covers “Web 2.0, libraries, probably some obscure music and films, general thoughts”, with a couple of posts a month on these topics.

Library of Digress

New blog from a PhD research student at the University of Strathclyde, (so far) looking at public libraries and Web 2.0 technologies.

Librarytwopointzero

UK librarian, living, working and blogging in London, currently in a public library but shorty moving to London University. Focussing on libraries and Web 2.0, regular posts and lots of links!

lo-fi librarian

Infobunny in a law library, with regular postings on Web 2.0 topics, and weekly “Useful Tools” posts, listing web tools with a wide range of uses.


Lore Librarian

An Information Officer in London, Lore Librarian blogs on “library, law-library, web stuff, 2.0, and other random wafflings.” Regular round ups of library, technical, law and just generally interesting “stuff” in “Interesting Things of The Week” posts.

Making Another Library

A librarian in a South Yorkshire FE College, blogging his reads, reviewing them as he goes along, and musing on the thoughts that these books trigger.

My:self-archive

Blog of Kara Jones, Research Publications Librarian at the University of Bath. The blog covers institutional repositories, self-archiving, open access and libraries, charting the progress of the development of the repository.

Also blogging institutionally at University of Bath Library: Science News

Oracle Librarian

Blog of Meghan Jones, working in the legal sector in London while completing her MSc in Library and Information Studies. Posts two to three times a month about “web 2.0, social networking, legal information, general shiny things and stuff that doesn’t really fit in any of those categories”.

Paige Turner

Interesting behind the scenes look at Swansea Public Libraries, from the viewpoint of a staff member – the Central Library refurbishment looks fab! Hard to tell if it does have official approval, so I’ve put it here as a personal blog.

Phil Bradley’s Weblog

Internet searching, web design, search engine developments and anything that will interest librarians!” Lots of posts on search engines, useful online tools, and anything else that may be of relevance to librarians.

The Running Librarian

The Running Librarian is the blog of James Mullan, Information Officer at a UK law firm. Previously called LI Issues or LIG Issues, The Running Librarian posts frequently on the use of Web 2.0 technologies by law firm libraries. It also covers social networking tools, legal and legal library stuff, legal publishing, and law librarianship.

Silversprite – the librarian at the end of the world

Prime contender for Most Remote UK Blogger, John Kirriemuir blogs about his business interests of digital libraries, digital gaming and online economics.

The Singing Librarian

An academic librarian, working his way through a librarianship qualification, and musing on “Libraries, singing, comics, life”. Regular, often in depth posts on all the aforementioned subjects, but mainly on music and musicals!

Teen Librarian

Does exactly what it says on the tin – a blog with postings relating to teen or youth librarianship. Part of a larger site which is “the first website of its kind in the UK. It is specifically geared towards those that work with Teenagers and ‘the Youth’ in Libraries in the UK (and also abroad).”

Chartership Blogs

My Library World

A blog recording the Chartership progress of a librarian in a Glasgow Further Education college, with discussions of staff visits, developments in the library service, and what constitutes good practice.

Musings of a Chartering Librarian

The blog of an Assistant Librarian in the Reader Services team in a UK university library, going through the Chartership process and using the blog as a record of this.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Librarian!

The blog of Katharine Widdows, Science Information Assistant at University of Warwick Library, working her way through Chartership, and using her blog to track this progress. She blogs about UW Library issues, and Chartership related events and activities.

Note – Some of these blogs didn’t come up on my blog search, and are taken from the links in this previous post from Enquiring Minds.

http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/Weblogs/

UK and USA public libraries – guns drawn?

I found this story on a US library news blog. It’s about a UK public library story (which in itself is entirely horrific), but the comments show an interesting cultural difference. As a UK resident, I find the sometimes easy American acceptance of gun ownership quite unsettling. I understand that there’s a Constitutional right to bear arms (and a huge debate about that in itself), but the culture of acceptance of the need to have access to a weapon is, to me, quite scary. For a personal example – while working in America, I managed to gain a stalker. The response of my workmates? Did they offer to help me report him to the police / give me a lift to the police station, accompany me there, offer moral support, give me safety tips, work out a strategy of how to lose him and distance him from me?

Nope – they offered me various handguns to protect myself with. I had never even seen a real gun, let alone handled one, had no weapons permit and no intention of (or probably legal basis for) getting one, and would be more of a danger to myself than anyone else with a gun, but I was being offered a deadly weapon to protect myself with, as if this was normal. Familiarity with guns can lead to them being seen as the entire solution to a problem, rather than a possible part of a strategy to solve a problem.

The comments section shows a debate over whether allowing the library staff or security staff to be armed would have stopped this. I can’t see that this is a debate that could ever even be opened in the UK.

  • Would YOU feel safe in a library (or any area) where the staff were armed? I know I feel LESS safe in the airports where intimidating , riot-geared police loiter with guns casually slung over their arms. Would thinking that staff could access a gun if needed make you feel reassured, or nervous?
  • Do you think arming staff / security will ever make a public library safer?
  • And would that mean that library staff would have to be checked for suitability to carry a gun? Would you progress faster if you were ok with having a gun? Would a personality test that revealed you to be unsuitable to be armed prevent you from being employed?
  • What’s to stop a staff member being the one who ‘goes postal’ and opens fire?

And more UK library bloggers…

I continue on my mission to gather UK library blogs into a list. I’m sure somebody’s going to pop up at some point and tell me such a thing already exists, but until then, I’ll keep going.

Of course Roddy Macleod guest blogged on this same topic on UK Web Focus almost a year ago. Since then, there’s been a growth in the number of library blogs. I intend to eventually gather these into one list, reorganise the categories, and maybe put it on my website (anyone got an easy tool to build one, for a girl that knows not of the mysteries of HTML, and doesn’t think she could ever get to grips with it anyway?). I will also probably post about what I’ve learned about UK library blogs in the process.

I haven’t been able to explore every blog linked to on these blogs, but I’ve made a good stab at it…I’ve discounted any blog not updated for a reasonably large amount of time, restricted the list to only UK people, and only people who state they are librarians, or work in the library sphere.

Institutional Blogs

UCL Library Services blogs

Not one but 4 separate blogs from University College London – Anthropology, Communication, First Reading (currently on hold), and Library News for Artists. Each blog gives regular information on library and departmental news, relevant upcoming events, and new stock.

Mental Health Update Blog

John Gale at Bethlem Library produces “easy to understand summaries of research articles, all the latest information from the Department of Health and news stories from specialist journals.” Multiple regular posts with good summaries of relevant research and news.

Engineering Info @ Imperial College London Library

Regular posts of topical news and press releases from relevant Government departments for users of the Library.

Glasgow School of Art Library: Fine Art and Design News Updates

News for students of Glasgow School of Art, with postings about library services, print and electronic resources, and links to relevant news articles.

Perth College Library

Library news for users in Perth College, with posts about new acquisitions, IT information, and also custom sub blogs created by the library for specific student projects.

Open University Arts Library
Open University Maths and Computing Library
Open University Library News for Science
Multiple blogs from the Open University Library, catering to their dispersed users through regular blog posts on topic specific blogs, about library services, training, and online resources.

From the Chief Executive’s Desk

Regular, personal postings from CILIPS Chief Executive Bob McKie on library topics. This may be a personal viewpoint, but as it’s hosted by CILIP, I’ve placed it in the Institutional Blogs category.

Group Library blogs

What’s New On the CyberLibrary

Infrequent (2 to 3 monthly) posting on news relevant to public libraries and their users in the South West of England.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Library Land

A group blog for members of CILIP South East’s Hampshire and Isle of Wight Sub Branch. Not updated since September 2007 and may be defunct.

Brit Lib Blogs Google Group

There’s a Google Group for British librarian bloggers! Unfortunately it looks to be pretty much unused at the moment.

Perth College Library Webspots

A blog for the staff of Perth College Library, where they can share weblinks and information relating to CPD, initiatives and new resources.

SINTO

A blog on library and information management issues for members of SINTO – the information partnership, a consortium of library and information services in South Yorkshire and the surrounding area. Regular in depth posts, and covering a wide range of library topics.

Individual Blogs


The Librain

The blog of the Learning Resources and Information Services Manager at Nicholas Chamberlaine Technology College in Bedworth. Posts cover developments and musings about the future of school libraries.

Making Another Library

A librarian in a South Yorkshire FE College, blogging his reads, reviewing them as he goes along, and musing on the thoughts that these books trigger

Silversprite – the librarian at the end of the world

Prime contender for Most Remote UK Blogger, John Kirriemuir blogs about his business interests of digital libraries, digital gaming and online economics.

My:self-archive

Blog of Kara Jones, Research Publications Librarian at the University of Bath. The blog covers institutional repositories, self-archiving, open access and libraries, charting the progress of the development of the repository.

Also blogging institutionally at University of Bath Library: Science News

025.04: Michael’s blog – fighting library apathy, one Dewey Hundred at a time

Lots of posts on library issues (and an interesting recent visit to Bulgarian libraries!) by Michael, an E-Resources Librarian in Bolton.

He also blogs as part of a group for Signpost Libraries Blog, “Signposting you to book and DVD reviews, and online resources for your community. Brought to you by Bolton and Wigan libraries.”, although this seems to have been abandoned since August 2007.

Information Literacy meets Web 2.0

Blog of Peter Godwin, a librarian in St. Albans. He posts regularly on information literacy and Web 2.0 topics.

John Wright: research support librarian

John Wright blogs about life as a Research Support Librarian within the library service of the University of Wales, Bangor.

Chartership Blogs

My Library World

A blog recording the Chartership progress of a librarian in a Glasgow Further Education college, with discussions of staff visits, developments in the library service, and what constitutes good practice.

Musings of a Chartering Librarian

The blog of an Assistant Librarian in the Reader Services team in a UK university library, going through the Chartership process and using the blog as a record of this.

Where are the UK Librarian blogs?

In response to various posts wondering about the strange lack of UK library / librarian blogs, I thought I’d have a look for myself to see where they’re all hiding.

I did a search on Google Blogs, just using the words “uk” and “librarian”, and looked for posts published ‘anytime’, which gave me 24 pages of blog listings. This included spam blogs, duplicate postings, and various sites including ‘uk’ in the text of a link they’d posted.

I learned a few things in the process.

  • Lots of blogs post occasionally about librarians, without necessarily being written by librarians.
  • If a blogger doesn’t fill out their location information, it can be quite hard to work out where they’re based without having to read a few posts and look for cultural references.
  • “UK” also means “University of Kentucky” (See?).
  • There are quite a few interesting English language library bloggers, but they’re not on this list ‘cos they ain’t in the UK.
  • There really doesn’t seem to be many UK library bloggers!

It’s not an exhaustive list, but here, in no particular order, are the blogs I DID find, with a (very quick and dirty) synopsis of what they seem to be about. I only spent 3 or 4 minutes each in general on skimming through these blogs, so if I’ve got anything about them wrong, sorry, but this is on my free time, which is short!

Institutional or Group Blogs

Information Matters

Blog from the Library and Information teaching staff at the University of Brighton. Mainly focussed on University course information / material, but a fair amount of general library information. Updated one or two times a month in general.

ILS Matters

Blog from the LIS Department of the University of Worcester. Entirely focussed on internal news, but with very friendly and informal postings.

CILIP Blogs

CILIP has various blogs by either staff, or links to relevant blogs, available from the Communities section.

Varying levels of activity on these blogs – the PTEG blog has one post from November 2007, while Lyndsay’s CILIP Blog has been going has been going for almost a year, with at least one or two large postings every month.

In Through the Outfield

Who knew? The British Library blogs! Blog of Ian Infield, Manager of the BLs Business and IP Centre. IP / technology focused, with lots of nice, honest posts, with some useful BL info thrown into the mix.

FADE

Fade Library is the Library Service of Liverpool PCT. A wealth of regular health related posts, and a good sense of humour –

Why is the library called the Fade Library?

As the North West Grey Literature Service we naturally ‘Fade to Grey’! Musical puns apart it stands for Frequently Accessing Documents that are Esoteric (if the musical pun wasn’t bad enough we suffer from librarians who like playing with words!)”

aRKive

Appears to be the blog of the Reid Kerr College library, or someone related to the Library, but unable to confirm as it doesn’t have any ‘about’ section that I can find. Lots of posts about library topics, books, IT…

English liblog@chi

English Library blog at the University of Chichester. Covering UC library service information, with updates on new stock and services.

School Library Association

The SLA weblog contains news about the SLA and topical information of general interest to our members.” Lots of regular postings, but the format of the postings is a hyperlinked headline, which could become frustrating with regular visits.

SLAINTE Pageflake

I’m not sure whether this counts as a blog, but as it incorporates many of those elements, I’ll put it in here with the institutional blogs. When launched, there was a blog section, but that appears to have disappeared now. The flake covers news of relevance to all sectors of Scottish libraries, and is a joint effort between Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland (CILIPS).

These didn’t come up on my blog search, and are taken from the links in this previous post from Enquiring Minds.

Shush!

The Information Services Library blog of the University of Northampton. Lots of posts of technical tools useful for students (and others), linking news nicely to course topics and educating students on developments in some of their favourite online tools.

Galway Public Libraries Blog

A regularly updated site, giving info on events, new stock and other library news to users of the Galway Public Library service

Individual Blogs

Librarytwopointzero

UK librarian, living, working and blogging in London, currently in a public library but shorty moving to London University. Focussing on libraries and Web 2.0, regular posts and lots of links!

Does exactly what it says on the tin – a blog with postings relating to teen or youth librarianship. Part of a larger site which is “the first website of its kind in the UK. It is specifically geared towards those that work with Teenagers and ‘the Youth’ in Libraries in the UK (and also abroad).”

The Singing Librarian

An academic librarian, working his way through a librarianship qualification, and musing on “Libraries, singing, comics, life”. Regular, often in depth posts on all the aforementioned subjects, but mainly on music and musicals!

UK eInformation Group blog

Edited by Karen Blakeman, with regular posts on Web 2.0 topics. Mainly a bulletin board type of blog, with brief postings linking back to fuller source material.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Librarian!

The blog of Katharine Widdows, Science Information Assistant at University of Warwick Library, working her way through Chartership, and using her blog to track this progress. She blogs about UW Library issues, and Chartership related events and activities.

Joeyanne Libraryanne

An Academic Information Assistant at the University of Wolverhampton, studying for a Masters in Information and Library Studies via Distance Learning, and focussing on technology developments, and enhancing academic library services.Regualr posting and commentary on library issues.

Library of Digress

New blog from a PhD research student at the University of Strathclyde, (so far) looking at public libraries and Web 2.0 technologies.


And another one from from Enquiring Minds.

Paige Turner

Interesting behind the scenes look at Swansea Public Libraries, from the viewpoint of a staff member – the Central Library refurbishment looks fab! Hard to tell if it does have official approval, so I’ve put it here as a personal blog.

There – I hope that helps some people in some way!