LibWorld is a recent publication that’s worth a look for anyone interested in library blogging worldwide. It’s a collection of 30 articles, originally posted on Infobib.de. Each article discusses the library and information blogosphere in a different country; from the large and well-established (USA) to the smaller and perhaps more obscure (Trinidad and Tobago, Malawi). Walt Crawford did the introduction. And I did the New Zealand chapter. I’m mentioning that several paragraphs into the post because I’m not 100% happy with what I wrote; it was a bit of a rush job and I didn’t revise it subsequently for the book (the idea for the book came about when I was offline for several months).
However, there it is, in print. Go take a look, I’m sure something in it will be of interest. You can purchase a copy from the link at the start of this post, or download it for free (PDF, 211 pages). Kudos to Christian, Nadine and Sarah for making this happen, it must have taken a lot of effort to coordinate with all the authors.
A number of New Zealand libraries are now using blogs to communicate with their users. Most interesting, for me, was to see that the National Library now has not one but two blogs – a technology-focused blog (LibraryTechNZ) and Create Readers, which aims “to help create motivated and engaged young readers”. It looks as though both blogs will be updated regularly (both have multiple authors). The relationship between the blog, their authors and the library could be interesting: both state “the National Library accepts no liability for the content of this blog… but they wished us well” – which could be problematic given that the blogs are hosted on the National Library’s site: will readers really make the distinction between a named Library staffer, posting on an ‘unofficial’ blog, and the Library itself? The blogs do seem to have some clear guidelines in place, which should help.
Great to see NatLib staff in this area, though. In the TechNZ post I linked to above, Courtenay mentions going to a brief bloggers meeting at the LIANZA conference. I was there too, and there seemed to be a lot of interest in comparing ideas. Hopefully we’ll all be able to make something of it. We’ve made a start over at the LIANZA IT-SIG Wiki, with a list of blogs and a discussion of sorts (I know, a wiki isn’t really the best tool for such a discussion, but it will do for now). Anyone interested, please come and join us.