Week 1 blog and blogging

Blogging is central to 23 Things City as we use this blog to release each weeks Things, and it’s also how we keep track of your progress via the blogs you set up as part of the programme

What is blogging?

Blogging is the act of writing or keeping a blog - a modern day diary or journal which allows you to communicate your thoughts to the wider world. Blogs are used by a wide range of individuals and organisations to communicate with users, members and friends. They can be used to promote services, reflect on events, build up networks and to communicate ideas

General Haig's diary for Armistice Day 1918

National Library of Scotland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland/3007997338/

Why should librarians and libraries blog?

Many individual librarians blog, reflecting on their work and on ideas for new, potential or existing services.

You can see some interesting blogs from

• Phil Bradley
• John Iona
• Librarians on the loose
• Karen Blakeman
• LIS New Professionals
• The wikiman
• Screwy Decimal
• Joeyanne Libraryanne
• and of course our very own Lawbore Future Lawyer blog

Libraries also blog to communicate news and to promote services. Posts can be quite immediate so news can be communicated very quickly.

Check out some interesting Library blogs

Whole suite of blogs from the British Library

Digital Developments from LSE Library

Loughborough University Library

Wellcome Library

Blogging & 23 Things City

Once you’ve set up your blog you should use this to reflect on your experience of each weeks Things - how you use them, how you might use them in future, what applications you can see for libraries or indeed your personal life. Maybe you’ve discovered some great new things you’d like to share with other participants and the wider world. Even if you’ve used one of the Things before you may have had a chance to consider it afresh.

Please do blog about your experiences - this is how the 23 Things Team can see how you are engaging with the programme. If you just blog a short line on that you have done and completed the task this will not be considered sufficient as it’s not really within the spirit of the programme, which is about discovery, reflection and sharing.  

Remember there will be a prize for the best blog, along with some other prizes  

Thing 1 Set up your blog and register it with the 23 Things City programme

 How to do it

We have used blogger for this blog, and suggest that you do the same as we'll be using Google accounts later in the programme although you may prefer to use Wordpress or Tumblr. If you've already got a blog and don't want to set up a new one, that's OK. Just register your blog with the 23 Things Team and start using it to reflect on your expereinces of the programme

 This short video gives you an overview of how to set up a blogger blog

Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in with your google account. If you don’t already have one, don’t worry, they are very easy to set up, Just click on the create account now option.

- Complete the registration form.

- You must enter a valid e-mail address that you can check immediately after registration!

- If you’re registering on a shared computer or have more than one Google account then you’ll need to disable the ‘stay signed in’ option.

- If you do not want your searches recorded then you should disable ‘Personalized Search’.

- Agree to Google’s terms of service

You will be sent an e-mail to verify your e-mail address. Log in to your e-mail account and you’ll see a new message from Google. Click on the link contained in the e-mail to verify your e-mail address.

Go back to your web browser and click the ‘Click here to continue’ link.

Now enter your newly chosen Google password and click ‘Sign in'

  

You will see the ‘sign up for blogger' screen – complete the details as necessary and click on continue.

Your next screen allows you to name your blog – remember there will be a prize for best blog name, but you can go back and change your name later. You will also pick the blogs URL, Blogger will inform you if anyone else has already chosen your URL and prompt you to pick a different one

The next screen allows you to pick a template, with different colours and designs, again you can change this later if you prefer. Feeling adventurous? You can also create your own design

Thing 2 Add your first post(s) Get blogging! You may want to blog your first post with an introduction to who you are and what you're interested in. Add a second post on your experience of setting up the blog and what you've learnt so far. You'll be blogging each week on your experiences of the various Things. Try adding some images - on Blogger you can insert these via clicking on the image button from the toolbar

You may want to look at blogs created by participants on the 23 Things Oxford or 23 Things Warwick

 Why not share great blogs you've found with the rest of the 23 Things City team!

Thing 3 Add some tags.
As library staff and information professionals we know the importance of organising information so that other people can find it, be that through correct use of metadata, via classifying titles consistently or by using subject headings. You’ll notice this blog uses tags to that readers can go straight to the bits they need - for example this post has the tags week1, blogs, blogging etc

Each week you'll need to add tags to your posts - we suggest you use thing1 thing2 etc but don't forget to add tags which express the content of each post.


In Blogger you can add tags in the Labels box at the bottom of each posting screen, don't forget to add a comma between each tag to separate them out Cool Extra Thing 1 - Commenting on blogs We'll be adding links to all participants blogs on the 23 Things Site - have a look at these and add some comments to your fellow participants blogs. OK this may not seem very cool at first but it's great when you see that someone has commented on your blog!



Rowena