What to Write About

While this blog is directed towards professional bloggers not mere amateurs like me, his tips and ideas are creative and useful. Other ideas I use are commenting on what I've read on the Web, often found by browsing rather than searching. I also get ideas just by being observant of what's around me.

I found this article:

Ramos, M.& Piper, P. (2006). Letting the Grass Grow: Grassroots Information on Blogs and Wikis. Reference Services Review V. 34 (4), 570-574.

The main thrust of this piece was that wikis and blogs can help librarians and others communicate better, share ideas, and create instructional resources. Well, okay, but that doesn't mean that the information they contain is accurate. Wikipedia is an example. Like anything else, blogs and wikis have to be scrutinized and evaluated.

Some other good articles on this topic are:

Barton, E. & Wesmantel, A. (2006). Reflogs Now. Library Journal, 28-30.
(You can read this article here .)

and

Desai, C. M. & Graves, S.J. (2006). Instruction via Instant Messaging Reference; What's Happening? The Electronic Library 24.2, 174-189.

and

Pomerantz, J. & Stutzman, F. (2006). Collaborative Reference Work in the Blogosphere. Reference Services Review 34.2,200-212.

Some Links

In between writing papers for publication, reading and doing course assignments for my first class this term (next weekend), taking down Christmas, preparing myself for going back to work on Monday, spending time with John and the guys, and knitting--whew!--I've been perusing the Web reading other people's blogs. This is a bit of what I found:

This great link has a list of blogs by archivists and archivist students.

This blog, written by Richard J. Cox who is a Professor in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences, is especially useful.

And then there was this--Skills for the 21st Century Librarian-- a
post which listed what the writer felt were the most important skills a librarian should have.