Blogging and RSS: A Librarian's Guide

by Michael P. Sauers

Libraries increasingly use blogs and RSS feeds to reach out to users, while librarians blog daily on a range of personal and professional topics. The way has been paved by the tech-savvy and resource-rich, but any library or librarian can successfully create and syndicate a blog today. In this readable book, author, Internet trainer, and blogger Michael P. Sauers, M.L.S., shows how blogging and RSS technology can be easily and effectively used in the context of a library community. Sauers showcases interesting and useful blogs, shares insights from librarian bloggers, and offers step-by-step instructions for creating, publishing, and syndicating a blog using free Web-based services, software, RSS feeds, and aggregators.

Genres: Technology, Nonfiction, Social Media, Science, Library Science, Librarianship

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 2006

Reviews

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed this from my workplace library. I was interested in looking it over since we are planning on implementing a blog at work. For me, a lot of the information in it is material that I already know or have seen in other online sources. Therein lies a weakness of the book, or pretty much any book about online tools like blogs: by the time it hits print, a lot of it is already outdated or the conditions online have changed. The coverage of Blogger is a good example given Blogger's recent changes. So, that is why I gave it only two stars.

However, I will say that for people who have minimal knowledge of blogs and rss that this book would provide an excellent jump point. It has a lot of visual elements as well as good explanations. For libraries considering a blog and that have not seen a lot of this phenomena, the book is a good resource. However, for veterans, odds are good you already know what's in it.

[Tatjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent jumping-off point for those of us who read blogs but have been told we need to produce one for our organizations... whether in- or externally... or have suddenly decided to put that Chicago manual of style to work!

As matter of fact, I need to dig my own copy out of whatever bookshelf it is hidden behind!

So here is why it is a good jumping off point: the book refers to a number of blogs by librarians and libraries that have been up and running for a number of years. This is valuable because I can go see what subject matter they are covering, what kind of language they are using and so forth. Learning how RSS works, even if I, myself, never need to code it, is also valuable.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a practical guide to using blogs and RSS. For blogging, he reviews several of the better known blogs and bloggers, and he goes into detail describing how to create a blog using Blogger. For RSS, he provides some history of the format and its development, and he describes how to create a feed. He also lists some good feeds.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dilemma of writing about technology is that it changes so quickly that by the time the book hits the shelf it's outdated. While this book is three years old, it manages to still be relevant.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reference for RSS which I would like to review again when I am setting up a feed for one of the sites.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another how to blog with very little discussion on the why or the ROI of blogging for libraries.