Exercise 2 - A Blogosphere of blogging librarians...

 The murder victim? Your library assumptions. Suspects? It could have been any of us.

In the Library with the Lead Pipe immediately piqued my interest with such a clever blog title referencing a Clue murder-mystery deduction!  It's uniquely co-authored by a team of seven diverse librarians, along with invited guest authors, working in academic, public, and school libraries across the United States.  This group blog was originally founded by 6 energetic new librarians in 2008 and publish weekly Wednesday, peer-reviewed posts.  Their goal is to share perspectives from across the library community and encourage posts with creative thinking, envelope-pushing, and constructive criticism from libraries’ diverse professional landscape.  

Librarian by Day

Bobbi L. Newman  

Bobbi Newman started her blog, Librarian by Day in August of 2007 after becoming her library's new  Digital Services and Resources Librarian.  She is dedicated to helping libraries find their place in the digital age and is especially passionate about 21st century literacies and the role of all libraries in equal access and opportunity for all. Her professional interests include digital and technology based services, the digital divide, and improving existing services through expanding traditional methods, while creating innovative new practices.

        

social web   emerging trends   libraries

Author, musician, librarian, IT specialist David Lee King of davidleeking.com creates, writes, thinks, and speaks about library websites and emerging digital technology which his website reflects focusing on library website 'stuff' such as managing, marketing, experimenting, usability, planning, videoblogging and web 2.0/library 2.0 topics.  David works at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library as the Digital Branch & Services Manager and has worked in libraries since the mid-1990's.  David does disclose that there are ads on his site:  Google Adsense ads, Amazon Affiliate ads and links, which allow him to effectively promote his many books!

The Distant Librarian

Paul R. Pival is The Distant Librarian, a Public Services Systems Librarian (aka webmaster) at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada and prior to that he was the Distance Education Librarian there from 2001-2007.  Paul realized that he should be blogging about the fine art of Distance Librarianship after attending an OCLS Conference in May of 2004.  His blog site even has a convenient 'mobile version' option and averages weekly updates. 

Some of the content he covers includes the following categories:  Book reviews; Document delivery; Electronic reference; m-Libraries; Random tech tips; Social networks; Web/Tech and Web blogs.  With the exception of his book reviews, his filter blogs are essentially a link blurb or brief remark style of a short paragraph introducing the topics which are linked to the originating author and/or blog.  He also adds 3 additional links via LinkWithin to his own previous posts as "You might also like:" options.  The graphics and videos add a welcoming interest and some interaction to his otherwise plain blog site.

The Librarian's Commute

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive    

 

Olivia Nellums is a  Reference and Instruction Librarian at a community college in southern South Jersey.  She  started The Librarian's Commute in November 2007, posting weekly on Sundays, during her 'adjunct' phase when she was shuttling among different jobs and job functions.  Her blog attempts to be a part of, and contribute to, the library community, as she figures out what a librarian is as the information world changes, and libraries, technology, and higher education are her topics of choice. 

Her weblog is simple in appearance as she uses google's free blogging software, but her photos add a nice personal touch to her journal style posts ranging from short to long articles.  I found her single perspective to be very readable and pleasant.  Her experiences are very relevant and relatable to connect with and I especially appreciate her down-to-earth writing style which allows her simplistic, earnest voice to flow.  It was a nice surprise to see that both the Distant Librarian and In the Library with the Leadpipe's latest blogs are also suggested as Recommended Reading (Blogs) on her site!