Week 2: Blogging

Watch this 3 minute explanation of blogging from the Common Craft people.



Thing 2: Set up your own blog

• Set up your own blog by going to Blogger.com. If you already have a blog you can use it, or you are welcome to use another blog site such as WordPress if you prefer, but Blogger is very easy to use ... just have a brief look at the videos and instructions there and then click on the orange button labelled “Create a blog”. It will take you through the process.


• Explore the settings, go mad and add as many gadgets, photos and sparkly flashing things as you want ... just don’t mention the name of our mystery building site! Remember to also write down your blog address.


• Remember to allow comments so that others can comment on your blog posts.

If you want some inspiration, have a look at some blogs that other 23 Things participants have created at the North East Florida Library Information Network last year.

Thing 3: Write your first post
Each blog post should describe which Thing you have completed (remember to put that in the post title, too), what your experience was learning about it- easy, hard, impossible- perhaps ideas how you can use this in a library setting, and other comments on the process. While we don't expect a dissertation on every Thing, some thoughtful reflection and active participation would be great. You'll be using this blog to track your progress.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: How you choose to identify yourself on your blog is your choice. You can blog under a screen name, anonymously, or as yourself.

Thing 4: Leave a comment at the end of this blog post with the URL of your blog
Your blog address is http://(xxxx).blogspot.com, (xxxx)=the unique name of your blog. We will then link it from a list on the right hand side of the blog.

Thing 5: Leave a comment on someone else's blog.
Check the list on the right hand side of this page, where we will add blogs as we find out about them.

Fun and games: if you have time
If you think that you have blogging covered, you might like to explore Twitter, which is sometimes described as "microblogging" ( like writing a blog but with very short posts). Check out some of the following:

• This Common Craft YouTube video about Twitter for a basic explanation.


• For a good "how to" read Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)


• This recent Time magazine article How twitter will change the way we live


• Read Phil Bradley's Twitter; your first 24 hours and this recent blog post about how our National Library uses Twitter.


• 50 ways to use Twitter in the College Classroom

Sign up to twitter by clicking the Getting-Started-Join button on the Twitter homepage and post a tweet.

What tweets should you follow?

Vye writes: There are lots of NZ people I follow who I think are great, but in the end the strength of Twitter is that you can personalise it, so who you follow depends on what you are using it for... and how you use it. Perhaps more relevant are the twitter tools for identifying ‘like minds’ or useful alerts. There’s a librarians twibe and a New Zealand twibe, there’s twellow. StephenFry is entertaining, as well as badbanana. Some useful alerts via Twitter: Grabaseat - a quickscan and I know if there is anything of interest NZBreakingNews – quick scan of headlines, and if I am interested I can quick through to the link There are various music, event, concert, band alerts etc: Newscientist OCLC EprintsELIS Fun snippets about NZ history: NLNZ Te_Ara NZHistorydotnet There are quite a few libraries and librarians now using twitter: Tararualibrary is one of my fave libraries Librarykris Moirafraser Littlehigh (Paul Reynolds) Non-library people who are stalwarts of the NZ twitter community: Joegreenz, Audaciousgloop. A huge proportion of people give up on twitter within a month of signing on – think it is because they do not find their niche – following famous people gets tiresome pretty quick. But using twitter for alerts is good - you don’t have to tweet much but you get the benefits. I actively seek out twittering blog authors I follow – my dependence on RSS feeds has dropped phenomenally – this is apparently very common.

For a laugh, watch Twouble with Twitter.