Using private blog for library intranet?

[Michael McCulley]

Here's a (belated) cross-posted summary of the notes and comments I got on
my post (appended at the end) to PUBLIB and WEB4LIB. Thanks for the input,
and great tips, very helpful indeed...

1) Here at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, I use "Blogger," the free
blog site from Google for our monthly staff news letter.  I have been very
pleased with it.  Until recently, I was the Library's webmaster and am
enough of a purist/old fogey to only use Notepad for web design.  However,
I've enjoyed using one of the built in templates for our newsletter. 
Being able to paste text into a box and format it with buttons (much like
Microsoft Office products) makes things go a lot faster.  We don't use
Blogger's hosting -- I load it onto our web server into a directory that
can only be accessed inside the Library -- but they do offer no-charge
hosting as well.  You can also choose (as we do) to make your blog private
so that it's not posted anywhere on their pages.  Ours isn't picked up by
robots and doesn't show up in search engine results either
(intentionally), but that characteristic is a result of a robot exclusion
file and not any feature from Blogger.  I'm not sure if blogs hosted by
Blogger that are marked as private show up in search engine results.

I hope that the above helps a bit.  Let me know if you need more
information or if I have been unclear.

Elizabeth Myers [emyers at ebr.lib.la.us]


2) That is a great idea there. Blogs are so commonplace so why not use
one for inter-office communication?  Here are several that are posted
at my alma mater, UBC, so you can see how a blog can be used whether
for students or staff in a library:

http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/lawlib/
http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/estrategy/
http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/ehelp/
http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/ric/

Regards,
Dawna L. Rumball, MLIS, MEd, CAS
Library and Disability Services Consultant
Saskatchewan, Canada


3) We use blogging software for communication among staff members on our
intranet at our public library.  It has really created a method for
keeping staff informed, as well as created a way to capture this
information from a variety of sources.  Let me know what other information
you might need.  I'd be happy to share.
-------------------------------------
Karen C. Ventura
karen at novi.lib.mi.us
Head, Systems & Technology
Novi Public Library - Novi, Michigan


4) We are using our blog system built in-house on our intranet. It
replaced a discussion forum since most people read, a small regular
group posted, and very few "discussed" on the forums.

Now that a larger portion of our librarians are blogging they seem to
be more interested in the technology and may use the intranet blogs. We
still have to formalize some things and offer internal workshops and
stuff though since it is fairly new.

One issue we had to fix was the use of RSS feeds for our Intranet.
Since we blog about trial versions of databases with temporary logins we
didn't want that information leaking out in the blogosphere. Several of
us are using bloglines to keep up with for our public blogs and other
blogs via RSS and wanted to use that same technology for the intranet
blogs as well. Once we put the Intranet RSS feeds in bloglines it opened
up our Intranet to the world.

So we changed the RSS feed to show only headlines and protected the
intranet blog access with our intranet authentication. What may happen
is that the public could "find" the feeds for our intranet blog but they
would only be able to see our headlines and not content.

The other thing we are trying is a single blog with a larger set of
categories for committees, topics, departments, etc. Using RSS makes it
possible to have only one blog to manage but provide customization of
groups of information. For example several categories can be
re-aggregated with RSS for a "public services" blog (either an intranet
web page or a feed) with the most recent postings. Or librarians and mix
and match in their preferred BLOG reader via RSS since we made each
category RSS-capable. Administrators can RSS the entire blog to see
anything that is being posted. 

In short, RSS is (IMHO) very important to our Intranet, but blogs don't
seem up-to-speed with authentication schemes especially for intranets
with sensitive information. If you know of any developments in that area
or if I've missed something please let me know.

I would be interested in knowing what you all decide to do. Thanks.

<GSU Library Blogs: http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/ >
<FAQ: http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/index.asp?view=details&ID=1735 >

Doug Goans
Web Development Librarian, Georgia State University Library
100 Decatur St., Atlanta. GA 30303


5) At the University of Southern Queensland we have a blog set up for
internal purposes to notify Library staff of all changes relating to our
electronic resources (subscriptions, trials, downtime, tips etc).  The
blog was written by our Electronic Services Officer and is hosted on an
internal University server.  When a new item is posted, a global email
is automatically sent to all Library staff while the post itself is
archived in the blog for later reference.  Only a handful of staff (our
CMS web editors) have administrative privileges for writing posts.

The blog is only accessible to Library staff, who use their campus login
to access the contents.  

The main benefits over just sending global emails are:
- staff can access the blog from anywhere (including the reference desk,
faculty offices, off campus) using their campus login
- posts are searchable
- staff don't need to keep individual records of resource announcements
in their own mailbox
- the blog is the definitive reference point for any information
relating to our electronic resources subscriptions.

Because it is an internal application, I can't give you access, but I
could send you screen captures if it is of interest.

Regards,
----------------------------
Deidre Lowe, Acting Associate Librarian (Information Access)
The Library, University of Southern Queensland
West St, Toowoomba  QLD  4350
E-mail: lowe at usq.edu.au http://www.usq.edu.au/library/


6) We use Movable Type for our library intranet.
http://www.movabletype.org/

Jennifer Watson
University of Tennessee Health Science Center Library

Best,
DrWeb

-- 
P. Michael McCulley aka DrWeb
E-mail: mailto:drweb at san.rr.com San Diego, CA
San Diego Public Library / *speaking only for himself*

Quote of the Moment:
 Drive defensively; buy a tank.
Sunday, November 21, 2004 7:44:43 PM 
 
>-----Original Message-----
>From: publib at webjunction.org 
>[mailto:publib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Michael McCulley
>Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004 7:55 AM
>To: Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: [PUBLIB] Using private blog for library intranet?
>
>Posted to cross-lists; apologies if you see more than once..
>
>With the increase in blogging software, including open source, and the 
>growing use of Intranets in libraries,
>I was wondering if anyone is using or has tried using a blog 
>or blogs in a 
>private way for their intranet, or
>any part of an intranet.
>
>Like perhaps other governmental or institutional libraries, we have a 
>difficult time being on the leading
>edge of much technology once you factor in the approval and 
>review process, 
>bidding, RFPs, costs,
>and other factors. Many of the services we are drawn to today to help 
>overcome this barrier to innovation
>seem to be the "hosted" version of applications; our Calendar 
>of Events, for 
>example, was up and running
>within days of signing up.
>
>I'm exploring the "private blogs for communication or 
>information-sharing 
>via an intranet" arena since I think
>we would benefit from an intranet and a blog, though we have 
>neither. It 
>would be a hosted blog (intranet stand-in),
>rather than something on internal or organizational servers.
>
>Any tips, sites, or thoughts welcomed.. here or directly. I'll 
>summarize for 
>the list if there's interest.
>
>Best regards,
>
>__________________________________________________________________
>P. Michael McCulley aka DrWeb
> E-mail: drweb at san.rr.com San Diego, CA
> San Diego Public Library / *speaking only for himself*
>__________________________________________________________________
>
>