[WEB4LIB] Re: weaning staff from email to weblog

[Houghton, Sarah]

Hi all.
 
I completely agree with Karen.  I have found that many staff dislike online bulletin boards or blogs because of the lack of notification.  It's one more place to go, one more thing to check.  RSS feeds (especially for the comments) could fix this, if people were comfortable with aggregator software.  If you do decide to go with RSS, I would suggest planning to teach the staff about RSS & feeds, highlighting the fun & personal uses (getting Dilbert, Salon.com, and NPR posts delivered to them).  Then ease them into the work-related aspects of RSS.
 
I would add one more warning about a discussion board.  Many libraries are subject to public records laws, and as I understand it (& as our County's policy states), any correspondence we create (e-mail, voicemail, etc.) can be requested by a member of the public at any time.  E-mail and voicemail can be and often are deleted, but a permanently archived blog or bulletin board could pose a bit more of a problem.  I'm envisioning some discussion thread about what to do with problem patrons, and some member of the public requests this document, and someone said something not-nice, or mentions a specific patron...
 
Sarah Houghton
e-Services Librarian, Marin County Free Library

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: K.G. Schneider [mailto:kgs at bluehighways.com] 
	Sent: Wed 11/10/2004 8:44 AM 
	To: Multiple recipients of list 
	Cc: 
	Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: weaning staff from email to weblog
	
	

	Several ideas.
	
	First, if the issue is archiving discussions, email lists can do this. So
	I'm not completely sure why the blog format is promoted over email.
	
	Second, staff may not always WANT their every comment archived for easy
	public access. (Of course, their mail is probably archived somewhere, but
	not easily accessible.) Have you ever asked a question that felt made you
	look dumb? Is it easier to ask that question one-on-one, in person, or in a
	public forum where everyone can revisit your comment forever and ever? Some
	discussions are going to happen one-on-one or in small groups, and that is
	not a bad thing.
	
	Third, staff may like the convenience of getting email in their inbox, and
	prefer email for that reason. If the blog has feeds and you give them RSS
	aggregators, that could (partly) fix that problem. They may really get to
	like using RSS. I notice that Liz Lawley has set up her blog, MamaMusings,
	so that new comments generate notification through my aggregator, and if
	you're looking for people to participate in threaded comments on a posting,
	that feature would be good to implement.
	
	What you may need to do is step back and ask where blogs work, where they do
	not, how to provide them, and what group dynamics are involved in their
	adoption. Clay Shirky recently published a great article about email and
	flaming that gets into some high-level discussion about online dynamics:
	
	http://shirky.com/writings/group_user.html
	
	Karen G. Schneider
	kgs at bluehighways.com
	
	
	
	
	
	



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