[Web4lib] Blogs and responding to patron concerns/complaints

[Bradbeer, Gayle]

We have had blogs since 2004 (never publicized to the wider community)
that allow responses.  I own them but never had much interest from
others in helping provide content so they have been on and off the
library homepage, http://library.auraria.edu/, as I have had more or
less interest.   They are http://aurhottop.blogspot.com/ and
http://oa-auraria.blogspot.com/.  Only recently have we received any
comments at all and a couple were complaints.  There was *one* comment
that targeted a specific non-library faculty's class, which was deleted
the next day. You might try suggesting moderating the comments before
they are posted to relieve institutional concerns.

Michael Sauers, the Travelin Librarian,
http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/, has shown some links to interesting
library blogs in his classes before, but I can't find them right now.
There is one idea he espouses, that I agree with but haven't practiced.
It is to post after an event, as well as announcing it, and allow
comments so that people can continue talking about you and your library.

We now have a new "service" I really like (offered via a blog,
http://aurariaresearchnews.blogspot.com/).  It's on our homepage and we
have advertised it via email to our institutions' faculty but do not
allow comments on the blog itself.  I think it would be fun to see
comments, but not really necessary.  Most of our community still seem to
prefer email and do comment that way.

We have also experimented with putting a pc in an exhibit area and
asking via a blog for comments on the exhibit.  That worked out pretty
well, but we got more responses, and more complicated ones, on a large
flip chart we placed nearby with colored magic markers. (And we didn't
loose the markers over *two* whole weeks!)

Gayle

****
Gayle E. Bradbeer
Distance Support Librarian
Auraria Library (http://library.auraria.edu/) 
An academic library serving UCDHSC, MSCD & CCD
1100 Lawrence Street, Denver, CO 80204-2095
Phone: 303-556-2791  Fax: 303-556-3528 
gayle.bradbeer at auraria.edu
****

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Susan Basye
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 1:09 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Cc: Susan.Basye at uni.edu
Subject: [Web4lib] Blogs and responding to patron concerns/complaints

Hello.

I have a blogging question that I hope someone will be kind enough to
help me with.  Our university library has a news blog right that I've
been working slowly with for the past few months (I inherited it in its
current form).  It needs a lot of work.

http://weblogs.uni.edu/libnews/

We use it to post news announcements right now and it doesn't allow
comments (I hope to change that soon though).

I suggested to our dean that we could use a blog to respond to patrons'
questions or complaints about library services.  Right now they can send
these types of things through a form on our web site but patrons do not
usually put their e-mail on the form so we can respond directly to them.
Instead we have typed up a response and posted it on a bulletin board in
our lobby that no one looks at.  I thought that if patrons could post
their concerns and complaints to a blog that the dean could then respond
on the blog and the patrons could then see the response.  It sounds
pretty good in theory I guess.

I am having trouble finding any examples of libraries that allow patrons
to post blog entries. I searched the list archives for this topic and
came up with very little.  

If your library allows patrons to post blog entries I'd be interested in
hearing how it is working for you.  If anyone has any comments in
general on using one blog for news and patron comments  versus using two
separate blogs I'd be interested in that as well.  

Thanks for your time!

Susan Basye

------------------------------------
Susan Basye
Administrative Operations Coordinator
Rod Library
University of Northern Iowa
1227 West 27th Street
Cedar Falls, Iowa  50613-3675

(319) 273-2737

susan.basye at uni.edu

_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4lib at webjunction.org
http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/