Post your evaluation as a comment here, including:
- The name and URL of the blog.
- A brief evaluation, touching on all the points in the readings.
- Sign off with the names of the people in your group.
Carol
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Practice Evaluating a Blog
Before doing the assignment on your own of Evaluating a Blog (due Sept. 25th), here's a chance to get some practice applying the criteria, with input from some other classmates.Using the criteria in the course content, in groups of 3, write an evaluation of the blog Library Garden: http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/
Carol
Carol
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"Library Garden" [Weblog Entry.]September 16, 2008. (http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/)
On looking at the blog of Library Garden we found that all the contributors appear to be certified librarians from New Jersey, and therefore qualified to post information and opinions on the subject they are posting about. The blog is centered around opinions and information from various interviews and public information regarding libraries of different types. The blog is updated fairly regularly (approximately every one to two weeks). All of the information used is linked to the original source product via hyperlink, but not cited directly. Depending on the current contributor, it is posted in both formal and informal styles. It is very focused on the library community, and most of the comments are form those who can properly relate to the subject. Overall, we found this blog was very informative, and useful to the audience it was trying to reach.
-FARNAZ R.
-Mykael E.
-Rik K.
All of the authors are either librarians, library professors, or working in libraries. They are all residing in New Jersey. They might have an American bias. There appears to be no organization affiliated with the blog.
The purpose of the library is “an ongoing conversation among librarians with different perspectives (public, academic, school, consortial, youth) but one shared goal: ensuring the health and relevance of libraries.” It appears informal and the authors link and refer to asaecenter.org, time magazine and many other sites. All the posts appear to be related to libraries and blogging. They have indicated sources.
They do deal with the topic to a level that is well suited for the requirements of our project. Librarians and even other authors of the journal appear to be commenting on this blog.
The Blog is updated on a relatively frequent basis. The last update was September 16th, 2008. It appears to be added at least once a week.
(Lindsey, Chantal, Heather)
The blog is called Library Garden (http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/). The contributors are Peter Bromberg, Janie Hermann, Rorbert J. Lackie, Marie L. Radford, Amy J. Kearns, MLIS, Tyler Rousseau, and Cynthia Lambert. They are all from New Jersey and work in the library field as librarians, professors, etc.
The contributors claim that the blog is an ongoing conversation amongst librarians. The content consists of citing to articles and interviews all over the Web, with the individual’s thoughts on the subject. Some of the postings are vaguely relevant to the general subject of the blog.
Each post receives comments, which means the blog has an audience. The conversations are rather active, although many of them come from the contributors themselves. The blog postings are fairly frequent.
Group members: Andrew McDonald, Timothy Stewart, and Connie Ho
Library Garden
http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/
The authors appear to be mostly librarians. Cynthia Lambert is the most frequent contributor. We are unable to confirm that she works for the library but since everyone else is a librarian and they host regular conversations, we take her word for it.
The site isn’t affiliated with any one library, rather it is just a group of librarians from New Jersey who put up the site.
The blog is informal. They do in-line citations with links to original source material.
The blog covers a wide variety of topics ranging from the political to what to do when life doesn’t go as planned. One of the contributors has posted a short story on how she can become a librarian.
The blog is fairly infrequent, with posts once every couple of weeks, and varying from month to month. There have been two postings this month, while August had a total of 6. Comments are somewhat of a conversation between contributors and other random people.
(Mary, Samantha, Tanya)
This blog is called Library Garden. You can view it at librarygarden.blogspot.com
As far as authority goes for this blog there are 8 contributors. Some of their biographies listed on the website are informal while others are much more formal and offer a look into their professional history. We believe this blog to be non-bias as there are many different librarians from many different backgrounds contributing with different views. Robert J. Lackie is an example of a contributor with a more professional profile while Peter Bromberg’s is more personal and vague. This blog is informal and is basically about sharing opinions about the library community. Each post offers links to a variety of library related articles such as “Banned Books” websites, Library websites and other related information. We found some of the posts actually cited specific works and included the author’s name while other posts simply posted links to websites. The blog hosts a following of 3750 members, most being lurkers who don’t comment on the posts. The comments on the posts are made by the contributors themselves who are active within the New Jersey library community. However, there are some comments made by other bloggers who aren’t affiliated with the website. We have come to the obvious conclusion that this blog must be based in New Jersey. The last update was made on Tuesday, September 16. It seems as if this blog is updated a few times each month.
Nonna
Liza
Annie
Library Garden is a blog authored by a group of seven librarians from New Jersey. It is hosted by Blogger.com.
The blog carries conversations, articles and interviews on the topic of libraries and their role in today's society. The blog is informally written, with various topics. The intended audience is librarians of all fields.
The blog postings offer links to other articles and blogs when referencing them, but do not make full bibliographic citations.
The URL is: http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2006/03/about-library-garden.html
Connie, Sonja, Tuan
Library Garden librarygaren.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Blogs that Attract Comments: Are You in the Active "1%" ? Do You Want to Be?
The content being discussed in this article was a link for the usage of other bloggers to use to promote blogger comments.
The authority of the Author seems reliable because he is the associate professor librarian with his education and responsibilities listed below.
Education
• B.S., University of the State of New York (English and Business Management)
• M.L.I.S., University of South Carolina
• M.A., Rider University (Curriculum, Instruction, and Supervision)
Responsibilities
• Library Instruction
• Reference Collection Development
• Liaison to the Communication/Journalism, Teacher Education, Graduate Education, English, EOP Program, and RAP Program
He also has his own website http://www.robertlackie.com/
Those that are contributors to this blog are:
• Peter Bromberg
• Janie Hermann
• Robert J. Lackie
• Marie L. Radford
• Amy J. Kearns, MLIS
• Tyler Rousseau
• Cynthia Lambert
Most contributors are form the New Jersey area in an academic setting. Their mission statement as posted on the bottom of their page is as follows:
“ Library Garden: An ongoing conversation among librarians with differing perspectives (public, academic, school, consortial, youth) but one shared goal: ensuring the health and relevance of libraries. [insert your own gardening metaphor here]”
This shows that while library garden is informative for links related to other websites, which can be useful for other anyone in the information industry.
Krystle
Lisa
Benuka
Assignment: Evaluating Blogs
name:
Library Garden
url:
http://www.librarygarden.blogspot.com/
This seems to be a legitimate blog for the following reasons:
-most of the authors are part of the NJ Library Assoc.
-most have verifiable jobs in the Library community
-as found at the LC online catalogue, at least contributor is a published author
-a generous cross-section of the commenters work in the library field--many in NJ, but also nationwide
-the blog is updated on a fairly regular basis and has been around since 2006
Margaret, Allan, Rory
When evaluating the Library Garden our group of 2 found the seven authors (or) contributors of this site had varying degrees of education and experience. We focused on the Profiles, looking for ways to verify their professional authentication regarding education and industry experience. We were able to find links to University websites that could give us additional information about some of the authors.
We found that each author brought a specific strength to the site by contributing to a wide range of interests and topics such as censorship, library, and politics. For example 2 of the contributors that are university trained in Library with their master’s degrees have set their focus on such topics as technology training for both staff and library customers, library & Web research, academic disciplines, virtual reference services and information regarding virtual librarianship.
Other topics covered by the remaining authors are interpersonal communication in reference interactions (traditional & virtual) and in media stereotypes of librarians, as well as technology, Pod casting, Blogging, and Social Networks.
Overall this blog was informative, current, well designed and had a language that any person interested in Librarianship or related topics could understand. According to the criteria set for evaluating, this blog seemed to be a reliable source of information and our group members would return to it for gathering library insight in the future.
Some positive features to the Garden Blog are the links that connect you to the rules of designing blogs and beginners blogging tips such as “25 Basic Styles of Blogging” as well as Library research sites. Interviewing was a common tool used by the authors to provide additional voices and opinions of extended Library professionals. To keep the writing criteria high a guest editor has on occasion been hired to contribute their professional services.
There are approximately 7 individual blog articles posted by the authors, and each blog contains the authors name and how many comments have been made by other bloggers.
Evaluation by Paula and Connie
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