Comments on: The whole point is lost if you keep it a secret: Musings on the LIS Blog

By: Tim Parsons

Tim Parsons — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:11:01 +0000

As a notasactivebloggerassheshouldbe and a closet computer geek, I’ve got the LIS blog on my RSS and would miss it should it go private. I realize not all postings are interesting, and maybe discussions might be more productive internally if privatized, but isn’t that what face time is for? I don’t want you all to censor what you assume I’ll find interesting, and if something really grabs me you bet I’ll post a comment. Expertise, or at least opinions, can come from a wide variety of sources in an academic setting, and I don’t think you should cut down on your signal to eliminate some noise.

By: Jess Isler

Jess Isler — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:25:02 +0000

After I wrote this I had a sense of déjà vu. It may be helpful to review comments made the last time you asked LIS to consider making this blog private, since many of them still apply:
http://sites.middlebury.edu/lis/2010/04/05/notes-from-the-march-managers-meeting/

By: Jess Isler

Jess Isler — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:46:55 +0000

I think it is fair to say that some individuals and groups in LIS do a very good job of using the blog to communicate about their work. It’s no secret who these people are; we have a list of blog authors to point to. For many workgroups and individuals, the default communication spot is definitely the LIS Blog!
No matter what option we choose, I think you’ll need to ask managers to be more accountable for ensuring their staff communicate outwardly–whether that means outwardly to other LIS staff or beyond. I think the issue here isn’t so much the blog setup that we have, so much as an absence of outward communication in the workflow for certain workgroups or individuals.
I would feel equally comfortable sharing comments and engaging in discussion whether this blog was private or public. My sense is that creating a private blog would not generate increased posts or comments from those who do not already post and comment on this blog. I do not think you will see increased blog engagement unless you ask managers to incorporate “communicating about changes” into workflows and hold them accountable for communicating (setting an example). As Brenda mentions, having each meeting end with the question, “What needs to be communicated?” could be a great first step toward incorporating thoughts about communication into our workflows.

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:36:35 +0000

The most read post of all time on the LIS Blog was your write-up of the Varnish web proxy server configuration (1,754 views). That’s a topic that probably fewer than five people at Middlebury College would find interesting, but is still great to have on the LIS blog to show off the great work that we (you) do to colleagues at other institutions and give back a bit for all the articles we’ve had to read to figure things out.

Other posts that people have found interesting on the LIS blog:
675: New Course Schedule Planner
540: Upcoming Displays at the Main Library
529: DrupalCon 2010 Trip Report – Day 3
484: We Have Your New York Times
462: “Display Name” Updating Automatically
432: Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade now available!

That’s just a few of the many different posts with hundreds of views and represents a wide variety of topics.

In my opinion, there’s really nothing too small to make an interesting blog post and the worst case scenario is that nobody will read it, which isn’t a big risk. So why not just post about things you think are interesting and see what works?

By: Brenda Ellis

Brenda Ellis — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:03:38 +0000

I thought the AD’s/SLT’s were going to post more? Have we given that enough time? As part of our librarians/liaisons meetings we always end with “what need’s to be communicated?”. Maybe the SLT’s meetings should end the same way. (and this should be different than the Area 51 Notes, which most people outside LIS would have no idea what that is). This group might also prompt a workgroup or team to post something about a topic, when needed. I think it could be useful to have an internal LIS blog for when we want to discuss an issue in house and not have it searchable by web search engines. I’m not sure those posts should be fed elsewhere – that might confuse things. If we want it public then there’s the LIS blog. If we want it private, we use the separate one or Moodle as Joe has suggested, as long as it’s easy to get an email notice with a link.

By: Adam Franco

Adam Franco — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:13:02 +0000

The big challenge I’ve faced in posting to the LIS blog is the question of audience/impact of the change.

Should we post if a change just affects 15 people, how about 25, 50? How about if the change affects 10 people directly, but helps them to better serve most of the campus? Providing guidance on what constitutes items deemed newsworthy enough for the blog may help us strike the correct balance. Alternatively, a reminder to sum up six months of changes to a system or process may collect enough incremental changes to be newsworthy.

I would also echo Dan’s sentiments. Making the blog LIS-only would not change my behavior.

By: Joseph Antonioli

Joseph Antonioli — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:09:21 +0000

Does the private conversation space have to be a blog? Moodle ( http://moodle.middlebury.edu ) was built for courses and has better support for privacy. There is a discussion forums feature, as well as the ability to have documents that would support the conversation.

By: Arabella Holzapfel

Arabella Holzapfel — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:11:55 +0000

I would like more clarity on what is meant by “new” or “changed” that is “worthy” of posting on the LIS blog. After the ERP/VSP, many work units had to redefine their work and who did what. Are you saying that those resulting workflows should have been posted on the LIS blog? Or, if the necessary work is still getting done, is it not “blog-worthy” to describe exactly how and by whom? (I think most of us assumed the latter.)

Can you give some examples of the kinds of things you were looking for when you said “we’ve found that despite all of the changes we’ve made to our services, there is no corresponding posting to point to.”

By: Dan Frostman

Dan Frostman — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:29:15 +0000

Personally, my treatment of this blog would not be changed by making it an LIS-only blog. Doing that seems like it creates yet another link in the chain, rather than streamline it. If one can streamline a chain…

By: Michael Roy

Michael Roy — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:25:59 +0000

Maybe we go with the blogger of the month rather than the poster of the month; that way you can be recognized for doing a good job of asking good questions, providing other points of views, links to useful resources.

Point taken on needing an editor. But I’m trying to resist the temptation to provide the solution!