Librarian bloggers survey

*Long post*

Thanks to those of you who’ve already responded to my questionnaire! I’m looking forward to hearing from everyone I’ve emailed. Ivan suggested that I post my questions here, which is a damn fine idea, so here it is! If you’re a librarian who blogs, please take this as an invitation to email me with your responses if you are interested in contributing, or feel free to add your comments here!

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I’d like to present an overview of the librarian blogosphere, including some anecdotes from librarian bloggers, hopefully at the ALIA Click ’06 Conference happening in Perth this September. I am trying to discover the experiences of librarians who blog and the reasons we continue to do so. I have found blogging to be an unexpectedly enjoyable way of making connections with fellow librarians, and would like to see what your experiences have been. I’d prefer to just start a conversation on my blog (you’re reading it!), but I’d like to try to reach librarians who secretly (or not so secretly!) think that blogging is a complete waste of time. If you know of any other blogging librarians who might be interested in participating in this project of mine, please let me know.

A bit about me: I call myself “CW” on my blog, friends and family call me Con, but my name is Constance Wiebrands, and I am the Business Senior Librarian at Curtin University of Technology‘s Library and Information Service. It’s a very varied and interesting role:

• I provide training and assistance to the academic staff and postgraduate research students of the Curtin Business School . This ranges from basic this-is-the-library-catalogue training to helping a PhD student to format the final draft of their thesis using EndNote.
• I attend some of the faculty committee meetings – I present the Library’s point of view, and report to the Library on developments and events in the faculty. While the meetings can horrifically tedious and a drain on my time, they are interesting in that I learn a lot about the politics and personalities that drive the University. Being part of these committees also means that I am called on for assistance with non-library projects.
• I’ve been leading a few projects – RSS feeds for new books, a library blog, and podcasting. Internally we’re putting together a wiki to assist with collection development, tracking discussions and decision-making on journal databases.

I’ve been blogging since June 2005, beginning my blog mainly as an experiment, a forum to test all the new technologies I needed to learn about. My blog tends to be very ‘personal’; I just write about whatever interests me at the time. I’ve really enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, blogging as a means of expression and reflection. Blogging has definitely improved my professional practice – I feel a lot more engaged, connected, interested in everything that’s happening in this profession of ours and find myself pondering all sorts of issues that I would have previously not given a second thought to (or just dismissed as “not my problem”).

I am a member of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), but sadly find it less and less relevant to my development as a library professional – and find it heartening that other librarians (in the US) feel the same about their professional association and are talking about this – in their blogs. I’m still pondering what I can do to improve my ALIA experience and what I can do to improve it for others… I’m hoping you’ll be willing to answer the following questions, and perhaps engage in an online conversation with me about your experiences with your blog, and blogging, in particular. If you’d rather not participate, thanks for reading this far anyway!

Where do you work? (You don’t have to tell me the name of your organisation if you prefer not to – a general statement like “a law library” or “school library” is sufficient.)
What’s your job title?
What are your main responsibilities?
How long have you been blogging?
How did you begin blogging?
What do you blog about?
Why do you continue to blog?
Would you agree that blogging has improved your professional practice?
May I quote your answers for publication? If yes, how would you like the quotes attributed? Please indicate whether you would prefer to be identified by your pseudonym or your real name. If you want to be identified by your real name, is it okay if your real name is associated with your blog URL? (I may also post some of my findings on my blog as the article develops, but I’ll let you know before I use any of your words.)
May I email you again for more discussion/clarification?

Thanks for reading and for giving this some thought. In the interests of keeping the conversation flowing, please reply by 20 March 2006.

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There it is. I still haven’t decided who else I should contact about this project. Maybe I should see if some of the ‘big names’ in the librarian blogosphere would be interested in giving me their insights. Having been online for years, would they be sick of answering such questions, though?

Categories: blogs, blogging, writing, Click06, questions