Postscript to the Librarianesque Session
I read some notes from other people about the Librarianesque Session today (linked below). A recurring theme was that the session only raised issues; it didn’t necessarily offer any solutions to some of the problems bloggers face. The authors seemed a little disappointed that they didn’t walk out of the session with concrete answers. This is often the case, unfortunately. A lot of what people decide to do with their blogs depends on many things. One solution used by one library may not be the best option for another.
Some of the issues people probably want answers to could be major debates, like whether to use a controlled vocabulary for blog categories or something less formal. Again, it might depend on your blog’s primary users. If it’s an internal blog, for example, and most of the users are librarians accustomed to sophisticated subject headings, perhaps using such a set would be appropriate. A school librarian may not want to use Library of Congress Subject Headings on his blog because kids may not be that familiar with the system.
The lack of answers/solutions reminds me of one of my library school professors who always used to ask something that seemed like a question with an easy, concrete answer and then say, “Well, it depends.”
