Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide

Those librarians who “live on the Internet” think blogging is easy, that it develops a helpful network of contacts, and that all librarians should do it. Those who do not live on the Web rely on experienced librarians like Michael Sauers, with his 15-plus years of technology training experience, to bring the strange world of blogging into context. Sauers’s latest edition of Blogging and RSS is an extension of that all-important service. The book is well written and informative, but, like so many technical manuals, the publication date should read as many as two years earlier than 2010; even as a second edition, it is outdated almost before anyone reads it.

Sauers cannot be blamed for the already dated feel of the book. As he was writing, he could hardly have known or understood the impact of new tablet PCs like the Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom. Data-sharing standards like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) are hidden behind fancy user interfaces these days. Many elements in the new Twitter chapter are redundant as Twitter has gone through an update to its interface. Tumblr, not Blogger, is rapidly growing as the preferred blogging platform for many who are looking for easy publication. Suffice it to say that with the way social media changes from year-to-year, your average technical manual on any social Web tool is often outdated before it is published.

The third chapter—the one that contains interviews of popular bloggers in the library world (also known as the “biblioblogosphere”)—is the most interesting and ultimately most useful part. Here, popular bloggers like Jessamyn West (http://www.librarian.net) and Sarah Houghton-Jan (http://www.librarianinblack.net) explain why they value putting their thoughts online, giving much-needed insight into Internet culture. Some notable Canadian bloggers and Twitterers like Amanda Etches-Johnson, Connie Crosby, and Amy Buckland are missing from the heavily US-focused selection of interviewees. The section on RSS is excellent, daring to describe in detail the coding standard itself and the confusing history as it developed from version to version. To improve the book’s longevity, Sauers could have built on these elements and added some emphasis on Internet culture, attracting new users, writing effectively for the web, structuring content to attract people via search engines, community building, and the relationship of data-sharing standards—like RSS—to a more open and engaged online user.

Librarians do need a vision for keeping up with technology such as blogs and RSS. While a reader will benefit from a variety of tips from a book such as Blogging and RSS, one has to wonder if our professionals would be just as well off reading what their public collections—collections not targeted at librarians—have to offer. The tools themselves are secondary to the interactions that happen while those tools are used.