My second blog posting

I have a couple of things to share about the first three weeks of class. First, I don't think that I suggested in my first post that blogs are a waste of time, I merely wanted to say that for some people, myself included don't really have a lot of time to spend just publishing random thoughts for anyone to read. I prefer talking to real people face to face and I still feel that is the most productive type of communication and interaction. On the other hand if you get satisfaction and enrichment from blogging, by all means do it and you don't need my blessing or approval. As far as working in the library, we have tried social networking and we just don't get any real feedback. It just isn't worth the time for us to have a blog. I think that the challenge for public libraries is to stay relevant in these changing times. Just adapting to the popular forms of communication with no real goals or results is not the best use of our time and doesn't really help the library adapt to the changing needs of our communities.
The readings from both the text and the articles have been a real eye-opener for me. I have share them with my co-workers. Some of the points about the value of the reference interview and being friendly and approachable we have always been doing and I am glad to see the literature support the importance of greeting patrons with a warm and inviting greeting. On the other hand, I know that we have not been very good about going through the complete process of the reference interview and that we have been guilty of some of the don'ts. We have sent patrons to the stacks with a call number and then have been to busy to make sure that they have found the information that they requested. It is really easy to start a search without really asking open questions and concluded the process by just giving the patron a book on a subject and not finding out whether this is really what they needed. It is also easy to not include the patron is the search and it is more time consuming to include the patron in the search or to show them how to use our sources. I think that we all can see we need some improvement if we want to offer the best reference information that we can.

my experience with blogging

 I have to be honest in response to the questions, I have never had a blog and I have never used or even visited one. I have friends who have blogs, but I never have bothered to visit them. So I don't have any real experience and I don't have any favorite blogs. I imagine that some libraries could use them or other social networks such as facebook or twitter accounts. The library system that I work for has a twitter account. I have never visited it or ever looked at it. We don't have a blog or anything other than a webpage at our branch and we just use it to publicize events at the library. We also have all of our online databases on the webpage. Our manager thinks that we have other things that are more important than maintaining blogs and twitter pages. We are a very busy branch, and we really can't afford the staff time to just keep up a blog just for the sake on having one

    

      I am not one who used the social networks for my own use either. I have a full time job and I have to commute to work as well as help take of the house. I just don't have the time to check up on facebook or any of the other social networks. I have never even heard of the blogs that you mentioned. I am not against using them and if we thought that they could really help us better serve our patrons, I am sure that the manager at our branch would use more of the social networks.  We seem to be getting by with the webpage for right now

    I really haven't had any surprises or had a chance to form much of an opinion of the class in the first couple days. It is interesting to see so many students from so many different majors taking the class. I am hopeful that it will be rewarding and give me a chance to gain some new skills and knowledge. 

my first post

I really don't have anything to blog about. I am just fulfilling the requirements for the assignment