Librarians, you know you have an awesome job. But how many times do you hear:
“How hard is it to help kids find books?”
“I wish I got paid to read stories all day.”
“It must be nice to have all that time just to read.”
Honestly, most people have no idea what goes on in a school library. No one knows that librarians teach lessons, show students how to use online databases, help students with research projects, host book clubs, plan author visits, manage book fairs, and organize family reading nights, in addition to helping students find books for pleasure reading.
Many librarians are also the technology wizards in their school, helping teachers when a projector or interactive whiteboard malfunctions. Librarians are usually the experts on all the different educational apps and websites that are available to teachers. They are called on to help teachers set up their own website, blog, or Twitter feed for their class.
Librarians are essential in helping students and teachers throughout the school day. But, who is aware of this besides the students and teachers whom they are helping? It is easy for administrators and the general public to be in the dark about all the amazing things that librarians do. Now more than ever, it is important for librarians to champion themselves and their position.
The way to do that? Start a blog.
1. Ask yourself: Do you want to create a library blog or a librarian blog?
A library blog is similar to a website for your library – with multiple pages for library resources, online databases, library events, book clubs, and reading programs. This blog would be geared towards students, as well as parents who could read about all the different library events.
Two good examples are the Falcon Library Blog and the JRE Library Blog.
A librarian blog is where you share resources, tips, lessons, or technology with other librarians and teachers. Two great examples are A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet and The Daring Librarian.
2. Choose a site for your blog.
Some of the popular free blog sites are: Blogger, EduBlogs, Weebly, and WordPress.
3. Set up the pages for your blog, and decide how often you will post.
Most library blogs have separate pages for online resources, reading programs or book clubs, special events, and general library information or frequently asked questions. Librarian blogs set up pages for different topics like authors, resources by subject, or web tools.
Then decide how often you will post about your events, new books, or technology. You don’t need to post something every week, unless you want to and have the time. Posting once a month keeps your blog updated and current.
4. Finally, share your blog with everyone!
Tell students, teachers, parents, and the principal.
Post a link on the school’s website.
Tell the checkout clerk at the grocery store.
Include it in your holiday newsletter.
Share it any way you can to get the word out – librarians are indispensable!
Here is some more information about those four blogs to help you get started:
The Falcon Library Blog provides information about the library, book clubs, and special library events. The posts include library and school special events – book fairs, author visits, and book character contests. There are also posts about book lists like summer reading lists or this post about a new graphic novel list. Then there are separate pages for the various book clubs, author visits, and reading programs.
This blog is a great resource for students and parents about all of the special things that go on in the library. This blog highlights special events throughout the year, as well as providing general library information on the Library FAQs page.
The JRE Library Blog provides information about the library, the online catalog and other library resources, reading programs, and special events. Blog posts focus on special events like author visits, family reading festivals, and new books available in the library. The post Lately at the Library showed pictures of new books that had arrived, a Superhero book section, as well as a new student author section. All of the blog posts include pictures about the events and new books.
This blog is a good resource for students to access the card catalog and other online resources, and for parents to find out about all of the library events. This school seems to be fortunate to have several author visits throughout the year, like this First Grade Author Visit with local author Kathy Duval.
The Daring Librarian has several different blogs and wikispaces. This main blog is aimed at other librarians as a way to share ideas, technology, and practices that she is using in her own school library. Blog posts describe different apps, technology, and makerspace ideas. Her latest post describes a Lego creation station that she has set up in her library along with information about how she started it and how she manages it. She has a separate blog, The MMS Daring School Library blog, where she posts about school events like the Edgar Allen Poe museum, and new maker space additions like Zen coloring books.
A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet
This blog is aimed at librarians and teachers looking for internet resources. She refers to herself as a “cybrarian”, a hybrid of cyber and librarian. All of her posts contain tons of links and internet resources. Some posts are reviews of apps or technology, like this post about the app Camscanner, while others have information about Primary and Secondary Sources. Then there are many curated, themed lists like this list of 26 Resources about climate change. This may be my favorite librarian blog so far, because it has such a wealth of resources. Teachers and librarians can use all of the internet resources shared on this blog.
SLM508 CLW: The Bibliothecary's Lair... 
Library blogs are particularly helpful, in my opinion, when they feature information and how-tos about a specific library resource. Although I am not a librarian, I certainly refer my students to specific resources (both electronic and otherwise) to find information. It always amazes me how few of the available resources they know about and how excited they are when they realize how these library resources can help them reach their own goals (whatever they may be).
Most libraries have tons of great resources – anything that can be done to bring attention to and help students use individual resources is helpful in my opinion.
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I wish this post had been available before I started reading library/librarian blogs! You have done a fantastic job of breaking down the intent of each: much like a teacher/educator blog versus a classroom blog, the audience and intended outcomes of these two blog types are rather different. I also enjoyed the Daring Librarian’s very specific posts, full of examples and how-to’s. After researching these blogs and reading your posts, it’s hard for me to believe that I lived my life up to this point without perusing librarian blogs for inspiration and handy tips for everything from classroom management to maker spaces to bulletin boards and activity/research ideas. Thank you for shedding additional light on these valuable resources!
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I really like the way that your blog post is written- you are writing as if your audience could be anyone, rather than just colleagues all taking the same SLM course. It’s making me re-think how I wrote mine!
It looks like the first two blogs you reviewed are specific to individual libraries (they mention books and events that are relevant to just one school); do you find these types of blogs to be as informative and helpful as library blogs where the content is more generalized and not specific to one library? I ask because I wonder if I should have looked at more of these individual library blogs.
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Lindsay,
I think the individual library blogs are helpful as examples for librarians to set up their own blog.
After first learning about blogging, my view of blogs was very narrow – that they are basically an online journal. If you look at some of the individual library blogs, they are set up almost the same as a webpage would be, except the “home” page is the blog space for the librarian to write posts.
Most of the content on the library blogs was the same content that our librarian has on her static webpage. Then she has a Twitter feed that she uses to post updates and highlight special events. A blog can combine all of these things into one – so you can refer everyone to the same page.
I don’t think that I will “follow” any individual school library blogs, but I will probably go back and look at several of them when I am ready to set up my own library blog.
Hope that helps,
Carol
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I have to start out by saying that your post is very well-written. I love the direction that you took- that a blog is a way to show how essential a librarian is to the school. It is true, librarians need ways to show the administration and general public how essential they are. The idea of using a blog to do so is a great one. Reading your blog definitely motivates me to want to start a blog when I become a librarian. I also like how your post is very clear with step by step directions on how to create my own blog. It makes creating a blog seem less intimidating.
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It is hard to believe that this is your first blog, it looks so professional! I like your explanation of how to set up a blog as a preface to your assignment. The information was very helpful and insightful.
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