The best art library blog I have come across belongs to the Yale Arts Library. The blog posts themselves are just mediocre, but the additional pages including research tools, Yale resources, and links provide an abundance of useful information. This is an excellent example of a blog as a one-stop-shop. The only thing it’s missing is a widget for searching the Library’s catalog. If the Library’s homepage was a wreck, I’d use the blog instead, but it is Yale and the Arts Library’s homepage happens to be quite pretty and user friendly.

Visitors can find the link to the blog in the About the Library dropdown menu. If they want users to find it, they really should move it somewhere more visible (I see a perfect place for it in the right-hand column). Once users get to the blog, it is easy to navigate. The simple two-column grid places recent posts, a category cloud, top posts, the blogroll, and additional useful links on the right side of the page. These categories remain when moving through the various other pages on the site, which allows for quick navigation back to blog content. One additional category that would facilitate browsing would be to include the archive, which would allow users to browse by date.

One area that needs improvement is the overall content of the blog posts. Nearly all entries are links to news or journal articles. Perhaps it’s the librarian in me, but I’d like to see updates on recent acquisitions or highlights from the collection. What they lack in blog content they make up for with their links and additional tools and resources. Any first year student would be grateful for the library how-to movies and step-by-step tutorials, that are easy to find and use.

This blog has made me realize one general drawback to blogs: spam comments (or as with the Yale Arts Library blog, a random reference question posted in the comments section of the Research Tools page: “I am looking for a yale 1800 cream pitcher, with the number 500 and a half on the bottom of it.” Why would you post that on the blog?). While comments can be monitored, that takes staff time, but I think it is time well spent. If your patrons want to participate in group discussions or post their own comments not related to the blog, maybe Facebook is the better alternative.