In August I left my job as intern to the Arts, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture Liaison at the University of Minnesota, in order to pursue my MLIS. My final project before I left was to create a blog for the library. Starting the blog was easy (and finding ARTstor images to design the header montage was a blast), but finding time to write blog entries and getting the attention of students, faculty, and staff were more challenging tasks. In creating the blog it was important to consider the diverse audience (five different departments: art history, fine art, architecture, landscape architecture, and theater/dance) in order to determine the appropriate content.

Arts, Arch/LA Library Information Exchange, University of Minnesota

All blogs at the UofM are hosted by the University Libraries’ UThink Blogs, run with Movable Type 4.25. For the Arts & Arch/LA Librarian Information Exchange blog I selected a professional website template, which appears less like a blog, and more like a website, and allows for multiple pages including a home page, blog, and about the collections and contact pages. This template is easily navigable, particularly with the links to recent blog entries visible on every page. It’s even easy for non-tech-savy professors to use.

The Arts & Arch/LA Librarian Information Exchange blog contains information on new library resources, exhibitions at the University Libraries, tips for using online tools, and other relevant arts information. Each post provides great information with links to the library catalog and resources, but the blog is updated infrequently (only a couple times each month). In order for a blog to stay relevant and attract users, it needs to provide continually updated content. As I mentioned before, the hardest task is getting an audience, and without sufficient content, they will not revisit the blog.

Marketing the blog is also necessary to build a reader base. When the blog was first created, an email was sent to all students, faculty, and staff in all five departments notifying them of the blog. However, feedback was minimal and the RSS subscription rate still remains in the single digits. Perhaps one issue is that the blog is not advertised on the library website. This is challenging to do since the visual and performing arts collections are located in the main library and the architecture/landscape architecture collections have their own library across campus, so there is not one single physical or web location (which was one of the reasons we created the blog in the first place). The Librarian includes a link to the blog in her email signature, but only students and faculty who email reference questions ever see that (and how many, for that matter, even notice it?). A blog was a great idea, but is it worth it if it’s rarely read?

It’s easy to create a blog, especially with the abundance of blog templates, but as you can see it’s not always easy to find time to update them, and it’s even more difficult to market your blog to readers.