putting it together-part one

My overall goal for this course is to create ONE area where students can easily get all the information they need about what is going on in the library and what services are available for that day/week/etc.  Our school is very communtor based, so it needs to be on the website for many students to even know about the services the library provides. 

 Right now our website is divided into the different departments without much connection between them all.  So, as part one of my "trying to put it all together" for the final project, here we have blogging.

 I envision using the blog as a calendar update and almost "headline/abstract" of library events.  The calendar would appear as the first thing on the homepage of the website.  (I kind of got this idea from the Ann Arbor library website). 

On a separate site I would link to the descriptions of the events and also link to the seperate departments full information. Although we have a communication department that lists news releases on the website, they do not cover all the activities going on in the library. 

 Items to list in this series of separate blogs would be:

• Open instructional sessions for the week
• New databases
• New books
• Exhibitions
• Lectures
• Summaries of events after they have taken place with photos.

 I also like the idea of a more dynamic FAQ's section where discussion to take place and then the most relevent questions that come up would be posted on the offical FAQ webpage.

 I don't think our community would really want a blog that is more like a journal entry or trying to evoke intellectual discussion.  Perhaps a BB board could be developed in the future surrounding certain topics or events, but at this time I don't think that would get much traffic.

 To do this I need to first speak with the Web Team.  We just unveiled our new university branded website and are starting to discuss what text should go on the front page.  I already mentioned to one person the idea of listing the upcoming events with links.  Then a seperate section, probably through the reference department, would be created on the libraries website for all the social library tools.  Almost like a physical bulliten board of informational resources (podcasts, research guides, blog, etc.).  I would also need to draft a policy, my admin is very into policies.  Thank you to those who posted links to policies.

It is hard to decide which tools would each service of the library benefit the most from.  But as far as current information communication, I think blogs are key!