Final Proposal...News and Events Blog

Implementing a Blog to Promote Society Wide Events

-Pilot Proposal-

Introduction
In order to serve the growing need to market the Montana Historical Society (MHS) and its services, I would like to purpose the implementation of a blog that promotes the Society’s news and events. This proposal will outline how a blog will improve upon models already existing throughout any number of areas at MHS.

Descriptions
A blog, short for weblog, “is a Web site that contains brief entries arranged in reverse chronological order. Blogs are diverse, ranging from personal diaries to news sites that monitor developments on anything from Outer Mongolia to copyright law.”[1]

Benefits
A blog is an ideal tool for the Society’s news and information Web site. By replacing the Montana Post, the quarterly published newsletter, with a blog MHS would be able to reach out beyond its regular visitors. A news and event blog will allow MHS Staff to promote events but also allow the public to be able to participate via a comment feature.

Currently, MHS has an inadequate means on its Web site of promoting events and programs. The Calendar of Events, which provides a brief description of the various events scheduled at MHS is difficult to find, clunky to search, and does not allow for feedback or comments from attendees. Furthermore, the Calendar of Events does not promote society events across the State of Montana, such as presentations and workshops.

Evidence
There are many examples of historical societies and libraries already using blogs to promote events and services.

Indiana Historical Society Press Blog focuses on news and updates from the Indiana Historical Society Press, publisher of books and periodicals. (http://ihspress.blogspot.com/)

Dexter Historical Society Blog, in Dexter, Main, highlights new acquisitions and displays. (http://www.dexterhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/).

Library News is a Weblog featuring library-related news, events, and resources for Georgia State University. (http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/).

There are also a number of articles to support the use of a blog as a marketing tool. Darlene Fichter discusses in detail what blogs are and how libraries are using them as a means to market their services in her article “Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library’s Services” (www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fitcher.shtml). Greg Schwartz gives examples of blog success in libraries in his article “Blogs for Libraries” (http://www.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=767)

Possible Issues and Solutions
There are several software programs that should be investigated for possible use in the Historical Society’s news and events initial blog project, they include: blogger.com, Wordpress.org, and Livejournal.com. All three software programs are available for use without charge, meaning that a minimum initial investment is required by the Historical Society. I would suggest using Blogger for our blog software because it is free and open source, and extremely simple to setup and use. However, in order to implement the software we would need to get approval through ITSD (Information Technology Services Division) and our IT (Information Technology) staff member will be responsible for the initial set up of the software.

Through the implementation of the blogging pilot project the Historical Society will be able to investigate not only the potential usefulness but also be able to gauge the number of hours a week the blog administrator will need for posting and comments.

Staffing will be an issue and ideally the posting will be done by a blog administrator. The administrator, who will have this duty written into their job description, will need to assemble a blog team. The blog team should consist of employees at all levels from each department, in order to bring various perspectives and help the work flow. Some level of training will be necessary. In order to maintain consistency with the blog post, the team will go through a probationary period where their entries will require approval by the blog administrator. The administrator will be in charge of posting the material submitted by the blog team and monitoring the content as well as comments.

Copying with comments will be one of the main drawbacks of this pilot project. Spam will be problematic. As a means to combat spam a comment policy will be put into place before going live. This policy could state “If your comments are not relative to the blog, we can take them off.” Several other ways to stop spam include creating comment authentication/filters and requiring registration system where the moderator approves comments before they go live on the site. Moderator approval is labor intensive and may deter individuals from posting because they would prefer to be anonymous, however, it would effectively stop spam from being posted on the site.

Conclusion
It is recommended that this pilot project run for a six month period, at which time the blog administrators and team member’s feedback reports and usage (as identified by the number of comments and identified by the Web blog statistics) should be evaluated in order to determine the blogs effectiveness in promoting the Historical Society and its services. Ongoing maintenance during this period will be in the form of the eventual placement of an RSS news feed to allow patrons to subscribe to our blog.