I was ruminating on why this is the case. Like #2 in your comment perhaps the blogs don’t get updated and lie dormant, or perhaps like #1 they don’t allow comments.

And that’s what I’m getting at at the end of my post. Libraries should examine what they are trying to accomplish with technologies they implement.

If it is simply an informational blog then comments are not a good measure of success (probably traffic is a better measure). But if the purpose is to have two way communication with patrons about library issues and they aren’t getting comments, then maybe they would be better served by something like Twitter, where it’s easier to post and built more for conversation.

Keeping your goals in mind when implementing a technology or reevaluating a technology is paramount for its success.

Thanks for the comment.

I was ruminating on why this is the case. Like #2 in your comment perhaps the blogs don’t get updated and lie dormant, or perhaps like #1 they don’t allow comments.

And that’s what I’m getting at at the end of my post. Libraries should examine what they are trying to accomplish with technologies they implement.

If it is simply an informational blog then comments are not a good measure of success (probably traffic is a better measure). But if the purpose is to have two way communication with patrons about library issues and they aren’t getting comments, then maybe they would be better served by something like Twitter, where it’s easier to post and built more for conversation.

Keeping your goals in mind when implementing a technology or reevaluating a technology is paramount for its success.

Thanks for the comment.

1. Mr Crawford does not state whether or not all of the blogs in his study were set to allow comments, so it’s quite possible that counting only those who did allow comments would have produced less dismal results.
2. Only 68% of the blogs he checked had been updated during the previous month. The remainder appeared to be updated infrequently or not at all.

3. All of the blogs he checked had been around for quite a while. This
was a comparative study, limited to the same blogs Mr Crawford surveyed for his 2008 book. It did not include any blogs that had been created since May 2007.

For example, today at his “Building A Digital Branch” webinar, David
King Lee cited the Ann Arbor Public Library as a library that makes excellent use of social media to engage their patrons. Their website
includes numerous blogs, some of which Mr King said have received as
many as 100 comments on some posts. Mr Crawford appears to have looked at one of the Ann Arbor blogs (one out of many they have) and dropped their information from the study. He did this because he found their blog’s current format made it difficult to count the number of comments posted, and because their results were so high as to skew the study.

All in all, the conclusion I drew from reading Mr Crawford’s report of his finding was that although blogs are often not used effectively in libraries, some places have managed to make them a very effective tool for two-way communication.

1. Mr Crawford does not state whether or not all of the blogs in his study were set to allow comments, so it’s quite possible that counting only those who did allow comments would have produced less dismal results.
2. Only 68% of the blogs he checked had been updated during the previous month. The remainder appeared to be updated infrequently or not at all.

3. All of the blogs he checked had been around for quite a while. This
was a comparative study, limited to the same blogs Mr Crawford surveyed for his 2008 book. It did not include any blogs that had been created since May 2007.

For example, today at his “Building A Digital Branch” webinar, David
King Lee cited the Ann Arbor Public Library as a library that makes excellent use of social media to engage their patrons. Their website
includes numerous blogs, some of which Mr King said have received as
many as 100 comments on some posts. Mr Crawford appears to have looked at one of the Ann Arbor blogs (one out of many they have) and dropped their information from the study. He did this because he found their blog’s current format made it difficult to count the number of comments posted, and because their results were so high as to skew the study.

All in all, the conclusion I drew from reading Mr Crawford’s report of his finding was that although blogs are often not used effectively in libraries, some places have managed to make them a very effective tool for two-way communication.