Becoming a Local Book Blogger

As high school librarians, we view book blogging as a necessary next step in our interconnected professional and personal library lives. We have observed that online communities and technologies have evolved together to reveal bloggers and blogging platforms with staying power. Bloggers’ messages can be universal, inspirational, aspirational, or reflective for readers and for future bloggers. We were inspired to start blogging by reading others’ blogs. Here, we trace how we started blogging, and how we view our blogging experiences now.

Kristen

My career in school librarianship began in an upstate New York urban public school district in the fall of 2006. I started with multiple buildings, as many school librarians do. This position included both elementary and secondary library assignments, and I traveled to various schools for several years. This hectic pace made it difficult to be an expert on book titles at all levels of K-12 school librarianship. I was expected to know the most popular picture books, the latest young adult sci-fi trilogy, and everything in between.

I made a point of reading as much as possible. I combed online review sources and educator-generated blog reviews. One feature employed by exceptional bloggers is linking other useful blogs on their pages or blogrolls. These referral lists made it possible for me to see what others in literacy and libraries were reading and reviewing. One pull on the thread of this proverbial sweater permitted me to discover educators and librarians vetted by fellow bloggers. My access to timely reports from the “boots on the ground” in the field of librarianship, literacy, and technology became necessary for me to engage professionally in my practice. By sharing relevant dispatches with faculty, I created my own virtual faculty room—and I became a blog fanatic.

Canvassing blogs became an integral part of doing business as a reader, librarian, and colleague. The advent of smartphones with apps for blog reading increased my consumption. Every long car ride, seat on the bleachers, and time spent waiting in line provided me ample opportunities to pursue my blog reading list. Around the same time I also began using Twitter professionally. I was tweeting and retweeting blog posts with links to trending titles and technology resources. I read high-value blogs and educational sites, curating powerful, real-time instructional tools that benefitted both my colleagues and students. I no longer felt that I had to read every book published in the realm of children’s and young adult literature. Instead, I could harness the online hive of educators and library professionals identifying emerging trends, hot-off-the-press titles, and brand new authors generating buzz. This reading and sharing process became one of my first steps toward becoming a blogger.

My second step toward becoming a blogger required that I focus on determining the best blogs. Oversubscribing can become overwhelming, so I funneled the best blogs to my feed reader and became more selective. Then, I decided to contribute to this chorus of voices. I have resources to share and instructional supports to offer. Contributing to a blog allowed me to go beyond the four walls of my school building and publish to a broader audience looking to feed themselves professionally, as so many educators in the past have done for me.

Alicia

Books have been my entry point for instructing students, leading professional development, and developing programming for the library. Reading book blogs prepares me for the diverse needs of students, whether the task is finding gripping books for reluctant readers, recommending a light romance upon a student request, or suggesting easy English nonfiction texts for a high school English as a New Language (ENL) learner.

I read a lot, and through blogging, I can add my perspective to the collection of blogs that focus on books. I began organizing my reading “pre-technology” with one-page snapshots that included the cover, subject headings, my rating, a summary and a quote or two that affected me or gave insight to the story. Since 2008, I’ve exclusively used goodreads, allowing bookshelves, social connectivity, and the all-important organization of to-be read books. Now, I’m funneling all of that into a blog. Book blogs expand and share knowledge in ways that are conversational and easily accessible. Blogging allows me to share the (once) internal dialogue of booktalking and readers’ advisory: the revision of approaches and selling points, how to increase visibility of an author or title with a visit, or reporting out to teachers. I blog about how kids are reading, why kids are reading, what they’re reading, and reflections on comments I hear from others about reading.

Professional reflection is another topic I commonly associate with blogging. As a reader, I want to know, how did that librarian fare when faced with a new research project with a science class? What did that librarian think of the new fantasy series-- is it worth the investment to purchase for the shelves? Blog posts provide access points for reflecting on how I spend my days with instruction, collaboration, and readers’ advisory. As a blogger, I don’t want to do the thinking for anyone; instead, I want to provide an avenue for personal reflection, agreement or disagreement, or two-cents. When inviting others to the table this way, it paves the path for more contributors.

Kristen and Alicia

Blogging provides innovative ways to connect, share, empathize, and support. In terms of visibility for the library program, we wanted to find a new audience to help us support our mission in working with youth every day. As we dipped our toes into the waters of professional writing, we wanted to showcase the skill sets that make our library services student- and staff-centered. When we first began as librarians, Web 2.0 just started becoming a “thing.” There were more dimensions and more forms of contributing than previous online content. Blogs are multidimensional and allow for a shared space and comments (for better or worse) and visibility outside of a library, program, or district.

There is a need, as well as a practical side, for seeking advice from bloggers. For us, budgets were getting smaller, books weren’t in abundance, staffing was shrinking, librarians were doing more with less, and classroom teachers were looking for creativity. Bloggers’ recommendations affirmed our practice. By revisiting their blogs time and again, we grew to trust their ideas and expertise.

We hope that trust can now be placed in us. As we stepped forward to begin contributing to a somewhat “under-read” component of our local newspaper’s books blog, we discussed how we wanted present ourselves. We wanted to give back to a community of bloggers that had sustained us, while also encouraging others to raise their voices and share their opinions. For us, we could not do this without blending pieces of our personal lives with our professional ones. In one of Kristen’s first posts on the Times Union Books Blog, she shared how a book connected her husband and daughter on a deeper level. She also wrote about how sharing books with her father opened the door to communication previously shut out by the tragedy of war. Likewise, Alicia’s posts on the Books Blog discussed her need for the right time and place to enjoy a favorite author. She shared her annoyance over people asking when she finds time to read, and also revealed how books have shifted her thoughts or created new knowledge.

It’s a choice to put ourselves out there and to craft digital personas that are true to who we are as librarians, readers, and individuals. While the writing process may be painful, messy, lengthy, or unraveling in the middle of the night, it is also enriching to demonstrate our perspectives and competencies for consideration by others. In some ways, our blogs are books written chapter by chapter on our development as librarians.

Kristen might like to write, rewrite, and write some more before hitting publish with multiple drafts, and Alicia would prefer to be done sooner than later, and always creates an outline of the message before one word is typed. Everyone’s process is different. Some are on stringent deadlines, while our first foray professionally is as contributors where multiple bloggers write as the mood strikes them. The pressure is all our own and that’s comfortable. And a great place to start.

Enjoy Kristen and Alicia’s favorite bloggers:

1. Gwyneth Jones, The Daring Librarian, http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com
2. Buffy Hamilton, The Unquiet Librarian, https://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com
3. Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers. http://www.freetech4teachers.com
4. Cathy Potter and Louise Capizzo, The Nonfiction Detectives. http://www.nonfictiondetectives.com/
5. The Nerdy Book Blog, https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com
6. Doug Johnson as The Blue Skunk Blog. http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com
7. YALSA’s The Hub. http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub
8. Pam Harland, Pam Librarian. https://pamlibrarian.wordpress.com
9. Seth Godin, http://sethgodin.typepad.com
10. Jennifer LaGarde, The Adventures of Library Girl. http://www.librarygirl.net