ALA Direct

[Laurie Bridges]

Every week I get ALA direct, and I always look at the titles, and often read the articles.

I'd like to suggest adding a section for librarian blogs and including two or three posts from librarian bloggers. I don't have time to keep up with all the librarian blogs, yet at the same time, I'd like to know the highlights each week in the librarian blogging world.

[Greg Landgraf]

AL Direct does cite library blogs regularly, although they're scattered through the "Seen Online" and "Actions & Answers" sections. Last week's issue, for example, cited Information Wants to Be Free, Alternative Teen Services, a couple of ALA blogs (ACRL and TechSource, to be specific), and a few non-library-but-related blogs like Google and the Center for Democracy and Technology.

That said, building a separate section for blog postings is an interesting idea. I would recommend you suggest it directly to the editor, George Eberhart (I don't believe he's a regular on Ning, but his contact information is at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar of every issue). He's the one who would make the decision, and I'm sure he'd appreciate your input.

[theshiftedlibrarian]

Greg beat me to it! I had to wait for last Wednesday's email to check what the names of the headings were, and then I didn't actually get to read ALD until this weekend. :-\ There are usually at least a few blog posts referenced in ALD, but I agree with Greg that George might be open to the idea of grouping them.

Laurie, are you advocating strictly for library-/librarian blogs in this section, or would it include broader blog postings of interest to the profession?

[Laurie Bridges]

Well, either would be good - but I was specifically suggesting library/librarian blogs.

The idea came to me after a discussion with some librarians, where one of the librarians was discussing some blog postings and I felt like I was missing out on all the action! And then I thought, "It would be nice is ALA direct had a section for 'this week in the biblioblogosphere'".