Our group considered the impact of citizen journalism and blogs on the acquisition and storage of resources and the attendant issues with searchability and delivery. Here’s what we came up with:
Acquisition and Storage:
- Pro: blogs greatly increase our potential pool of acquisitions with little financial impact and with little impact on our physical space
- Con: the sheer number of resources could quickly overwhelm our acquisitions staff. Storage requires that we have server space, etc
Blogs require us to make decisions about how patrons can access and search these resources. Do we use traditional library subject headings like LC or do we use tags? Tags could be generated from other blog readers and/or our own patrons. Finally, delivery will require us to provide the appropriate equipment (computers), access points, and training.
The bottom line is that we thought blogs have an overall positive impact because of their participatory nature. We do, however, need to be prepared to provide education on use and creation of blogs and to analyze blogs as a resource.
