A Blog for the Mill Memorial Library?

The Mill Memorial Library will be having a Book & Bake Sale on Monday, June 18 and Tuesday, June 19, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The library is located on the corner of Kosciuszko and Main streets in Nanticoke, directly across from the CVS. Directions: When entering Nanticoke from the East, turn left onto Kosciuszko Street at the first traffic light on Main Street. The entrance to the library will be on your right.

Now, how do I know this? Is it because I live just a few blocks from the library, and drive past it every time I come into town? Is it because I am currently unemployed, and therefore strategically positioned to take advantage of the library's services? Is it because of their website, or their other website?

Nah. It's because they had a plug in my church bulletin this past weekend. Otherwise I would have no clue. Even when I went to the last sale back in April, the little old ladies working there told me that they would be having another one "sometime in November".

I like blogs. I like blogging. I wish everyone in the world had a blog. Of course, if that were the case, nobody would have time to read more than a few, especially since they would be busy with their own blogs. But blogs are a way of letting the world know what you have to say. And they're not just for individuals - they work great for organizations, too.

I had this idea for a library blog a long time ago, but I've never acted on it. As I see it, it could be a sort of open-ended newsletter, a place for a library to make announcements, to list upcoming events, to solicit donations, to feature recent acquisitions, maybe even to spotlight book reviews by patrons. It would be a way of getting the community involved in the library without even having to be there.

One of the attractive features of blogs is that, ideally, they are frequently updated, so readers will return again and again to see what's new. Websites in the traditional sense tend to be far more static, reliables place that people can navigate to find the information they want without having to worry too much about design changes. But as such they tend to be dull. It's hard to tell the difference between a website that has reached a mature, stable state and one that is simply no longer being maintained.

Most websites require a "webmaster", somebody who knows and understands things like html code and SQL. Blogs are also incredibly simple to create and use, designed so that anybody can make one in just a few minutes, can maintain it with ease, and can update it with no more effort than typing an e-mail. I happen to use and favor Blogger, the free program that allows users to create and customize their blogs with incredible ease, but there are plenty of other blogging platforms out there, some free, some for a fee. Most websites are also only available for an annual fee, but Blogger hands out Blogspot domains for free, though it also gives the option of using the Blogger platform on your own website.

So I'd like to propose a Mill Memorial Library blog. I could create it for them, and then after they've botten to know the program I would transfer the administration to anyone willing to accept that awesome responsibility. This isn't even a new or radical idea, as a Google search on the words "library blogs" will reveal. But I don't know if any of the other libraries in the area have blogs. I could see this rapidly spiraling into a network of blogs for all the local libraries, complementing and working with their existing websites. I could even see non-library organizations getting into the act - the YMCA and local historical societies, churches and synagogues, community organizations , even local governments. I would be happy to link them all from the NEPA Blogs site.

Maybe, somehow, I could even make a living from this. "Do what you love and the money will follow", the saying goes. We'll see about that.

But all this has to get started somehow, somewhere. Maybe this post is that start.