Greeting YPLibbers!

Sorry I can't be at the meeting in Ipswich today. However, I'm with you in spirit, as they say. If you have had time to look at my new experiment - you'll be looking at it right now! Here are some points I have noticed since beginning this blog. Hope it makes some sense.

1. Blogs are very easy to maintain, once the initial set-up is achieved. I experienced the same frustration as new users of free email systems like Hotmail - eg, finding a memorable username and password that isn't already taken.

2. You don't have to be too clever to make a blog look OK, such as adding images, but you do need to be a bit organised, and sometimes very patient. If at first you don't succeed ...

3. Because blogs are chronological it's easy for everyone to see how committed you are by the recency and regularity of the posting.

4. It's easy to link to other sites, and a lot of blogs seem to be mainly links. I found it was possible to link to our library catalogue, so each title mentioned in reviews takes you back to the record where you can reserve the item if you want. The links to the left stay there, and can be changed or added to by modifying the template.

5. I think it would be necessary to publicise a blog like this one, to get some interest among young readers and to gather some feedback. I had thought of developing one for homework topics, or to run a trivia quiz online, or maybe a young writers' group.

6. The comments function can be manipulated a little, so you can delete unwanted remarks or restrict those allowed to comment in a number of ways.

7. Anyhow ... that's all for now. Back to your meeting. See you all next time.