Abby the Librarian
Author: Abby Johnson
Children’s Librarian
New Albany-Floyd Country Public
Library in New Albany, IN
Platform: Blogger
Audience: The target audience is
public children’s librarians. Her purpose is summed up in this statement: “Helping
and mentoring new librarians and library school students is a passion of mine
and you'll find many of my posts written with that audience in mind. (I am
still new-ish, so I remember how it feels to be just starting out.) I'm also a
firm believer that all librarians benefit from the sharing of program ideas,
program outlines, and general posts about how things are done at different
libraries. I try to give you a slice of life at my library here.”
Format/theme/loading: The site
loaded quickly with no major missing links evident. The format is a traditional
block format with the actual posts in the center column, quick links to her
labels on the left, and an archive with followers on the right. There is a pink and white color scheme with a
graphic background.
Navigation: There are a few ways to
navigate the site: from the home page, a reader can follow in the traditional
reverse chronological order with the newest entry coming first. There are also
labels that can be clicked on if someone is interested in a particular topic or
the archive if they prefer chronological order. Abby has also created tabs on
the top of her blog for particular topics: Audiobook reviews, her “Reading
Wildly” Program, “So You Want to Be a Librarian?”, and Storytime ideas.
Frequency of Posts: Abby has been
blogging since 2007. Until this year,
she blogged very frequently, at least three times per week. This year she has
not blogged as often. She is serving on the Newbery committee for 2015 so I
wonder if this has affected her ability to post as often.
Content of Posts: The majority of
her posts are book review posts and storytime ideas. She also has a series
called A Day in the Life of a Children’s Librarian.
Strengths: The book review posts
are excellent resources for collection development, including well-chosen read
alikes. The Day in the Life series was very interesting as it showed the
diversity in the job of a public librarian.
She writes in a very accessible way and offers great insight into her
position.
Weaknesses: She doesn’t have any
links to other blogs like hers or blogs that she follows so it’s not a great
site for networking.
Uses: A library school student
could use the “So You Want to Be a Librarian?” series to get insight into the
process of becoming a librarian and learning about the position. The storytime
ideas would be invaluable for someone who was looking to plan programming for
younger patrons. The book reviews are excellent and would help with collection
development as well as identifying appropriate books for students or patrons.
Read Alikes:
Read Alikes:
- The Daring Librarian www.thedaringlibrarian.com
- The Adventures of Library Girl www.librarygirl.net
- The Busy Librarian www.busylibrarian.com
Awards:
Quirky Library Blog Award
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