2. What can I put on a teen blog? New books Book trailers Movie trailers of movie tie-ins Program announcements Videos and pictures of your teens Book reviews by staff or teens
4. I want one! Now What? The first decision you must make is: What kind of software do I want to use? Free software with free hosting – entirely free (this is what OPPL uses) Free software with paid hosting – you can use free software but will have to pay for the hosting Paid software that includes the price of hosting – usually subscription based and combines software and hosting in one fee Paid software with paid hosting – you pay for both the software and the hosting
5. You get what you pay for! This doesn’t mean that free blogging is bad, by any means, it just may limit you as to what you can do. If your library has the budget and the capabilities to spread the wealth, create a free blog and then see how it goes. If all goes well, you can always upgrade later!!!
6. Free blogging options! There are several companies that offer free software and hosting. The most popular and the most used companies among public libraries are: Blogger – www.blogger.com LiveJournal – www.livejournal.com WordPress – www.wordpress.com I recommend Blogger if this is your first time, as it is one of the most user-friendly blog sites.
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8. For me, this took about 1 week, working on it here and there at the desk.
9. After you have initially set it up, you can spend as much time on it as you wish!
10. I try to update our blog at least once a week, if not more, when I read new news articles or if I know of any upcoming programs I want to highlight.
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14. More statcounter statistics Entry pages Exit pages Came from Entry links Exit links Visitor paths Visit length
15. Websites and fun stuff! Wordle (wordle.net) – Creates JavaScript word clouds Animoto (animoto.com) – For free, you can create 30 second video clips. There is a subscription service they offer for unlimited length of videos. Goodreads (goodreads.com) – Used to show the teens the most popular books in a widget form on our blog
16. For more questions… Stephanie Wilkes Ouachita Parish Public Library 601 McMillan Road West Monroe, LA 71291 swilkes@oplib.org 318-327-1470 – phone 318-327-1473 - fax
Editor's Notes
Tour the users through some of the features on the blog that you were able to add in…
