So yes, I get the whole blogging thing. I enjoyed reading Student and Teaching Blogging that succeeds and agree with everything the author says. I wanted to read the Joyce Valenza post but the link is dead. I hate that her blog is hosted by SLJ because there is way too much distraction going on on the page. It sort of unvalidates everything for me.
I would very much like to have a library blog and I’ll be turning Flannery into that blog when this 10 weeks is over. Things I need to consider are: will this be my blog or the school library blog? How much control do I want to have? How I keep it interesting enough that students will return to it? How do I get students to contribute?
I also get frustrated when I try to access Joyce Valenza’s blog, for the same reasons you give in your post. I began a library blog (using blogger.com) for my school because the internal web site the school uses is hard to manage. I used my blog as support for curriculum and to provide resources rather than as a vehicle for my thoughts and opinions. I know that students use the blog when they are doing research projects because I incorporate my postings into my library lessons. However, I don’t know if students access it in between research assignments. You can take a look and tell me what you think of it. The URL is: http://lndnlady.blogspot.com (I don’t know how to include a link in a reply on a post. Is there a way to do this?