Thing 1 Blogs, gadgets and widgets

I have spent some time investigating what I can do with my blog and have started to link in other online elements such as my Twitter feed, and 2 of my scoop it subjects using widgets and gadgets. I also used the NetworkedBlogs Facebook app to link to my blog so that it publishes my blog posts automatically onto my Facebook stream. I’m sure my family and friends would be thrilled to see my posts (hmm!).

On a practical level I have also used the NetworkedBlogs app to link our Health Library blog to our Health Library Facebook page. This saves us a bit of time keeping our online streams in line. I have also added the library twitter feed, an RSS feed of health news and a youtube video bar of our etutorial demos. We already have a link to our Facebook page. This is giving us an opportunity to reflect our different online activities together.

I hadn't really done very much work on the Health Library blog as it has been going for quite a while and was initially set up by someone else.However I'm starting to feel very experimental.

Thing 2 Investigate some other blogs

Thing 2 encourages us to investigate people’s blogs. Having a look around at other people’s blogs it was reassuring to see that many people are also just starting out and feeling as apprehensive as me. I used the delicious links to look for folks also in health libraries. As we have only just started there isn’t much to say at the moment so I just left a few hellos as comments. I have also signed up to the RSS feed so that I can catch up easily on what other people are blogging.

Thing 1 Blogs and Blogging

As you can see my blog is now up and running. I'm afraid that I didn't spend too long comparing and contrasting blogging tools. I took the lazy option and set up on Blogger as I already have a Google account (so not another link / username / password to remember). I am also a little familiar with the interface as we use this for our library blog. Of course the most difficult bit was choosing the layout and theme - redecoration may occur from time to time.
I have added in some gadgets/widgets so that everyone can share my musings as much as they like. You can also post a comment - though I am moderating these. I guess the blog will develop as I learn more on the course.