Library Blog Highlight of the Week

One of the goals for the PLA Blog is to highlight the neat ways that public libraries are using weblog technology. We’re going to focus more on content and not interface design. We will run the library weblog highlight of the week every Friday.

Our first choice is the long-running Waterboro Public Library Lib Blog (aka the “H20 lib blog”) in Waterboro, Maine. Molly Williams, a former volunteer of the library (but still posting away on the blog), spearheads the effort. The content of the H20 Lib Blog is far reaching, with news that affects librarians, patrons, public libraries, copyright, and more. More importantly, it highlights Maine authors and newly published books that that take place in Maine. It even delves into local issues which include, for example, recent Waterboro election results. Who better to provide that information than the library? I recently sent a few questions to Molly:

SC: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

MW: I think I’m a fairly well grounded mystic with a subversive way of being.

I read a lot of non-fiction, mostly on topics of Christian and Buddhist spirituality and faith (Rene Girard and other Girardians are among my favourites at the moment; also Thomas Merton, CS Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Henri Nouwen), pop culture, creating community, progressive politics, monasticism, food, and gardening. I’m an avid gardener of perennials, especially shade perennials, and particularly variegated and unusually shaped or textured plants. I also like crime fiction — Deborah Crombie, Reginald Hill, Peter Robinson, Martha Grimes (her character Melrose Plant is my favourite in literature), P.D. James, Linda Fairstein, and Patricia Cornwell (the Scarpetta series only). And poetry — Wallace Stevens in particular.

I’m a sensualist who loves the smell, taste, and spray of citrus fruits.

Most days, I’m outside walking and hanging out at the local coffee shop talking with friends.

SC: Why did you start a blog for the h20 library?

MW: Because I think a weblog is a useful way to post a mixture of ruminations, “what’s new” (at the library, on the website, in the world of books), ideas, reviews, interviews, and links to worthwhile sites. It seems like the right tool for the job.

Because I’d found many reference sites, book reviews and author profiles, readers’ advisory sites, etc., that I wanted to share with anyone in the world who’s interested in such things.

SC: What has been the easy aspects of posting/ hard aspects?

MW: It’s all easy …. Except choosing posts that represent a workable compromise between my interests, values, and perspective and those of the library’s and the local community’s. In other words, remembering that the weblog is not my weblog.

SC: How have patrons reacted to the blog? Can you give some examples?

MW: I no longer live in the same town as the library (for the past 2-1/2 years), so I asked the librarian to answer this. She wrote: “The ones that have said anything have said they enjoy reading what you put in. Not too many people have said anything, patron wise, but the other librarians read it a lot!” Folks on the Fiction-L listserv seem to read it…

Thanks Molly. If you would like your public library weblog highlighted, send us note and a few reasons why it is so special and unique.