Like the great country of Australia, the National Art School in Sidney doesn’t mince words in describing themselves to the wider world. Here’s the beginning of their About page:
The National Art School is the oldest, most prestigious visual arts institute in Australia with origins that can be traced back to 1843. It has a rich tradition of artistic practice and a well-renowned alumni.
Art school has always seemed like a forward-thinking place of the future to me. Maybe it’s all that abstract post-modernness, avant-garde attitude and computer modelling, but I just expect the students and faculty to be hip AND happening on the cyber scene. And, low and behold, they offer a very nice set of Web 2.0 tools through their library site.
The whole 2.0 package hangs like well-chiseled marble off of the NAS Library blog. Following a fine tradition of really boring blog names, they’ve dubbed theirs “National Art School Library: News, resources and tips of interest to the students and staff of the National Art School.” Surely a wee bit of time and creativity could have gone into coming up with something more inspiring. Same goes for the postings, which are pretty much like the University of Alberta blog I just reviewed, but with even less “news” or individual, personalized content. I’m sure it’s an attempt to seem professional and serious, but the aloofness of these official blogs for academic libraries is a little baffling. Your blogging librarian doesn’t have to be your best friend, but neither do they have to be an automaton, spewing out the latest acquisitions, events, library hours, and student prize possibilities, as does the NAS Library blog. Well, automaton is a little extreme - they occasionally use exclamation points! and use words like “tricky”. But their list of new journals posted on March 12, 2008 couldn’t be more bare bones. There’s also an issue with the design - white on black is always a little “tricky” to read for any length of time, which is maybe why they keep the posting so skeletal.
(April 14, 2008 — Wow - the Cyber Librarian didn’t know she had amazing powers of suggestion. A trip back to this blog reveals they’ve changed their stylesheet entirely. Now, it could be that they’re just trying to match the overall style of the sight, but I think it’s a little coincidental they chose to make their move only DAYS after my posting. CL)
At least the whole package is easy to use - the blog layout makes all the attached tools readily apparent and accessible with a click - and easy to find - the link to the blog is way down at the bottom of the main library page BUT it’s by itself in a sea of whitespace, is clearly labelled and the page isn’t really that long.
However, as I suspected they would - those cheeky art school librarians - the NAS bloggers (Kelly, Naomi, Elizabeth and Lea) have done the optional features proud. They’ve included the regular blog add-ons, like in-houses links (to the NAS’s homepage, the library catalogue, the NAS blog, and the library student gallery blog), links to a new materials list at the library, links to the library’s subscription indexes, and links to web resources recommended by NAS librarians, plus an RSS feed to get the blog delivered to your reader or portal. They’ve included a Clustr visitor map, which isn’t really useful, but is at least a bit of whimsy on this dark page.
One of the very nice features that shows these bloggers know their 2.0 is the inclusion of a del.icio.us bookmark page as the NAS Library’s Favourites. By choosing to host the page hosted on del.icio.us, the NAS libary bloggers have given their student clientele all the benefits of social bookmarking, including tagging (viewed as a list or a cloud, alphabetically or by frequency of use, by minimum use of 1, 2 or 5), popularity designators, one-click addition to their own bookmark lists, an RSS feed for the page, and whatever else the del.icio.us people decide to throw into the mix next. They also tap into the well-tested help page posted by del.icio.us on using their site, thereby saving valuable time for busy NAS librarians.
While I was bipping around the del.icio.us site, I checked out their blog and found this great endorsement for the service. You could call it shameless self-promotion, but I wouldn’t. It’s a thoughtful, hyperbole-free and well-linked resource on the history of del.icio.us and its practical classroom and library applications. (The NAS Library bloggers should use it as a model to add a little more fire to their own postings.) I didn’t truly see the appeal of del.icio.us for academic applications until I reviewed the tool in conjunction with the NAS Library blog. This would be a service of the NAS Library I would definitely use as a starting point on every paper and project - no more high recall, low precision Google searches!
Another way the NAS library bloggers are showing their 2.0 savvy is their use of Flickr as a posting mechanism for their student exhibition flyers. Like del.icio.us, this is something the librarians could most likely do themselves with the blogging software, but why would they? Flickr allows them to post within their blog and with the NAS portion of the Flickr site, where they are searchable and can be viewed in a larger format. And, like del.icio.us, there’s a help page posted by the pros at Flickr and ready to go. Unfortunately, the design of most these flyers is not taking into account the thumbnail display on the blog side and the Flickr album page. Text is predominent and impossible to read, which leads to an un-enticing visual, blasphemy for art school students. The latest in this series seems to have learned the lesson of those who went before and has created an artistic promotional piece that can actually be read in both sizes. (The graphic was created by James Shirlaw - nice job!)
The NAS Flilckr album is not all business - they’ve also posted some fun images from an event in 2007 that both creates a sense of the social network of this institutions’ students and could act as a recruiting tool for prospective students that happen by.
When I first happened by the NAS Library blog, I read their declaration that “Australia’s National Art School, based in the premier arts precinct of Sydney is a centre of excellence in studio based visual arts, with a high quality specialist library supporting the learning and research of its staff and students” with a bit of a knowing smirk. After reviewing the blog for its 2.o applications, I have to admit I’m now wearing a smile instead.
1 response so far ↓
Hey, thanks for your comments - you’ve given us some food for thought. Something you might want to consider in your review of different libraries’ use of web 2.0 is the way it has allowed libraries with very limited resources to increase their reach within their own client group and in the wider world. One result of this is the many imperfect manifestations of library 2.0 available online - we do what we can with the time, skills, and free tools available. Sometimes we don’t use the tools in the way in which they were originally intended and usually we jump into using a new tool because we see how it can fill a gap for us. So there are often some clumsy results, but I think most of us hope to learn to do better over time.
One of your criticisms is our boring name - we actually did consider coming up with a more interesting name but in the end decided to stick with just plain old “National Art School Library” (we dropped the rest of the title description) because it just makes it clear who we are. Our blog is really an extension of the web site and came into being because we are in the unfortunate position of having severe and frustrating restrictions on our website (put in place by our much bigger parent organisation). So it probably does seem a little dull in comparison to blogs that have been set up specifically to cater to and be part of the 2.0 world. But it works well for us.
There is probably a big difference between a library blog administered by a few dedicated staff who are employed specifically to work with electronic resources and communication and one like ours where all staff are on board pitching in when they can. I’m not sure whether it’s obvious from our online presence but this is actually a very very small school (372 students) with an even smaller budget and only one full-time library staff member. So when classes are on, we don’t have time for much more than “bare bones” posts, but at least we get the information out there.
I’m glad you liked our use of del.icio.us and flickr. I started using the flickr badge because a couple of students had asked if we could post their exhibition flyer on the blog - and this seemed to be the easiest way to do it and keep it visible. So the flyers’ text is not really legible in thumbnail size because they’re not designed for use on the blog - they’re meant to be printed. But it still works well when you click through to get the full image.
I did sort of agree with you about the black background - so the plan to change the blog’s look has been in the works for a few months now. I’ve always found the school’s official blue just a teensy bit dull but felt it was best to keep it all looking similar. We’ve just gone on mid-semester break here so I’ve finally had time to do it. If you look at the NAS blog (http://nationalartschool.blogspot.com) you’ll see we’ve also re-branded that one too. Sadly I don’t think it’s taken the change quite as well! (I might have to set up a flickr badge there for a bit of colour).
It’s interesting that you’ve picked up on a few things that I’ve been thinking about in relation to our blog. You make some very valid points so I thought you might be interested in hearing some of the rationale and impetus behind our decisions and practices (and since classes aren’t on, I actually have a little time to write!).
Thanks for checking us out
Kelly McKeon
Library Manager
National Art School
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