Blogs at the University of Florida Libraries

Archive for April, 2008

To request a blog account, simply follow the guidelines from the blogging policy by submitting a syshelp with:

• the name for the blog
• purpose of the blog
• intended audience
• name of the blog administrator
• name of blog users

For example, for the Digital Library Center blog, the information is:

• name for the blog: Digital Library Center (and specify a short name if you know one, the DLC’s is digital)
• purpose of the blog: document and promote DLC activities and work
• intended audience: UF Libraries, UF, State of Florida, Caribbean, the world
• name of the blog administrator: Laurie Taylor
• name of blog users: none so far, but others may be added if they’re interested

Once you request a blog, the blog will be made as quickly as possible and then you’ll be able to go to your new blog to log in and make changes. Blogs are all listed by the primary URL + blog name. For instance, the Digital Library Center Blog is http://blogs.uflib.ufl.edu/digital. The name with a short name is useful to make sure the address is easy to type and remember.

Once you have your blog set up, you can login from the main page by clicking on the “Site admin” link under “Meta” from the side links panel. Then, after logging in, you can customize the blog appearance, write posts and pages, add links to the blogroll, change the theme, and test different options for making the blog yours.

After you have your blog and have had time to try out different options, please send any requests or questions via a syshelp. This might include general questions or requests for new themes or changes for an existing theme. Please let us know how we can help you blog!

If you’re setting up a new blog or importing your existing blog, the Library 2.0 Group is available to help. Contact all of us by emailing our list-serve address. Also, please join the Library Watercooler email list so we can all share design thoughts, skills, and questions.

We’ve loaded the themes people requested. Most are available for use, but some are broken and this is a common problem with themes so it just means there are a few less to choose from.

The themes are not yet customized because that takes individual time for each theme. Once groups have had time to choose themes and any applicable changes (like new images), then we can help implement those changes for the selected themes.

Our Digital Collections have loads of great images that can be used, including images from the University Archives, and lots more. For using images from UFDC, we also have a help page that explains how to best save the images.

The Baldwin also has amazing images and many of our existing promotional materials could be wonderful choices as well.