Guest Posts on Blogs

Bloggers of the world beware!  Individuals want to perpetrate scams by posing as guest bloggers on your blog.  Other bloggers have written about this already.  The Alpha Parent has written a post titled "Bloggers Beware: Guest Post Scams!"  She speaks from experience, having posted an article written by a guest.  Now she knows not to do this.  To her credit she did not include one hyperlink within the guest's post, because it did not seem relevant to the rest of her post.  Later on the guest asked that she include the link and kept pestering her to do that.  This was the intent--to increase traffic to their site.

Longrider expounds a bit more in his post titled "The Guest Post Scam."  I have only had one guest post on my blog.  It's truly flattering when someone comes knocking on your door saying how they like your blog and want to write something for your blog.  Sofia Rasmussen wanted to write about Creative Writing PhDs five or six months ago, so I looked into her and decided to let her post.  Her links appeared to be mostly legitimate, though it did seem she wanted to promote the Online PhD website, which did not seem like a big deal, considering that the link related to the content in her post. 

This week I received an email from the Online PhD website owners:

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Mcnealy [mailto:joseph.mcnealy[at]onlinephd.org]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 12:00 PM
To: xxxxxxxx@isu.edu
Subject: Link Removal Request - OnlinePHD.org

Hello,
        You currently have a link on your site pointing to our OnlinePHD.org
website.  We have recently received warning from Google that they are
suspicious of link trading schemes surrounding this, and we want to make
sure that you are taking the necessary precautionary measures so that your
site is not adversely affected.

We are requesting that you remove the link back to our site.

The link on your page can be found at the URL below:

http://spencerjardine.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-happening-to-all-creative-w
riting.html

Please let us know once the link has been removed.  Thank you in advance for
your cooperation and sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this may have
caused.

Best regards,

Joseph Mcnealy
joseph.mcnealy@onlinephd.org
OnlinePHD.org

It appears that Google has been trying to deal with "link trading schemes," which seems like a good thing.  If suddenly the results on their searches are unfairly schewed, then their search engine produce becomes less valuable.

In response to their request, I have made a screenshot image of their Online PhD website.  Hopefully, this answers their question.  Perhaps I ought to be a bit more careful who I allow to post to my blog.

It never hurts to apply the tried-and-true evaluation criteria.  Here's a page on the ISU website with some criteria worth applying: Evaluating Information--Applying the CRAAP Test.

Choosing a Peer-Reviewed Journal in Which to Publish

As an assistant professor I need to publish in order to qualify for tenure.  Recently I resurrected a graduate student paper I had written for a History of Reading class I once took at the University of Iowa's School of Library and Information Science (SLIS).  Essentially, the paper uses Louis H. Sullivan's Autobiography of an Idea as a primary source, citing references to his personal readings that contributed to his aesthetic and artistic philosophy. 

After revising this paper a bit, I had intended to submit this article to a certain regional, peer-reviewed journal.  My supervisor advised me to publish in a national journal instead.  "What's the worst that can happen?  They say 'no.'"  This makes sense, so now I am starting to think of national journals in which I can submit my manuscript. 

First, I thought to ask my former professor (the one who taught the History of Reading class).  She has responded, saying that she remembers my paper even from the first time I had written it.  Due to her busy schedule she may not be able to look at if for two to three weeks, but this would still be great to get some feedback from her.

Second, I thought to look at Writer's Market, thinking that it would give some suggestions on where I might be able to publish.  Unfortunately, this is not the right tool.  If a writer want to make money writing, then this is the correct tool, because it focuses how much specific magazines pay for accepted submissions.  A writer can also identify the various markets available for publishing: Animal, Aviation, Business, Health and Fitness, Humor, Juvenile, Photography, Sports, and many more.  The book includes sections on promoting your work, managing your work, and finding work with short essays on "Feature Article Writing," "Contract Negotiation," and "The Art of Promoting," just to name a few.

As a blogger, the essay titled "Blogging Basics: Get the Most Out of Your Blog" naturally caught my eye (I believe he is the main editor for Writer's Market as well).  Robert Lee Brewer gives some great tips.  It was gratifying to see that I had actually followed one recommendation without even knowing it: "Use your name in your URL."  (Searching his name in a search engine will bring up his two main blogs.  He writes the blog titled My Name is Not Bob, while it does not have his real name in the blog title, it is the URL.)  He says: "This will make it easier for search engines to find you when your audience eventually starts seeking you out by name."  While I have not put my name in the title of my blog, I did update the description by adding my name and trying to be a bit more welcoming.  I used to say the readers should remember to keep copyright laws and maintain civility, that I have the right to delete comments.  While I still support these ideas, they did not seem very inviting or welcoming.

Anyway, I digress.  My supervisor recommended using Ulrichs Periodical Directory, aka Ulrichs Web.  In reality I looked up Ulrichs Web before looking at Writer's Market, but it did not seem to be as promising.  The results list were quite lengthy.  True, it tells you the names of many periodicals and if they are peer reviewed or not.  It even gives a basic description of the title, what kinds of articles they publish and for which audience.  I believe I searched with the terms "history" and "reading."  Perhaps I should go back and try a few different searches to see what I get.

A fourth option: open some scholarly databases and search using keywords related to my topic to see in which journals they are found.  Looks like I have some work to do.

Teaching with Technology

Using technology to teach students has become a reality of life, and in library land it seems that using technology and social networking sites continues to be trendy.  In an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Julie Meloni offers instructors at the college level some potentially useful forms of technology that might be helpful.  She warns readers to be careful, though, because the newest technology should not be adopted just to jump on a bandwagon: "Whatever the level of technology, and regardless of our comfort level with it, remember that for all that educational technology can offer us through new communication methods and the ability to reach a wider range of students, it is no panacea.  An instructor must still deliver relevant material, enable students to achieve the goals of the course, and assess their work."


After the disclaimer, she expresses the idea that communication often figures as one of the main problems in a course.  Technology can can bridge the communication gap between students and instructors.  Four technologies can be useful in this regard:

1. Discussion boards
2. Blogs
3. Social-networking sites
4. E-mail and e-mail lists

As communication tools, they work.  A few years ago, I did see an information-literacy course that incorporated blogs into the assignments, and the students seemed to take off thrive in this medium as a way to write about their searching experiences for sources.  They discussed the sources they found and why they would or would not use the sources.  It seemed like a great idea.  Meloni declares that "individual blogs are my favorite," saying that she will recapitulate class discussions and highlight main points on her blog, and students will ask follow-up questions there. 

Many within academia may tout the usefulness of learning management software programs like Blackboard and Moodle, but Meloni argues that "individual instructors often find these platforms too cumbersome."  The free, cloud-based technologies seem to function better.

Meloni also talked a little about the usefulness of Zotero and Mendeley, as well as the importance of collaboration with students, experts on campus, and instructors at other institutions.  Making course materials freely available online certainly opens up the gates for collaboration with individuals at other institutions.  Sharing a syllabus, for example, elicited invitation sent to her to collaborate on conference panels and even publications.

It is a good article.  Take a look at it:

Meloni, Julie.  "Technologies for Teaching: Strategies and Pitfalls."  Chronicle of Higher Education 57.11 (2010): B22-B24.  Academic Search Complete.  EBSCO.  Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

Finding Government Contact Information

At the reference desk we have a great resource for those looking to find contact information to government agencies, Congress, and a few nongovernmental organizations.

Washington Information Directory 2009-2010: The Definitive Source for Finding and Making Contacts at U.S. Government and Nongovernmental Organizations in Washington, DC.  Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009.

Like many good reference resources, the directory includes a useful section on "How to Use This Directory" toward the front of the book. It interprets the various elements of an entry, telling which part indicates the parent organization alongside all of the contact information.  When no city is listed, the directory says to assume Washington, DC, so if any mail needs to be sent to a particular agency, the sender is advised to write Washington, DC before the zip code.  They do this to save on space within the directory. "Departments and agencies generally have their own zip code" (xi).  For example, the Senate's Office Buildings have the zip code 20510, and the House's Office Buildings have 20515 as the zip code.

They recommend that individuals with questions "first" call the toll free numbers whenever those are available.  "Often you can get the answer you need without searching any further.  If not, an explanation of your query should put you in touch with the person who can answer your question."  The directory provides fax numbers in case persons want to share more complex information that way, rather than over the phone.

Internet and e-mail can be effective means for communicating with government offices.  Lots of information can be found via government websites; however, the directory offers the following disclaimer if you will:

If you have Internet access, try the Web site, but bear in mind that this approach is not always faster or better than a phone call: connections can be slow, menus can be complex or confusing, and information can be incomplete or out of date. (xi)

Three indexes at the end of the book can prove helpful in locating information more quickly:

1. Name Index
2. Organization Index
3. Subject Index

Organizational charts appear throughout the volume, particularly for the larger agencies.

Here's a sample entry among the thousands listed:

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 4330 East-West Hwy., #519, Bethesda, MD 20814; (301) 504-7908. Fax, (301) 504-0399. Nancy Nord, Chair (Acting); Patricia Semple, Executive Director. TTY, (800) 638-8270. Public Affairs, (301) 504-7908. Congressional Relations, (301) 504-7903. Product safety hotline, (800) 638-2772.

General e-mail, info@cpsc.gov

Web, www.cpsc.gov

 Establishes and enforces product safety standards; collects data; studies the causes and prevention of product-related injuries; identifies hazardous products, including imports, and recalls them from the marketplace.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission fits under the large umbrella of "Consumer Protection."  Other agencies and departments under this tent include but are not limited to:

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC)
• Transportation Dept. (DOT), Aviation Consumer Protection
• Consumers Union of the United States (This is a nongovernmental group aka NGO.)
• Comptroller of the Currency (Treasury Dept.)
• National Injury Information Clearinghouse (Consumer Product Safety Commission)
• Cosmetic Ingredient Review (This is an NGO.)
• Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)

 This directory includes a list of all the U.S. representatives and senators in the 111th Congress as well as all of the congressional committee assignments.

Academic Blogs

Many professors blog about their research, teaching, and administrative duties, as well as issues they encounter in higher education. The Academic Blogs wiki classifies these academic blogs according to discipline. If you wish to keep up-to-date in your field or to understand what interests others academics, take a look.

Each of the disciplines are represented, i.e. social sciences, humanities, sciences, professional and useful arts, etc.

Have you found a blog that has been particularly useful for you?

Apparently, Salem Press has even given awards to the best library blogs, according to the following categories:

• General Library Blogs


• Quirky Library Blogs


• Academic Library Blogs


• Public Library Blogs


• School Library Blogs

Honestly, I often feel overwhelmed with all of the information out there, and I often feel technologically averse, as well as a laggard in adopting new technologies. For example, I still have not developed the habit of using a blog reader to keep up on technologies, news, or information-literacy developments. I still gather information literacy and instruction ideas from the now prosaic (definition: dull; unexciting; lacking in poetic expression, feeling, or imagination; unromantic; commonplace; mundane) listserv. It still works, but it seems that many in my generation have moved on to blogs as a source for professional ideas and so forth.

Admittedly, the only time I see some of the blogs that are of interest to me is when I come to write on my own blog. After logging in, I see new feeds to recent posts from a variety of blogs I have chosen to follow. Though I have an account to Bloglines, I never log in to keep up to date. It might be worthwhile to give it a try again.

By the way, one of the best academic library blogs out there is "In the Library with the Lead Pipe." A team of librarians commit to post regularly to this blog, and they do their homework well, contributing interesting ideas on a variety of topics germane to academic librarianship. It does help to know one of the authors, Kim Leeder, who attends the Idaho Library Association's Annual Conference each year in October.

Recommended Information Literacy Videos

This afternoon I came across a blog with some new videos that might be of interest to you: Information Literacy meets Library 2.0/. One video describes the differences between scholarly journals and magazines. Another talks about the difference between Google and databases. The last one discusses the differences between respectable newspapers and tabloids.

I like how the two librarians square off against each other in these debates, and I like their British accents, though at times they vary their volumes/inflections so that I have a hard time hearing and the one on the right (Pete?) is so soft spoken that it is often hard to hear him.

As far as humor goes, they are lacking in that department, but the videos are still well done and thought out. Librarians who give instruction might consider using these videos to teach their students some of the information-literacy basics. Be forewarned, though, that the databases your library uses may differ from the ones used by Al and Pete at their library.

Google Information Behavior

Google Analytics allows people to see how many people are coming to their website, which sites referred them to the site, and which terms they entered in a search engine to find the site. It's interesting and flattering to find out that people from India, Australia, Russia, England, etc. have visited my site before. Of course, the vast majority if individuals viewing my blog come from the United States and Canada.

Don't worry, I have no reason to be cocky as soon as I see how long people stay on any given page. My bounce rate is too high. It does feel good to see which entries get looked at the most and for the longest amount of time. At any rate, looking at this usage data does motivate me to write more posts to my blog. The more blog posts I write, the more that people will likely see my blog

Currently, my blog is up 9.27% over the last month in number of visitors, with 271 visits who averaged one minute twelve seconds (1:12) on my site. In the last month only 9.96% were repeat visitors, indicating that a clear majority found my site via a search engine. Actually, the "Traffic Sources Overview" shows that 8.49% came to my site directly, 15.50% came from referring sites (sites with lists of information-literacy/library blogs), and 76.01% from search engines. Increasing my post frequency and quality would likely increase my number of repeat visitors.

It's particularly interesting to me to see which Google search terms brought individuals to my blog. "College reading strategies" always seems to draw several people to my blog each month. It's often at the top of my most-viewed posts, but not far behind that is my post on the difference between a catalog and an index, though the searchers often use different sorts of terms and combinations of terms to find it. Many have found my site looking for a la carte menus for library instruction. It seems that my most faithful audience out there consists of other librarians, which totally makes sense, considering the subject matter of my posts.

Quite a number of individuals have found my site by conducting various searches on the differences between the Greek gods, Dionysus and Apollo, and their philosophies.

Of the 186 searches that found my site, there were 106 searches that contained more than three words. People understand they can enter lots of words, including prepositions, into a search, and this will often yield the right kinds of results they are seeking.

The person who conducted this search "inblogtitle:"information literacy" university" stayed on my site the longest (26 mins.) and actually viewed 4 different pages. (Thank you, and I hope you come back.) It's probably a librarian or a library-science student. In second place, someone who searched on the following terms: "scholarships and grants reference book," stayed on the site for 20 minutes and visited two pages. Third place goes to the information seeker who used these keywords: "craap test worksheet activity quiz" with a time of 7:28.

Particularly for librarians, it is interesting to think about the information behavior and practice of different individuals, which reminds me that I need to go back and look at that post to remember what the difference is between information behavior and information practice.

Thank you for visiting my blog. : ) Please comment and let me know what you think.

Apollo vs. Dionysus

Since I started using Google Analytics, I have noticed trends over time. One trend seems to perfectly match a phenomenon my humanities teacher at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) brought to my class's attention. He commented that Apollo ruled the college campus on Tuesday night (perhaps even Monday and Wednesday nights), while Dionysus reigned over the weekend.

Apollo, the god of reason, guides humans to intellectual endeavors and contributing to society. Dionysus, on the other hand, was the god of wine and revelry. This blog, with its focus on finding information (particularly in an academic/education) setting, seems to be accessed most during the middle of the week, notably on Tuesdays, while it is not uncommon for it to go unnoticed on the weekends.

Information behavior of the population at large is probably rather predictable. No doubt, there are probably articles written about this and that marketers and advertisers understand this phenomenon.

Using Google Analytics to Track Usage of Your Websites or Blogs

Not too long ago I learned that it was possible to track the number of visitors who come and visit your website or blog. I decided to give it a try and began an account with Google Analytics. This account remains free to me for now. I do not know enough about it right now to say whether or not it would charge for more specific data gathering or crunching.

Anyway, I largely forgot about this, until recently I wondered if it had gathered any statistics for me. It shows a report of the last month's activity on my site. Apparently, 139 people have viewed my blog in the last month, but these people have visited it 149 times. It's likely that I am the only repeat visitor. Please tell me if this is not the case. 70.75% found my blog via a search engine. 19.05% found the site from a referring site, perhaps a blog reader. That leaves 10.20% who visit this blog directly, so I guess that would be me. 50 pages were viewed a total of 216 times.

How should I interpret this data? I do not know for sure, but the cool thing I liked about the report was it's feature that showed me which pages were visited the most. It gave a top four list:
1. Library Instruction A La Carte Information Literacy
2. Updated Teaching Philosophy
3. Active Learning Ideas
4. How Do You Know if it's Scholarly

I like how it shows the average amount of time a person viewed your page. The "Updated Teaching Philosophy" averaged about 8 minutes a view, while the "Active Learning Ideas" page was viewed about 6 minutes a view. It's just fascinating to me that I can track this now. I'm not sure how this will affect what I do with my blog. It seems that the proprietors of the blog applications and the analytics applications would want you to understand a bit how you are reaching out to the world, perhaps that would inspire the blogger to write a bit more and consider topics that would appeal to a larger audience.

We shall see if I write about this more in the future. There are certainly sites and blogs that discuss ways in which the bloggers can make their blogs more prominent and visible.