“My major criteria for the blog recommendations are consistent posting over time, frequency (more than once a week), sticking to the topic, and a general sense of value to a public librarian . (Shifted Librarian).
Basically, readers want an article that amazes, surprises, touches, amuses, tells them something they couldn’t know otherwise. As editor/writer, you yourself have to:
- create and maintain an identity
- provide a varied menu of posts
- edit for narrative line, drama, color, pacing, and have a strong point of view.
- solicit and acquire content if your own is not enough.
- come up with ideas for posts.
- imagine what your readers will want to see in the future.
- care about physical layout of graphics, information, and headlines that are easy for your audience.
Some blogs like The Shifted Librarian are so content rich the layout can be functional if not lovely. Others with a more visual emphasis, where layout and visuals are key parts of what people like to see, you have to pay a lot more attention to an aesthetically satisfying experience.
