Abstracting Periodicals

Blog

According to Concept Websites Ltd (http://www.conceptwebsites.com/SEO/common-terms.htm), “a blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog”.

In simple, it can be said that it is a web based website where articles posted will automatically be arranged in reverse chronological fashion or in a chronological fashion. The owner/member will post message which are sometimes rich with graph, audio, video and hyperlink periodically enabling others to view and comment. Topics often include the owner's/member’s daily life or views on a particular subject or topic of important to the group. The original post with its associated comments and discussion provide a very insight to the topic at hand.

            Many blogs are frequently updated and publicly accessible i.e they allow anybody to sign up at any time; some others are private where entry to the group is restricted. Some advanced users have server-side software, and often implement membership management and password protected areas. Others have created a mix of a blog and wiki, called a bliki.

During recent days, blog has evolved into a tool that offers some of the most insightful information on the Web. It provides self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging and becoming much more common in LIS, as librarians, libraries and library associations have begun to blog as a way of communicating with their patrons and constituents. Many librarians world wide also publish their personal blogs that offer a wealth of information about librarianship, their parent institution and sometimes to their personal lives as well.

The emergence of blogging provides a medium to give readers of the library new perspectives on the realities, as well as often offering different viewpoints from those of its official news sources. Many bloggers began to provide nearly-instant commentary on televised events, creating a secondary meaning of the word "blogging": to simultaneously transcribe and editorialize speeches and events shown on television (liveblogging).

3. Anatomy of a Blog Entry: Blog uses web interfaces that allow anyone over the Internet, to create blogs by their own. It usually does not demand the maintenance of server software by the users themselves. It also does not demand to go for the HTML. A blog entry typically consists of the following:

a) Title: The main title, or headline, of the post;

b) Body: Main content of the post;

c) Permalink: The URL of the full, individual article;

d) Post Date: Date and time the post published.

A blog entry optionally also includes the comments or feedback. Comments are a way to provide discussion on blog entries. Readers can leave a comment on a post (a way of correcting one’s error) or they can also leave their personal opinion on the previous post(s).

Blog can also be categorized based on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, legal blogs (often referred to as a blawg), Library blogs, Academic Library blogs, Librarian’s blogs and so on.

Blog also have blogrolls (i.e. links to other blogs which the owner reads or admires), and indicate the social relationship of a particular blog to those of other bloggers. Pingback (links to other sites that refer to the entry) and trackback (one of three types of Linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents) allow one blog to notify another blog, creating an inter-blog conversation. In summary, blogs engage readers and build a virtual community around a particular person or interest, which have immense implication in library and information science.