Last month the University of Minnesota Library launched UThink, a program that offers free blogs to the university community, making UM among the first university libraries to become a "blogging center." UM says blogging is key to the library's mission, both for facilitating academic discourse and from a historical collection perspective. "We are not unique in using blogs in an academic environment, but we are unique in that we saw that the university libraries could lead the effort," says UM librarian Shane Nackenrud. "We are also excited about the potential that blogs hold to create communities of interest on campus. We can [combine] blogs based on department, college, major, research interest, or specific classes and bring people together who maybe would never have met if not for the system." Nackenrud says the UThink effort is currently staffed by two people -- Nackenrud and a programmer -- but that could increase if demand grows. The library has addressed the copyright issue by assigning all rights to blog content to its creators. A mechanism allows authors to license their content through a Creative Commons license.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:00 AM
