Blogging Technologies for Outreach and Network Building

Theme: Blogging is commonly perceived as being for individuals to share their daily experiences. But what else can Web 2.0 technologies be used for? In the information and library world information dissemination and current awareness services are well-established activities. What are the impacts when you apply new collaborative technology to these well-worn traditional tasks? Description of project: DrugScope, the national drugs information charity, has been using RSS feeds and blogging for over a year. This paper presents a case study of how two projects - to streamline the dissemination of new catalogue data to our existing user group and to speed-up our acquisitions process - led to the development of the DrugScope blog and how this, in turn, afforded us networking and outreach opportunities within our own organisation, within our existing health and social care networks and within new sectors. We will cover, briefly, our use of news aggregators (Bloglines, NHS My Update, Google Alerts) to acquire information, of blogging software to create our own RSS and atom feeds, and of editorial policies to ensure focused content, before highlighting the impact blogging has had on our internal and external profiles. We will also discuss how networking assisted us in marketing our new product nationally and internationally, and how this increased the size and reach of our networks - even into the cultural sector. We will analyse the impact on our own workload, and, more significantly, the uptake of blogging within our sector - via seminars to independent health information professionals and through articles to European substance misuse specialists. The main focus of the paper is to explore the key learning points - both positive and negative - which could be applied to any professional sector - information, health, social care and beyond.