Incorporating a Hybrid Blog for the Medical Library into a Hospital Intranet Web Site

Abstract

Hospital librarians need a mechanism for sharing up-to-date information with the staff they serve. The reasons will vary but can include announcing newly acquired print and online materials, explaining new services, providing updates on electronic resources, sharing quality online health information links, and generally being a means of distributing frequent bits of information. Having a Web page on the hospital's intranet is an important means of sharing static information that is updated only occasionally. But for more frequent communication, another means is needed, one that is under the control of the librarian. Blogs are an incredible tool for sharing information and are expanding in many arenas. This article explains the research effort by a hospital librarian at a mid-sized regional medical center to work with the information technology (IT) Web specialists to create a means of incorporating a blog into the organization's intranet system. The resultant hybrid blog has some of the characteristics of traditional blogs, but is adapted to meet the needs of the medical center's intranet platform. It has expanded the range of tools available to the librarian to share information within a large organization.

KEYWORDS:

• blogs
• hospital communication systems
• hospital libraries
• information dissemination
• intranets

Notes

Comments and suggestions should be sent to the column editors: Donna Beales (E-mail; [email protected]); Beth Carlin (E-mail: [email protected]); and Sally A. Harvey (E-mail; [email protected]).