I read Corey’s post on the use of wikis in team environments and was writing up a comment when I realised I’d gone off topic. So, I snipped the last bit from the comment and decided to develop it further here…
I was thinking today about how blogs could be used to manage other kinds of information than the traditional chronological journal type of writings.
An organisation could use it to manage feedback forms from people attending training or professional development. A post template could be constructed with each of the fields that need to be completed. The attendee could then fill in the details – their name would be recorded as the poster – and adjust the post time settings to the date/time of the training they attended. Categories could be used to track similar types of events “workshop, seminar, conference”, training providers and topics.
If posts were searchable that would be the icing on the cake. This is really just exploiting the database nature of blogs, and it could be extended to a heap of other types of forms/information that need to be archived and searched.
So what else can blogs be used for?
Blog masquerading as an e-book – The Castle of Otranto – Blogger
Blog masquerading as a product review site – Chaitgear – WordPress
Blog masquerading as a coupon site – Percent Savings – WordPress
Blog masquerading as a church website – St. John’s Episcopal Church – WordPress
Blog masquerading as a dictionary – Money Terms – WordPress
Blog masquerading as an e-magazine – Boxes and Arrows – Movable Type
……………………….as a business website – Adaptive Path – Movable Type
……………………….as recipe catalogue – shoebox of recipes – WordPress
Food for thought there (excuse the pun on that last entry). WordPress and Movable Type appear to have a wealth of features adequate for many simple websites. Any library websites out there managed in a blog? or links to other creative uses of blog.
Photograph by A@lbi (CC licence)
P.S. How could I forget to mention blog masquerading as a PowerPoint presentation — Staying ahead of your patrons with weblogs and rss by Steven Cohen — Blogger?
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July 27, 2006 at 06:27
And don’t forget blog as OPAC! Casey Bisson has been experimenting using WordPress for the catalogue of Plymouth State University in the US… Lamson Library OPAC is intriguing. Casey writes more about it on his blog.
July 30, 2006 at 12:26
More creative uses of blogs..
Western Springs History Photographs
Thomas Ford Memorial Library, Index of obituaries This link is not working today, but try again later, or read this post about the project.
And closer to home… Mosman Public Library photo collection1 and 2. If someone from Mosman is reading, what blogging software did you use for this?
August 4, 2006 at 14:01
hi Peta, these are Typepad galleries. But they’ll be moved over to our new Flickr account soon. Flickr is all about photos, making it easier to upload and maintain galleries. Plus you get all the benefits of tagging and community.
August 4, 2006 at 14:03
By the way, you may be interested in Mosman Memories of Your Street which is essentially a blog (uses Textpattern software) but with multiple community authors who can create accounts for themselves.
August 30, 2006 at 16:00
I’m fairly sure Debbie Weil said she used blogging software to set up her website http://www.debbieweil.com/