One of my favorite libraries is Seattle Public Library. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building is stunning from both outside and inside; it is a memorable space to experience. Seattle Public Library’s blog, Shelf Talk, while not exactly spectacular, is none too shabby. While very basic, it is usable and accomplishes what it needs to. From the library’s home page, visitors can navigate to the blog via an orange box to the right of the screen. The blog is also linkable from the Quick Links box on the front page, making it easy to find. Upon entering the site, the visitor is greeted with a standard image of shelves lined with books, and in front of the books, a cute if rather sad-looking cat. The books are colorful enough to balance out the sadness though, so overall, a positive first impression is made. A side note: while many libraries are trying to dispel the idea that they are only about books, many of the images they use are still all about books (see also: the banner for this blog), very possibly because a row or pile of books is just that appealing.
Shelf Talk's sad cat
The Seattle Public Library’s logo sits below the banner image on the blog, which when clicked on takes the visitor back to the library main page. This is good because navigability is just as important as content, and visitors will appreciate both not being abandoned and not having their time wasted. The clearly visible connection between a library and its blog is key. Below the library logo is a Facebook invitation, showing a thumbnail image of the library and the number of Seattle Public Library ‘fans’: 14,048 at the time of this writing. This shows that SPL is well connected and has a community of followers. It also gives visitors an option to increase their engagement with the library.
A bright yellow icon, Push To Talk, announces SPL’s blog for teens. Teen blogs are a great idea, but I wonder how blogs compare as a form in popularity with other social media, such as Twitter or Facebook for teens. 
There are several effective features in this teen blog: 1) Giant light-blue tags above the title of each entry are an innovative use of tagging. Above an entry inviting teens to complete a survey and enter a contest, for example, the tags “free stuff,” “homework” (the survey is about the Homework Help program) and “opinions” appear in big font. Clicking on “free stuff” brings you to a feed with other posts relating to free stuff. This is offered with more common tag formats: a tag cloud, a Categories widget with a drop-down menu, and a search box. Combined, these features improve navigability and encourage further exploration of the site – thumbs up! 2) The posts are a mix of short book reviews and extracts from longer posts accompanied by colorful images. The shorter entries keep the page visually interesting, and if teens want to read a full post, they can click on “Read the rest of this entry.” 3) A paragraph explaining that the blog is written by teens and librarians, with a promise that it will be entertaining and interesting, shows savvy and openness on the part of the blog hosts. The email address of the blog is also provided. This makes me wonder: how much hand-holding is there? From a quick perusal of three pages of entries, slightly more entries seem to be written by librarians, but the balance is pretty evenly distributed between teens and librarians. The posts are interesting: for example, one about teen zines written by a librarian, and two by teen bloggers about Salvador Dali and Jon Stewart. Overall, this is a good collaborative effort. 4) A blogroll of YA author blogs is also provided, which is an excellent way to connect teens with authors.
The adult blog is a readers’ advisory blog. Each entry has a theme and is broken up into paragraphs with lots of hyperlinks and images of book covers. The entries are written by different librarians, which makes for a variety of writing styles and voices. This multiplicity of styles seems appropriate to a public library sensibility. I like the use of themes as a conceit to discuss several items from the library catalogue. One downside of the blog is that you have to scroll down pretty far to get to the “older posts” link, so I would suggest making the pages shorter. Overall, Seattle Public Library does a good job of representing the “general interest” genre of public library blogs.
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