Blog Guidelines
Submitted by the Blog Committee (E.Brennan, Chair; K. Carlson, A. Chatfield, R. Johnson) to outgoing MLGSCA President, Deborah Klein on 6/29/10) for updated MLGSCA AC Manual.
5. General Blog Guidelines
a. Frequency: The blog should be updated with at least one new entry per week.
b. Length: Blog entries will vary in length but will generally be 1-5 paragraphs in length. Articles longer than two paragraphs employ the “More” page break feature in the WordPress blog software to keep multiple posts visible on the main page.
c. Submission Format: Users who would like something published on the blog should submit their idea or content to the co-chairs via email. All Newsletter Committee members will be provided with a WordPress account for contribution. Newsletter Committee members can compose, edit and publish posts.
d. Communication Style: “Blogs differ from traditional static websites by encouraging comments and creating a forum for discussion on topics.” (Task Force on Social Networking Software, Blog Guidelines: About Blogs. Available online . Articles will continue to be edited for content and tone as the MLGSCA blog is a professional communication vehicle of the association.
e. Citation style: Reference citations should follow the Journal of the Medical Library Association, except add periods after author’s initials.
f. Blog layout: Use WordPress’s default format to ensure consistency in fonts and font sizes.
g. Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are encouraged in blog posts. For purposes of the semantic web, descriptive text should be used for all hyperlinks.
i. Encouraged: “Visit the Loyola Home page for more information.”
ii. Discouraged: “Visit the Loyola Home Page for more information – click here.”
h. Comments: Comments to MLGSCA Link Blog require the commenter to indicate an email address. This decision was implemented to 1) encourage professional discourse, 2) lend to the authority of comments through attribution and 3) help combat spam by anonymous commenting. The spam filters should be installed through WordPress to prevent inappropriate commenting on the blog.
i. Categories: Each post will have at least one blog category assigned to it. The list of categories will include all committee names, MLA and other terms describing areas of frequent contributions. New categories can be added by request to the Newsletter Committee.
j. Advertising: Committee members ensure that paid advertisements are always on the front page of the newsletter blog by editing and re-posting advertisement posts as needed.
6. Publishing Guidelines (step-by-step guide to publishing blog entries)
a. Log in to WordPress.
b. Click “Posts ? Add New” from the left hand menu.
c. In the text box at the top of the page, type the title of your new post.
d. If you are copying an entry from some outside source (an email, Microsoft Word document, etc.), do the following:
i. Copy the text.
ii. Paste the text into Window’s Notepad or Macintosh’s TextEdit or any other text editor that strips the text of formatting. Simply copying from Word or an email may attach unwanted/unusual formatting and alter the appearance of the entry
iii. Copy the text from NotePad/TextEdit/other text editor.
iv. Paste into WordPress’ New Post box.
e. If you are not copying an entry from an outside source (email, Microsoft Word document, etc.), simply enter your text into the body of the message.
f. If you are comfortable writing HTML, feel free to use the “HTML” tab. If you are not comfortable writing HTML, use the “Visual” tab. The “Visual” tab allows you to create a post the same way you would create a Microsoft Word document.
g. To add formatting to posts in the “Visual” tab, use the tool bar located above the entry box. This is where you can incorporate bold, italics, hyperlinks, etc.
h. The beginning of each blog entry should list the author, if not on the Newsletter Committee, in this format: “Submitted by: Name, Title (optional), MLGSCA position (optional), Institution”.
i. The end of each blog entry should list the publication date in this format: “Posted [12/01/10]”.
j. Using the “Categories” and “Post Tags” menus on the right hand side, select any Categories your post may fall under, and add any Tags associated with the topic.
k. When finished adding/formatting text and ready to publish, click “Save Draft” in the Publish box in the upper right hand corner.
l. Click “Preview” to check for formatting errors.
m. When the post is ready, click “Publish”.