Good work on your test blogs today, HH students. Now that you have access to the site and permission to publish, you're all set to start setting up your Bestiary of the Book blog post.
The word "blog," short for "weblog," is not a word that most of my current students actively use, but it describes something that we all recognize: a short online post that tells a story with both words and images. We'll be working to create our own Bestiary of the Book blogs, so I wanted to share a few quick examples students might look to for visual design ideas.
By the way, one thing most of these blog posts have in common is that they're written by guest contributors. The skills you're learning now should help you to feel confident offering or agreeing to write guest posts in the future for organizations whose interests and activities line up with yours.
From The Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare & Beyond blog
What I love: Detailed image captions; visual variety; lots of embedded links to outside sources.
From The Morgan Library & Museum's Tales From the Reading Room blog
What I love: Staggered images with wrapping text; images that show bookish interaction (face, hands); vivid colors
From The Newberry Library's Source Material blog
What I love: Image variety—including a short video; active conversation in the comments; timeliness of the post
From The Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries blog
What I love: Image of bookmaking; vivid colors; emphasis on collection items that are less well known and much more modern
From The Association for the Study of Literature & the Environment (ASLE) blog
I wanted to highlight this blog post I wrote and revised and rewrote earlier this semester. I feel your pain. It takes time to write well. You'll notice that I highlight our Bestiary of the Book project at the end—I'll be sure to share this project with ASLE's readers when we're done!
