Social Networking & Web Tools  
RSS
Threads [ Previous | Next ]
Re: Internal blogs
Showing 6 results.
Internal blogs
9:47 AM EST 11/29/06
We want to setup a staff blog for an internal communication tool and to help the staff get comfortable with the technology. We started to do it using Blogger but then got concerned that anything we posted would be visible to the world wide webbers. While most of the stuff probably wouldn't be a big deal, on occassion we may need to discuss patron issues and we must consider patron privacy. I know that you can purchase and run blogging software, but we were really hoping to do this on the cheap (in other words FREE). Does anyone know of free or very inexpensive blogging software that we could run on our internal server? Other suggestions are welcome as well.
Re: Internal blogs
3:48 PM EDT 5/30/09 as a reply to Monique Shore.
Hi! I love the fact that more and more libraries are talking blogs these days. You might be interested in reading through the topic on The Professional Blog.

I think it's a great idea to use a private internal blog to get staff used to the idea so that they will get why it's cool and effective to start a public-facing blog. It sounds like your use of a blog will be more to elicit ongoing conversation rather than soapbox-type broadcasting by one or two individuals. Message boards are also good for this kind of communication, but I don't know of any free and easy to use software for that.

Does anyone have a handy list of all the free blog options?
Re: Internal blogs
7:41 PM EST 11/29/06 as a reply to Betha Gutsche.
I'm a big Wordpress evangelist - you can go to http://www.wordpress.org and download the software for free (and continue to use it for free). You have to have PHP (free) and the MySQL database (free) to run the software, but once you have those set up, Wordpress takes about 5 minutes to install. You can limit reading it by creating users and limiting what those users can do (such as not allowing anonymous users to read the posts) or you can stick it on an internal server and use it that way. I believe that LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com) also has a password protected option if hosting a blog yourself is not feasible. I'm also 99% positive that it's free...
Re: Internal blogs
3:42 PM EST 12/1/06 as a reply to Robin Hastings.
Robin, thanks for reading the fine print and giving a more accurate answer to the question. :-&
Re: Internal blogs
3:50 PM EDT 5/30/09 as a reply to Monique Shore.
MPOW (the Olathe Public Library) started an internal blog using WordPress. It's set up on our intranet, so that onyl staff have access to it. It was fairly easy to install, easy to set up for multiple users, and easy for staff with no knowledge of blogging to learn how to use. It's worked out really well. I've become a huge fan of WP since.
Re: Internal blogs
3:50 PM EDT 5/30/09 as a reply to Joshua Neff.
We use an internal conferencing space for this purpose. The software is from: http://forum.snitz.com/