Joining the #edublogsclub community

As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education, this week’s topic focuses on sharing my blogging story.

I’m excited to be embarking on expanding what I do with my blog both to encourage more readership as well as diversify the content to avoid straight book recommendations all of the time. Book recommendations and reviews came along as the theme for the blog simply because it was the easiest thing to start with and because I was blogging on other platforms which different target audiences and satiated that need to talk about something other than books I was reading there rather than incorporating it into mine.

So while I’m not a newbie, I’m also not a veteran either. I would consider a veteran someone who has honed in on their authentic voice, figured out exactly what they enjoy sharing, and what their followers like reading. This is exactly what I’d like to be able to ask of other bloggers- how have you built your audience and do you stick to what you want to share or “listen” and alter your content based on feedback? How do you solicit that feedback? My fear is that blogging is all for naught if I don’t start gaining some followers, though I like the medium and platform I use. My goal for 2017 is to find my voice, not specifically in my writing style, but in what I want to share and what’s important to me as a librarian. Essentially answer the question: what do I have to offer?

The creation of a blog was also born from a need to add another voice and give back to my community and colleagues who I follow, respect, and learn from daily. A few of my favorites include The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shhh!, Librarian Leaps, and YALSA’s The Hub. And I  confess that I limit my list based on those bloggers who offer an email subscription simply because I like my content delivered in an email when a new post is made so I can save it, share it out, or be able to go back and refer to it again. I need it neatly delivered to my inbox!

Here is to learning with the Edublogs community!