For the first time in the history of our blog, we the writers are of two different minds. We will share our thoughts with you, lovely reader, individually.

Heather’s thoughts:
I personally have always thought of blogs as like a digital way to stand alone and scream unheard into the void. This assignment has not changed that. There are so so so many blogs out there on the interwebs way more than humanity can consume at a reasonable rate. Of course, much like anything else on the internet, a very small percentage of the total number of blogs are “discovered” and do go massively viral, while a slightly larger amount are noticed and do gather a decent following. However, most blogs are obscure, and so not have much, if any, followers. The most popular blogs with the biggest following are almost (if not actually) a full time job. The amount of work that is put into aesthetics, posts, original content, and marketing is clearly even though the best blogs appear to be almost effortless in their maintenance and creation. It is kind of ironic, but even though we ran a blog on the importance of social media and marketing (specifically to libraries), we did absolutely no marketing of our blog. The only followers we gained were people who personally knew is, and the only comments we got were from our classmates, who were required to comment. (Notwithstanding the copious amount of spam comments, wordpress was helpful enough to mark as spam and separate for us.) I think that a good blog could be a helpful way to share information with both library patrons and/or industry professionals, (since you have to go somewhere to get the information, rather than being spammed with a ton of unwanted emails that you have to deal with and ultimately get so frustrated with the information overload that you end up unsubscribing). But the problem with creating a successful and professional blog is that it takes a lot of time and effort, which most people don’t have unless their blog is their job.

Kelly’s thoughts:
Over the last handful of weeks posting to this blog I have come to realize a number of things. Firstly, maintaining a consistent uploading schedule is so much easier when having deadlines in place and having a fantastic partner to collaborate with. With this being my first ever blog I am glad that I had someone to share it with and to come up with funny and punny titles alongside. When it came to exploring the features and aspects of creating the blog it made dealing with any problems, like trying to get templates to work and embedding links, a much less stressful endeavor. Using this type of platform to delve into topics concerning libraries was very enlightening and I feel like this kind of blog specifically may be more appropriate to share amongst colleagues more so than the average library patron. With all that being said it has been a pleasure to write on this blog with my fabulous blog partner and I hope you the reader have enjoyed the journey as well. We bid you a good day and a lifetime full of adventures!