Blogs and Blog Readers

So many blogs, so little time…

As one begins this journey into school librarianship, it’s easy to get sucked down the proverbial rabbit hole that is the internet. With hundreds of enticing blogs to choose from, a girl (or guy) could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the glut of choices. After spending more hours than I would care to admit to my husband clicking through link after link trying to find the “baby bear” blogs that are just right for me, I have finally narrowed it down to my top five favorites that I will be following as I continue this adventure. Read on to learn more about these blogs and why I picked them.


Mrs. ReaderPants (http://www.readerpants.net)

New Release Spotlight

As a brand-new new high school librarian who is still working on my MLS degree, the learning curve can be steep and there never seems to be enough time. I discovered Mrs. ReaderPants (aka Leigh Collazo) early in the school year and she quickly became one of my lifelines. Her blog has an entire section dedicated to helping “newbies” navigate school librarianship and another that focuses on genrefication, and she regularly shares her TPT content for free or half-price with her readers. Where this blog really shines, however, is in the weely “New Release Spotlight.” Every Tuesday, Collazo rounds up that week’s notable new releases in Young Adult, Middle Grades, and Children’s Literature and provides brief summaries, highlights from professional reviews, stars and awards, suggested readalikes, and notes on genre and themes. This weekly gem has helped me stay current and build my library’s collection with minimal fuss on my part.

YA Books and More (https://yabooksandmoreblog.wordpress.com/)

YA Books and More is the brainchild of rockstar librarian and TWU professor Naomi Bates. Bates started the blog in 2008 and posts regularly, so this blog is a treasure trove of information. (Although the blog migrated from Blogger to WordPress last year, the new site links to the previous one for easy access to the archives.) I discovered this blog last summer when I attended a session led by Bates at the Setting the Trend conference held at Clear Creek ISD. She is equally passionate about YA books and educational technology, and this is reflected on her blog. One of my favorite recent posts, written by her new blog partner Lyndsey Thomas, highlights cheap and easy ways to start a MakerSpace in your library with things such as coloring sheets, origami, and board games. This is exactly where I am with my library MakerSpace efforts, and I have struggled to defend the benefits of having games in the library to my administration, so I appreciated the validation this article provided.

Eliterate Librarian (http://e-literatelibrarian.blogspot.com/)

An example screenshot from Eliterate Librarian

According to Tamara Cox, the South Carolina high school librarian who writes this blog, it focuses on “engaging instruction, edtech, combating poverty, creating lifelong readers and a safe place for all students” (Tamara Cox, n.d., homepage). Recent posts cover topics including using Flipgrid to connect her students with Clemson University students in a Young Adult Literature course to encourage reading, book club service projects, professional development she has put together for the faculty on her campus, and library lessons she has created for ninth grade students. I liked this blog because it features articles on a wide range of subjects of interest to high school librarians.



Vicky Who Reads (https://vickywhoreads.wordpress.com)

While there are hundreds of YA book review blogs to choose from, Vicky Who Reads has a unique and invaluable twist: blogger Vicky Chen is herself a teenager, and a very “woke” one at that. While it’s easy to find expert, professional reviews or reviews by YA-loving adults, it’s less common to come across a well-written blog with opinions from the point of view of an actual young adult. All of the starred reviews and state reading list mentions in the world are irrelevant if the book doesn’t appeal to its intended audience, and Chen is our spy on the inside. She provides a perspective that I for one was excited to find, and I have already re-thought at least one of my upcoming Junior Library Guild selections based on her insights. As an added bonus, Chen is a talented artist and graphic designer, so her blog is delightfully gorgeous to look at.


The Adventures of Library Girl (http://www.librarygirl.net/)

Library Girl is the superhero alter-ego of Jennifer LaGarde, a former school librarian who now works as a consultant. According to the bio on her blog, she helps schools “develop innovative instructional practices that both serve the literacy needs of students and that infuse technology in meaningful ways” (LaGarde, 2014, “About Me”). Many of her posts focus on the importance of self-reflection as an educator, the power of books to change lives and perspectives, and promoting literacy, as well as practical concerns such as an easier approach to genrefication. I discovered her blog after coming across and liking many of her tweets, and I decided to follow it because I appreciate her emphasis on how our practices as adults impact students.

Library Girl does not pull any punches.

But how can I keep up with all of these blogs?

In order to keep current with these blogs as well as those of my classmates (which I will need to be following and commenting on as part of the requirements for my LSSL 5391 course), it was necessary to finally get over my irrational fear of anything with the words feed, reader, or RSS. After looking at a comparison of different RSS reader apps, I decided that Feedly was the best fit for my needs. I selected it out of the many available options for the following reasons:

• Feedly offers a free version with no ads and practically unlimited* sources. (*I can't envision a world in which I would ever need to follow more than 100 different sources... or at least not one in which I would have that much time!)
• Users can organize their feeds into collections. For example, I have a collection titled "5391 Blogs" for all of my classmates' blogs.
• Individual sources can be marked as "Must Read" to ensure that they are seen first.
• Individual posts can be saved for later or marked as read.
• The Feedly interface is clean and visually appealing, with thumbnail images of the blog posts (if one is available) and minimal distractions on the page.
• Users can log in using their Google account.
• Feedly has an iOS app for use on the iPhone or iPad, making it easy to keep with new posts on the go.

My feed on Feedly - clean and simple with no distractions.

If you are interested in discovering new content in addition to following the blogs you already know, Bloglovin’ is a solid alternate option. As Volvoski deftly puts it in her review of the best feed readers, “Bloglovin’ is the Pinterest of RSS reader apps” (Vovloski, 2018). While this reader is not ideally suited for my purposes (I am too easily distracted and would waste too much time), I can definitely see the appeal in its fun, contemporary grid view, especially for users who enjoy browsing online in more of a social media-type format.

My feed on Bloglovin' - stylish, but with distracting and irrelevant "featured posts."

One last thing…

As an added bonus, I have started my own Tumblr to share library humor, book love, and fun programming ideas that I come across. You can check it out at https://thewrightbook.tumblr.com/.

Volvoski, V. (2018). The 10 best free RSS reader apps in 2018. [Blog] Zapier. Available at: https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2019].