I note with much interest that the British Library has linked to one of my posts about the exhibit “Taking Liberties.” To my delight, the British Library has collected together blog postings about the exhibit and posted them online. Alas, I think that the selective quoting they did is confusing, unless one reads the original post. I am also pleased to discover that the British Library has launched a whole podcast series dedicated to the exhibit (example topics include:Can we be green without losing our freedoms?, Paine’s Rights of Man, Is Liberty British?) of 11 episodes with various formats such as interviews, lectures and debate.

I think it is a great idea for libraries to take notice of how people interact with their services and exhibits. Sure, there are comment cards and things like that but I rarely see people filling in such cards. I wonder if this monitoring is a first step toward a greater engagement with bloggers or the public more broadly? I have seen cases where movie promoters have sent promotional items to bloggers (e.g. the case of Coraline, a film inspired by Neil Gaiman’s book), but I don’t know of any museum, library or archive doing anything like that. I am also curious to know is whether such commentary is included into the planning or other decision-making practices used at the Library.

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