When creating a library blog, you may want to use a library themed layout. Yet it can be challenging to find them. Searching for example, under themes on your wordpress dashboard won’t give many results and blogger doesn’t have as many custom templates in general. Here are seven great library or book related templates I found that look like great ones for any library related blog. The other option of course is to find one with a custom banner option and customize it like I did for this blog.

1. Law library wordpress theme. While this theme does not have anything that specifies that it must be used for a law library, it makes a great theme for any library blog.

2. This simple and colorful wordpress books theme has three columns and would make a great library or reading blog theme.

3. The library can be compared to an open book and with this wordpress theme it will be even more so. Basic colors and an open book in the banner make this a great library theme.

4. The easy reader wordpress theme features white background with blue highlights and a girl reading a book, another great library wordpress theme.

5. The library of the future will not look like our libraries now. Reach out and embrace the library of the future with these futuristic looking library wordpress theme.

6. Ah! Isn’t the library life great. Embrace it with the library life blogger template.

7. Do you have a book tree? or wish that you had one? Why not use this book tree blogger template?

Creating a better library blog requires you to increase the amount of readers who read your blog on a regular basis. Here are some ideas on how to do this:

1. Make sure you follow the ideas in part 2 to offer the kind of content that will attract more readers.

2. Make sure that the RSS button for people to subscribe to your feed is in a visible location.

3. Consider offering library newsletters or other information via email on your blog and encouraging people to sign up. That way you can also remind people about new content on your blog.

4. Import the feed for your library blog into your library’s facebook fan page.

5. Put a blog widget with a link to your library blog on your web page.

6. Encourage comments and sharing of posts. You can use a tweetmeme widget for twitter or a sharethis or a socialable widget for other social networks.

What other ideas do you have for promoting your library blog?

Creating a better library blog requires you to think about your target audience. Even though it is already obvious that your target audience is your library patrons, in many cases you still need to be even more specific. If you are an academic library then your audience will be primarily your students and staff. However, it may also be read by potential students or staff. If you are a public library then your audience is even larger.

What exactly does your audience want to read about on your library blog? It can be tempting to just start blogging based on what you think your patrons and your audience wants but creating a better library blog requires you to dig a bit deeper.

Here are some ideas to help you with this:

1. Take a look at what some of the more popular books are. Blog about these books and offer information about them as well as book reviews and other interesting things.

2. Blog about library events and other happenings that are not specifically related to books.

3. Survey your readers with a poll and ask them what kinds of content they would like to see on your library blog.

4. Take note of your more popular library blog posts and then create additional posts that address the same topics.

5. Blog about new items at your library such as new books or other new acquisitions.

What else have you done to create a better library blog?

Building a better library blog can be a challenge. However it can be done. In this first of four parts, I will share with you some ideas on how to make that happen.

You can build a better library blog by encouraging a sense of community. There are countless ways that it can be done. Here are some of the better ones.

1. Use a blogging platform and layout that encourages comments and interactivity. WordPress is a great idea, however you can also use typepad or your own program.

2. Consider turning your web page into a blog format and accepting comments. This can be great if done right. However, if you do this then you will want to make sure that someone at your library is assigned to monitor the comments in order to avoid inappropriate ones.

3. Encourage comments by asking open ended questions.

4. Post polls and ask people to help you out by responded to brief survey questions.

5. Consider adding a wiki, ning community or other forum to your blog. This can be great because it provides your library blog readers with ways of interacting with others.

What other ideas do you have about how to build a better library blog by encouraging communication.

Are you wondering how to create a great library blog? or maybe you are thinking of starting a library blog and would like some advice before you get started. Thanks to OnlineCollege.org for sharing with us 100 tips and tools for blogging librarians. This list offers some great advice not only for blogging librarians but really for any blogger.

Watch this video on blogs and twitter for librarians.