Q & A: Matt Raymond of Library of Congress Blog

Matt Raymond is the founder of Library of Congress Blog, a consistently intriguing read. Raymond is also the LOC's director of communications:

What is the history of the LOC blog? Launching a blog had been under discussion for a long time at the Library, and I'm proud that we were one of the very first to do so among federal government agencies. Few institutions can boast the "content" of the Library of Congress, as we are stewards of more than 138 million works of history, creativity and inspiration, so a blog seemed a natural way to help people navigate our resources and learn that we are not, as we sometimes say, a museum of the book.

Plus, the Library strongly supports the transparency and interactivity characterized by Web 2.0, so we've been trying to move about as fast as a government institution can move to reach as many people as possible and to make our collections as accessible as possible.

This was a high priority of mine as soon as I came to the Library in October 2006. Fortunately, a lot of my colleagues, along with the Librarian of Congress, felt the same way, and we were allowed to launch the blog under pilot status before we had an actual blogging policy in place (which we now have). We launched on April 24, 2007, the 207th birthday of the Library of Congress.

What are your goals for the blog? Ideally I'd like to instill in people the same enthusiasm and sense of wonder that I quickly developed about this place. I also want to help introduce people to some of the wonderful Web resources we have that they might not otherwise be aware of. For instance, whether people wanted to do research or just kill some time while uncovering fascinating history from a century ago, they could go to our Chronicling America Web site, just as one example. (http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/)

From a more practical standpoint, it's incumbent on government to communicate effectively with the public -- to listen, not just to broadcast. The way people get their information has been changing radically in just the past five or 10 years, and it would be irresponsible if we didn't at least try, within the bounds of considerations such as budgets and staff resources, to respond to those new realities.

What has been the response, from within and without? It has been almost universally positive. Many view the LOC blog as a good thing in and of itself because of the message it sends -- that is, transparency, accountability, responsiveness -- those values I mentioned earlier. It's always great to find out that there are some avid readers out there, not just outside the Library but also among my colleagues. At any institution of this size, effective communications will always pose challenges.

Dr. Billington also seems very pleased. After all, he and the Library are Web pioneers. We were sending educational material in digital form on CD-ROMs to schools before there even was such as thing as the World Wide Web.

He is interested in getting results, though, so he always wants to see examples of where the blog is able to make a difference and reach people. For instance, when we announced the Flickr project, our strategy was entirely blog-driven, so it was gratifying to report to him that millions of people are finding out about the project and thousands of blogs are writing about it. That story alone tripled the number of inbound links to the LOC blog since we first went live nine months ago. That's pretty astounding!

How do you decide what to blog about? My problem is not in coming up with things to write about; my problem is in finding time to write enough and do the blog the justice it deserves. "Blogger-in-chief" at the Library wasn't a title that was first contemplated when I came here, so I try to carve out time wherever I can.

I get many ideas from my own staff or from many others across the Library. I wish I could blog about them all, because there are some great stories that go un-reported. I try to choose things that might resonate best with a blog-reading audience and with our key constituencies, not the least of which is the Congress, but also librarians (even though I am not a trained librarian), researchers, educators and others who are just plain fascinated by history and culture.

I want to "pull back the curtain" where I can, but I also try to strike a tone that is dignified and appropriate to the Library. At the same time, though, I feel like a kid in a candy shop when I get to come into contact with some of the art, architecture and artifacts all around me, so I think a little giddiness is OK from time to time. There is sometimes cynicism in the blogosphere, but you won't find that here.

[Editor's note: By the way, Municipalist recommends "Russia in Search of Itself," by James Billington, Librarian of Congress since 1987. We do so after an enthusiastic review from Municipalist's wife, the scholar in the family.]

Comments

[m. russell]

Great interview with Matt Raymond! It's great that you are spotlighting the blogging efforts of government. It seems like government agencies get lots of publicity for what they do wrong, but not nearly enough credit for trying stuff to see if it works out.

[Bob Meade]

Thanks for highlighting the LOC blog. It's one of my favourites.

[Jobs in Pakistan]

Nice interview.