Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton-Jan

I get a lot of questions about what kind of policy to write for the public to get them to “write the right stuff” on the library’s website.  Much of this stems from a fear that every library user will log on and write nasty things, use profanity, and somehow make the library website blow up.  And you know what?  It never happens.  If you get a comment like that, just edit out the nasty bits with asterisks (e.g. “I hate this ******* library.  Your staff are mean.”).  Then reply to it!  Reply to the irateness…someone clearly is upset, so use that opportunity to interact with them.

Our library is in process of writing our own commenting policy, and in doing research on good examples I found David King’s post Community Discussion Guidelines for our Digital Branch, in which he offers the text of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s own policy.  Some readers responded with links to their own policies in the comments as well.  By the by, I appreciate that David calls them “guidelines” instead of “rules” or “policy.”  Well done!