Beginning in September, staff members of the Jewish Museum of Maryland were required to contribute to our online presence. As a way of easing them into this new frontier, the web mistresses created this miniseries. We hope you enjoy the second installment! The model, curator Karen Falk, had the honor of writing the first mandatory post. See it here.

It is 9am. Hilda has just arrived at work, sporting a fancy new skirt and shoes bought at Payless (BOGO!). She sits down at her less than impeccably organized desk and opens up her to-do list.

Hilda: Oh! It's my day to submit a blog post! I forgot all about this what with my super demanding job, crazy home life, and perpetually nagging boss! What will I write about?

Hilda spends a few minutes clearing her brain. She checks her facespace account, she emails her sister about her BOGO score, and then she settles in to write her blog post.

Hilda: I know! I had such a good time at that lecture last night, I couldn't tear myself away from what the author was talking about. I should write about him! Now... what were the steps?

First, now that Hilda has decided on a subject, she researches her post. The time to gather information is upon her. She rifles through her chic purse and pulls out the event postcard. Brushing off the crumbs from her powerbar she locates the name of the lecturer, the location of the event, and when it took place.

Hilda opens up her web browser and uses "THE GOOGLE" to search the author's name. As information rushes through the cardboard tubes, Hilda finds not only a website for the author, but a great Wikipedia article, a review of the book presented, and an announcement for his next book.

Hilda: Internet score FOR THE WIN! What's next? I wonder if anyone took photos last night?

Hilda: Now that I have my idea, my research, and my visuals, I can write my post. I think I'll write an opening paragraph about what the event was about, who the author is, and what is coming up for him. Then I'll write about my opinions and why I liked it.

Studiously as ever, Hilda writes her post. After pouring her heart onto the keyboard she double checks it for typos, grammatical errors, and spelling. She inserts notes about where the visuals should be placed, saves the file with the name of the lecture, and drops everything into the folder specified by the web wizards.

Great! Now I can move onto more important things- chocolate croissant!

BLOG: A Dramatic Miniseries, Writing an Event Post

Beginning in September, staff members of the Jewish Museum of Maryland will all be required to contribute to our online presence. As a way of easing them into this new frontier, the web mistresses created this miniseries. We hope you enjoy the first installment!

After sitting on the 1-83 for an extra twenty minutes, Amelia arrives to work in a tizzy. She chucks her lunch in the fridge, evades small talk, powers up her email, and is greeted with an outlook reminder "BLOG POST TODAY!"

Amelia: Blergh. I really need to work on my Generations article. But the web wizards will kill me if I don't get this done, so I guess I'm blogging. What should I write about though?

Amelia picks up the phone and calls her buddy Sven. He always has good ideas, being from Svedan and all.

Amelia: Yo, Sven.

Sven: Jah?

Amelia: I have to write this stupid blog post today and I'm drawing a total blank. Ideas?

Sven: Well, I wrote one last week about an article I read on mythical Svedish unicorns. But that makes sense because my job is cryptozoologist at the Karlstad Zoo. Since you're an archivist, why don't you write about something in your collection?

Amelia: Genius! I just finished processing a manuscript collection. Thanks, Sven. This was totally worth the long distance call to Svedan. Next time you're in town we can hit the Ikea meatball counter. My treat.

Now that Amelia has an idea, she needs to do some information gathering. First, she pulls up a finding aid.

Amelia: This biographical data is pretty well written (go me!). It'll make a great base for my blog post.

Amelia scans the finding aid and picks out a couple of interesting documents to use as examples of the collection. Next she checks if there are any objects or photographs included.

Yay! Amelia has found one related object and three great photographs.

Amelia: Perfect! I'll use the bio paragraph and then write a few sentences about the object and photos. I better go take a picture of the object.

Amelia photographs the object in question and scans the photos. She writes out her blog post, checks it for errors, and places everything in the appropriate folder (after naming it, of course).

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Boo! Amelia has not been able to find any related objects. She decides to look on the interwebs for related material.

Amelia: Oh! Here's a great picture on the Pratt website. As long as I credit the image and link back to it, this will be perfect for my blog post.

Amelia writes her blog post, checks it for errors, and places everything in the appropriate folder (after naming it, of course).

Be sure to check back next Friday for the second installment of our miniseries.