Guest Posting

Guidelines for Guest Posting on sup·port·abil·i·ty, the OLA Support Staff Division blog

We are library assistants, clerks, pages, shelvers, technicians. We work in primary schools academic libraries, public libraries, private libraries, special libraries, law libraries, braille and talking book libraries, bookmobiles, and more.  There is a huge variety among our membership, so this list is definitely not all-inclusive, but if you believe you fit into any of these categories your experience can be helpful to all of your fellow support staffers.

In order to share and discuss all the things that matter to us, the Support Staff Division of the Oregon Library Association would like to encourage any and all library support staff to use our blog as their megaphone and soapbox. You have a unique perspective on the world of library Support Staff based on your own talents, skills and current job. Share that knowledge, your passion, and your personality with colleagues across the state by writing your own guest post. We are excited to see what you'll come up with!

What are we looking for?

We love creativity and new ideas, but you'll still want to be sure that your post fits in with the themes and content on the rest of the blog. Here are some things we're always looking for to give you some ideas:

• Information from or about Eastern and Southern Oregon libraries (the more geographically diverse we can be the better)
• Unique duties/challenges you have taken on
• Library technology and how it is changing how you work
• Events or happenings at your location
• What's going on in the wider world of libraries you are happy or concerned about
• Customer service tips, tricks, and best practices
• Library humor and fun stories
• ...and anything else that can help or entertain your fellow support staffers!

If you have an idea for a series of posts, even better. If you're not sure about your idea and want to check with us first, feel free to email us at ssd@olaweb.org with what you have so far and we'd be happy to help. 

How to submit and format your post

Once you have a draft of your post that you're happy with and ready to share, you can submit it to the blog staff by emailing it to ssd@olaweb.org with the subject Guest Blog Post Submission. Before you hit that send button though, be sure you've done these things:

• Format the text how you want it to appear in the published post - italics, bold, headings, etc. 
• If you have any links, underline the link text and include the full URL in brackets right next to it. We'll test the link to make sure it works.
• Images and graphics make any blog more eye-catching and pleasant to look at. Once you've found or made yours, add them as attachments to your email. Indicate where you want them in the text by inserting the file name of the attachment on its own line.
• Consider the length of your piece. Some topics take a lot of space to fully explore, but as a general rule shorter is better. This is the internet, after all!

You can either attach a Microsoft Word file to your email or you can simply send the text in the body of your email and we will do the rest. If you have any questions, just email those to us too.

A few final notes

• Include all the information (links, link text, pictures) that you want in the published version of your post. We can always fill in the blanks and guess at what you intended, but we always prefer to leave the author's work as is. 
• A snappy headline at the top can really help draw eyes to your writing.
• Be sure to include your byline at the bottom so you get the credit you deserve. Bylines are just a sentence or two explaining who you are, what you do, your library, and anything else you want known for context.
• We edit guest submissions for spelling, grammar, and sometimes length during the process of formatting them for the blog. We will send you the text of the final piece before we publish it so that you can be sure that you're happy with the changes we've made. That way you can be sure you've okayed anything on the blog with your name on it.
• Remember that you are writing for SSD members primarily, but blog posts are visible to the entire world and will be for the foreseeable future. If we have concerns that your post could make members of the wider community uncomfortable, we may ask you to make some changes. This comes up very rarely, but just so you know. 

We look forward to your guest post! Email us with questions or submissions at ssd@olaweb.org.