The "Biblioblogosphere"
Walt Crawford of Cites & Insights has evaluated the "top" library bloggers. The article takes an in-depth look at the metrics of various blogs, examining longevity, frequency of postings, "wordiness" (total length of posts), average length of postings, total comments (blogs that allow comments and discussions), blogroll, Technorati count (in-linking sites) and other factors.
It is fascinating approach to the "biblioblogosphere".
After examining what he considers the 60 top library blogs, Crawford concludes with some interesting comments:
"Quite a few library-oriented blogs have fairly broad reach—sometimes outside the library community (again, The Shifted Librarian stands out) but mostly within the community. There’s no single model for a librarian blog. beSpacific churns out more than two dozen very brief pointers a day; Tales from the 'Liberry' offers a 500-word commentary on the charms of small library life four or five times a week. librarian.net maintains extended conversations of sorts despite not accepting comments directly; several blogs (including mine) are substantially enriched by frequent, thoughtful comments."
In other words, the top library blogs are all over the place. Which is a good thing.
But overall, as Crawford writes: "How many of these 60 blogs fall into the idle chatter and semiliterate categories attacked by people who should know better? A few are rich in the personal lives of the bloggers, but most aren’t. I wouldn’t accuse any of these bloggers of lacking writing skills. I would be hard-pressed to choose even a dozen I don’t consider worthwhile."
It is fascinating approach to the "biblioblogosphere".
After examining what he considers the 60 top library blogs, Crawford concludes with some interesting comments:
"Quite a few library-oriented blogs have fairly broad reach—sometimes outside the library community (again, The Shifted Librarian stands out) but mostly within the community. There’s no single model for a librarian blog. beSpacific churns out more than two dozen very brief pointers a day; Tales from the 'Liberry' offers a 500-word commentary on the charms of small library life four or five times a week. librarian.net maintains extended conversations of sorts despite not accepting comments directly; several blogs (including mine) are substantially enriched by frequent, thoughtful comments."
In other words, the top library blogs are all over the place. Which is a good thing.
But overall, as Crawford writes: "How many of these 60 blogs fall into the idle chatter and semiliterate categories attacked by people who should know better? A few are rich in the personal lives of the bloggers, but most aren’t. I wouldn’t accuse any of these bloggers of lacking writing skills. I would be hard-pressed to choose even a dozen I don’t consider worthwhile."
1 Comments:
One clarification: I do not consider the 60 blogs described to be "the top 50"--they are, at most, "a top 50," 60 blogs that have some demonstrated reach. There are many others not included for various reasons.
There's an extensive followup essay in the current Cites & Insights.
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