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The Blog People are Alive & Well!

Submitted by Michael Stephens on June 4, 2007 - 11:53pm

Data analysis of bloggersGreetings from my blogging hiatus while I finish my dissertation. Amidst statistics and coding data, I have librarian bloggers on the brain. So much so, I just wanted to post a quick shout-out to the ever-growing populace of the Biblioblogosphere and those who find inspiration there.

We've seen many changes in the four years since Laurel Clyde did a content analysis of 53 library-related blogs for her book Weblogs and Libraries. In 2004, Clyde was not convinced that libraries and librarians were adopting blogs at any substantial rate and urged librarians to consider blogging as a means to communicate: â€œBy not taking advantage of this simple medium (and doing it well), libraries will be the losers." Michael Gorman comments on Blog PeopleI'm happy to see more library blogs as well as more librarian and library staff blogs everyday. One reason: the popularity of Helene Blowers' Learning 2.0 courses has added hundreds of blogs in under a year. Sure, many of those blogs were created just for the course, but those folks also get the experience of blogging. Some may stick with it, adding their voices to the diverse choir we have now.

There have also been changes since Michael Gorman noted that the Blog People are not "in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts" in his "Revenge of the Blog People" diatribe. Oh, what things we had to say back then!

And how the world has changed!

David Weinberger comments on Michael GormanNow, it seems the Blog People are a force to be reckoned with.  Include those folks armed with cell phone cameras, video devices, and access to the the Web -- welcome to Convergence Culture. I was pleased to read David Weinberger write up of the Gorman Affair and his opinions of blogs in a chapter of Everything is Miscellaneous entitled â€œSocial Knowing,â€ under the heading â€œThe Conundrum of Control.â€ He uses quotes from blogging librarians Sarah Houghton and Karen Schneider to illustrate the fact that the nature of publishing is changing. â€œCustomers, patrons, users and citizens are not waiting for permission to take control of finding and organizing information,â€ he writes. â€œKnowledge -- its content and organization -- is becoming a social act."

So, to the Blog People:  Blog On!


Comments (3)

People are still afraid of

People are still afraid of bloggers -- a priest at my church gave a homily over the weekend condemning bloggers as 'liars' trying to 'tear down the family.' Ooh, it's fun to be a blogger/librarian and yet be so scandalous at the same time. Hee.

I just looked at my

I just looked at my 'blogperson' jewelry on my sidebar the other day. I wondered if it still has meaning, or if people being afraid of blogs was over. Then I saw a headline on a Fortune cover in my doctor's waiting room. It said something like 'how to protect yourself from bloggers.' I thought about it and decided that I am still proud to be a blogperson.

In creating this spoof

In creating this spoof video, Michael Gorman's mindset proved invaluable as a basis for the George F. Won't character -- who bears an uncanny resemblance to George F. Will. http://youtube.com/watch?v=GHVbxsbECCM
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