One thing that I would be interested to find out is – as you alluded to – the number of people who read library blogs vs the number of people who write library blogs. Blogs seem to be getting evaluated by the number of citations they recieve, and by doing so we’re only counting the opinions of those who also blog themselves. What is the percentage of people who read library blogs, yet don’t write themselves? If the number is significant, we’d have to question the validity of counting citations to evaluate blogs.

Also, I’d be interested to find out a breakdown of the above by library type. It seems that there aren’t nearly as many corporate librarian bloggers as there are public or academic – is this because corporate librarians are only reading blogs but not writing them, or is it because they aren’t part of the ‘blogosphere’ entirely.

Jessamyn and Meredith have both commented on Walt’s Top 50 Librarian bloggers piece in the latest Cites & Insights, and they’re curious to know what blogs we’re reading. Here are two I’d recommend.

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I’m not usually a “critic”-type and I’d initially planned not to write anything about what you wrote (in spite of the uneasy feeling your article gave me), but I was surprised that no one else thought ranking the biblioblogosphere might not be the best idea. So please don’t think I was just looking for something to criticize.

I’m glad that most people liked what you did, but that doesn’t answer my question as to why we need to rank blogs at all. What good does it do? Couldn’t you have played with metrics and provided useful stats on the biblioblogosphere without actually ranking those 230-some blogs? Couldn’t you have highlighted blogs without ranking them? Maybe I just don’t “get it” but the article left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Oddly, I’m not reading the reaction as being that I’ve come up with “the definitive ranking”–not at all. I must be seeing different buzz.

You and Rochelle are saying in no uncertain terms that my article was a bad thing. OK; I’ll collect that along with the surprisingly positive reactions, quite a few of them from people who weren’t in the 60 profiles. Frankly, I was expecting this sort of reaction (what I’m calling the “hornet’s nest round”) earlier and more emphatically–enough so that I came close to abandoning the whole effort.

But hey, critics need something to criticize. Pleased to provide a target.

I honestly don’t believe that anyone who’s blogging for any good reason (which can include ego, having something to say, finding it amusing, or a topical orientation–or any other reason, for that matter) should or will be discouraged because they’re not in the profiled list. That’s not what I’ve heard from half a dozen “non-profiled” folks. Any such reaction makes me wonder what people’s expectation of blogging is: The roar of the crowd is a fickle thing.

I totally agree Greg, but I think there are better ways of doing that, which would not have turned it into a popularity contest. Here’s what I would have done: take ten library blogs at random with fairly high Bloglines readership (over 200?). Then rank them using the various possible measures to show how differently they’d come out based on different metrics. Walt could still develop his own ranking system and could rank things, but without making it seem like it’s the difinitive ranking of the biblioblogosphere (and I know he doesn’t claim it is, but from all the buzz, it sure sounds like it is).

I’m sure Walt only had good intentions, but I really believe there are better ways of playing with numbers and researching the biblioblogosphere.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the shout out. Right back at ya!

Personally, I find it mostly distressing to be lumped into the top group, since my relatively high “ranking” is probably more a matter of time in existence than anything else. To be certain, there are only a few blogs with any measurable reach outside of LIS world: pretty much Jenny, Jessamyn, Steven and Gary are it.

Reach has been a roller coaster at best for me. When I dropped off the face of the earth for a few months last year, my readership all but disappeared. Then, with the introduction of the podcast and now the Carnival, subscriptions and linkage have been steadily growing again. But neither of these gimmicks (for lack of a better term) is what brought people to Open Stacks in the first place way back when. I used to actually write. Sigh.

Anyway, I agree with your blog suggestions here and there are way too many others to highlight. Two others that come to mind are James Jacobs at Library Autonomous Zone and Mark Lindner at …the thoughts are broken…

Finally, thanks for the mention. The only thing I can say is that I am humbled and honored. Best.