The Top 10

1. Annoyed Librarian
2. Librarian in Black
3. Information Wants to be Free
4. Librarian.net
5. Tame the Web
6. Free Range Librarian
7. Library Stuff
8. Caveat Lector
9. Walt at Random
10. The Shifted Librarian

(for the rest of the results, see just below the commentary)

What can we learn from this? That no top ___ librar* blogs list is going to be definitive? That it doesn’t matter all that much as long as you enjoy what you’re doing as a blogger? How about all of the above?

As I had predicted, the top 10 list is a good bit different from the top 10 list on the OEDB site. The three blogs with the most Bloglines subscribers (librarian.net, The Shifted Librarian and Library Stuff) are not the top 3 favorite blogs, though they are not surprisingly in the top 10. Some of blogs did better and some did worse. It seems like any measure you use, you will get different results. And, so, what does any of it mean?

What else can we learn? Well, seeing which blog is #1 (and that it wasn’t even all that close) tells me that a cynical view of the profession speaks to a lot of people. Nearly 1/4 of all participants in the survey voted for the Annoyed Librarian. Or maybe it tells us that people who read my blog like it and like the other blogs on this list. Hard to know. With only 218 participants, this can by no means be considered a representative sample. But I think think we can still learn things from these results.

I found a lot of blogs on this list below that I’ve never read and many that I plan on looking up afterwards. Being one of someone’s three favorite blogs is a pretty good endorsement, and I hope this will bring a lot of little known but well-written blogs to people’s attention.

However, what does it mean not to be on this list? Not much. A blog might not be a “favorite” but might be one of those key useful blogs that just about everyone subscribes to. There are a lot of blogs that didn’t make the list that have quite a lot of subscribers (Blog Without a Library is a great example; maybe if Amanda posted more *hint! hint!*). Similarly, a blog may have a small passionate and loyal following, but not have the same number of subscribers as the “A-list bloggers.” Clearly, neither is better. Just because your blog is listed as a favorite doesn’t mean that your blog is the best. And just because your blog isn’t listed as a favorite doesn’t mean that your blog is any less great. A lot of my favorite blogs aren’t on the list, but I still enjoy them as do dozens or hundreds of other people. For example, The Goblin in the Library, Library Man and BlogJunction are among my favorites. When forced to pick only three favorites, though, we pick the ones that mean the most to us at that particular time. Maybe that person is posting a lot. Or they’re posting things that we’re thinking about at the same time. I know my three
favorites (the current group are not in the top 10) have changed over time and will continue to change. It’s all about what connects with me on a personal level and offers me what I’m looking for. It’s all about making that connection.

Really, if you enjoy blogging, if you’re meeting your goals, or if you’re connecting with the folks you want to connect with, then you should be happy. I know people might say “it’s easy for her to say,” but honestly, who is in it for the numbers? When I started blogging, no one knew my name. I wrote about the things I cared about and people read it. Even in what is now a really saturated market, new bloggers can make a name for themselves. The Annoyed Librarian has been around for a little over a year and a half. David Rothman (who had a great showing) has been around since last summer. Time can help you build a blog audience, but interesting posts can do it more quickly.

I’m not going to say exactly how many votes anyone got, but you can see the ranges below.

7 to 10 votes (in no particular order)
Stephen’s Lighthouse
LISNews
Tales from the “Liberry”
Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog
Feel-Good Librarian
A Wandering Eyre
Resource Shelf
A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette
davidrothman.net

3 to 6 votes (in no particular order)
iLibrarian
Library Bytes
ACRLog
Ubiquitous Librarian
Miss Information
Library Marketing: Thinking Outside the Book
The Kept-Up Academic Librarian
Peter Suber’s Open Access News
Unshelved
Infotangle
Library Juice
Lo-Fi Librarian
Union Librarian
What I Learned Today
Off the Mark
T. Scott
Hectic Pace
The Other Librarian
Academic Librarian
Library Garden
LibraryCrunch
Confessions of a Science Librarian
Thingology
Distant Librarian
The Krafty Librarian
Librarians Matter
Pegasus Librarian
The Society for Librrians* Who Say “Motherf___er”
RSS4Lib
David Lee King
Librarian Avenger
Pop goes the library

1 or 2 votes (in no particular order)
Hazman Aziz
Digitization 101
Rogue Librarian
Library Science and the World Around Us
ALA TechSource Blog
Library Grants
Union Librarian
Enquiring Minds Want to Know
Lit Picks and Tech Tips
Dilettante’s Ball
Matthew 2.0
DigitalKoans
The Itinerant Poetry Librarian
Madison Area Technical College
Ask Sassy Systems
The Well Dressed Librarian
One Big Library
Jenica P. Rogers-Urbanek
Designing Better Libraries
library link of the day
FRBR Blog
BeanWorks
A Library Writer’s Blog
The ABC Book Reviews – Blog & podcast – Twinsburg PL
Love the Liberry
Cataloging Futures
Catalogablog
Library 2.0: An Academic’s Perspective
The Scattered Librarian
blyberg.net
apophenia
Peter Scott’s Library Blog
/home/nicomo/notes
Bookshelves of Doom
Un Petit Cabanon
Out of the Jungle
Circ and Serve
Vampire Librarian
A Fuse #8 Production
The Big Steve RSS Feed (aggregates a bunch of feeds from Steve Matthews)
See Also…
025.431: The Dewey blog
Librarian’s Internet Index
Development Notes
Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search
Library Revolution
Concerned Librarians of BC
Bitter Librarian
The PlanetEsme Plan: The Best New Children’s Books from Esme’s Shelf
The “M” Word
It’s All Good
Pop Culture Librarian
LibraryThing Blog
SHUSH
ArchivesNext
Phil Bradley
Museum 2.0
WisBlawg
Information Overlord
Roy Tennant Digital Libraries
Hunger and Homelessness and Poverty Task Force
Free Government Information
if:book
Fresh + New
Blue Skunk Blog
foxylibrarian.com
A Taste of Twinsburg -A Collection of Recipes from the Twinsburg Public Library Staff and Patrons
Atlanta Fulton Public Library Watch
COSWL Cause
Filipino Librarian
Tom Roper’s Weblog
ExtraLibris Concursos
Science Resources (URL?)
Library Dust
L-net blog
The SurRural librarian
Maison Bisson
DocuTicker
omg tuna is kewl
LITA Blog
Tour de Toile du BBF
Issues in Scholarly Communication (not sure which one)
Obnoxious Librarian from Hades
YALSA blog
Library Conspiracies
Netbib
McMaster University Library blog
Chronicles of Bean
ACRC
PCC Library Technology Blog
If I Ran the Universe…
Library Techtonics
Rick Librarian
Lafeuille
CUPE 391
Wendt Library Blog
ZB digitaal
LibraryCog
zeldman.com
librarytechnz
Heretical Librarian
Library Too
The Prelinger Library
researchbuzz
SLIS Independent Student Blog
Library Blog Buzz
Bates Tip of the Month
library of congress blog
radical reference
Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian
The Information Literacy Land of Confusion
Pattern Recognition
Life as I know It
Science Library Pad
The Soapbox
Collectanea
DosPuntoCero
Reader’s Advisor Online Blog
A Librarian Told Me So
Progressive Librarians (URL?)
The Youth Librarian’s Report
The Medium is the Message
Fabiano Caruso
The Good Library Blog
Blog on the Side
typo of the day
Dr. Web’s Domain
Shelved in the W’s
Christina’s LIS Rant
Library Web Chic
Tinfoil + Raccoon
DLOG
Law Librarian Blog
The OPLIN 4cast
Lauren’s Library Blog
Gather No Dust
Coyle’s InFormation
the.effing.librarian
Librarians as knowledge managers
Young Librarian