In this article from Inside Higher Ed, Steven Bell, apparently the authority on academic blogging (perhaps because of the title of his blog?), says:
“I can’t say any individual has developed a blog that has emerged as the ‘voice of academic librarianship,’ ” noted Bell in response to my query. “Why? If I had to advance a theory I’d say that as academic librarians we are still geared towards traditional, journal publishing as the way to express ourselves. I know that if I have something on my mind that I’d like to write about to share my thoughts and opinions, I’m more likely to write something for formal publication… Perhaps that is why we don’t have a ‘juicy’ academic librarian out there who is taking on the issues of the day with vocal opinions.”
Well, Mr. Bell, while I may agree with you that many academic librarians are probably more interested in publishing than blogging, this is what I see as the “voice of academic librarianship” (in no particular order):
::schwagbag::
blogdriverswaltz
Random Access Mazar (AKA Diary of a Subversive Librarian)
The Teaching Librarian (AKA Digital Reference)
The Distant Librarian
Library Voice
Library Marketing – Thinking Outside the Book
Caveat Lector
The Do-It-Yourself Librarian
Kenton Good
Dilettant’s Ball
Library Web Chic
Quædam cuiusdam
Technogeekery for Librarians
(and these are just some the ones I read regularly, so I’d guess there are at least a dozen more)
Thank goodness we have more than one! Who would want just one person to speak to the issues of academic librarianship?
Bell writes about the article in his own blog:
Will anyone there step up and blog consistently about such topics. I doubt it because it is really hard to produce consistently good blog postings – and by good I mean insightful, well written, and even fun (or sarcastic) – not to mention it takes time – and that’s a commodity we don’t always have when we’re trying to run academic libraries.
While these people may not write about issues of academic librarianship in every single post (and where exactly is that line drawn? What is not relevant to academic librarianship?) I think they are nearly always insightful, well written, and yes, even fun sometimes. I guess Mr. Bell must define the issues of academic librarianship in a much narrower sense than I do, or else he really needs to update his blogroll.
But I do agree that fewer academic librarians seem to have taken up the mantle of blogging than librarians in other areas. Is this because of the whole “publish or perish” issue? I think that’s a big part of it. But in my interviews at various academic libraries, I have seen an increasing respect for blogs in academia (not at all institutions though). I think people are realizing that blogs have an immediacy that the scholarly publishing process lacks and that it is a fantastic way to share information with one’s peers. Perhaps one day blogging activities will be counted towards a librarian’s tenure (obviously only if they write a quality blog that contributes to the profession). We can hope!
Why can’t blogs just remain blogs? They are simply places of electronic text where people and personalities can vent, express, acknowledge and recommend freely. The immediacy to them and the way they mix up public and private is what makes them such strong avenues of thought and communication. Why then must blogs (& blog people) become recognized as “official spokesmen” or demand to be understood as doing such marvelous things? I understand that communication is important and that fostering the largest range of voices on a subject will yield the best results towards possible understanding… but it seems that in the wake of Gorman + Cronin’s comments bloggers have begun to cling to blogging as if it was their sole identity?
Blogging as we know it, through Moveable Type, TypePad, Blogger, etc. is nothing more then a technology that gives a person an electronic voice, a simple home page to share their thoughts + feelings, it doesn’t change who the person is. Underneath the RSS is still a human, a person, trying to make it in the world. I also think the blog people of library science ignore the fact that there are so many people working in libraries, museums, schools, government and hospitals who are simply not interested in blogging —
— Why should bloggers or blogging become official, if a large percentage of people do not read or understand them? Why can’t we just stick to official webpages like http://www.oclc.org, http://www.rlg.org and let blogs do what they do best, serve as electronic diaries for the world community of computer users?
Personally, I would much rather read an academic paper by an academic librarian then their perspective on some new technology which has been written about 40 other times in other location on other blogs. I would rather read developed ideas and actual studies then something written before bedtime after a long day.
On the other hand, I think that Open Access News is blog that approaches officialdom.
Just to provide some additional context to this post, no, I don’t
promote myself as “the authority on academic blogging”. Someone
asked me for some comments and I provided my outlook on the
state of academic blogging. Meredith suggests I have a rather myopic
view of blogs that are related to academic library issues. In fact,
in my response to McLemee I listed a number of academic-oriented
blogs – some of the same ones listed in this post. However, he
obviously couldn’t list all of the ones I mentioned – and clearly
a number of the ones listed here are quite peripheral to the
core issues of academic librarianship – which is what I was asked
to comment about – not are there blogs by academic librarians – but
are there academic librarian blogs that truly focus on the core
issues in academic librarianship and higher education. And to respond
to the comment that I think about academic librarianship in a
“narrow sense” I urge Meredith and other readers to visit my
Keeping Up Web Site (http://staff.philau.edu/bells/keepup). There
you will see that my philosophy on keeping up for academic
librarianship is all about taking a broad perspective and seeking
out resources that exceed the boundaries of academic librarianship.
This is a message I’ve been promoting since 2000 or so – way before
Meredith got into the game. So how about a little respect?
TL, who exactly is clinging to blogging as their sole identity? I guess I haven’t read anything by these librarians. Who is trying to make blogs “official” and what does that mean anyways? It sounds like you are the only person who is trying to make value judgments by saying that Open Access News (a blog I enjoy a great deal, BTW) is official while no others are. Again, a meaningless determination by a person who has declared his lack of respect for blogs as a medium for sharing scholarly information. A blog is simply an electronic medium and any sort of content can be put into it, from the scholarly to the decidedly unscholarly. There is no limit to what a blog can be. A blog does not need to be a diary. In many libraries (and some companies) it is used as a vehicle to offer news to patrons/customers. For people who don’t care about publishing in scholarly journals, it could be a place where they publish studies they’ve done. Why not? I’ve been able to see the results of some very interesting research studies in blogs long before they made it into journals.
No one is saying blogs are more valuable or less valuable than scholarly papers. They are totally different — you are comparing apples and oranges.
Steven,
I actually really like your blog and read it regularly. And I do respect the fact that you’re a major presence in the world of academic librarianship and have been at it long before I ever thought of becoming a librarian. But I have read many blogs that fit into your view of what an academic blog should be. In some of them, they only discuss things relevant to their work as academic librarians. The Distant Librarian for example writes entirely about things related to distance learning librarianship. He doesn’t participate in memes and doesn’t go frequently off-topic like I do. The Library Web Chic writes about technology applications in academic libraries and her experiences trying to get the electronic middleware in her library to work seamlessly for her students. I get so much food for thought about dealing with vendors and their electronic resources there. Digital Reference is more of the same. I’ve learned so much from him about the pros and cons of using vendor-provided VR software. I guess you are looking for different things from these blogs. You’re looking for one that speaks to what you see as the core of academic librarianship. What I really like is that, when taken together, these blogs are the voice of academic librarianship, and they offer a diverse view from the “ivory tower”. Maybe your words were taken out of context, but I just wasn’t crazy about the tone of that article, which seemed to imply that there aren’t blogs by academic librarians that discuss “current developments in their profession, in the university, and in the world outside.” I’m sorry if I offended you (I guess I was a little harsh), but I just felt like that article was giving short shrift to a lot of academic library blogs I think are fantastic.
I don’t think you were harsh, Meredith. I wasn’t keen on the tone of the article either. I’m not sure who exactly is qualified to talk about what “The Issues” in academic librarianship are; there are many kinds of academic librarian, and those who cover the entire spectrum are pretty rare and highly overworked as it is. Most of us have our little segment to work on, and that’s what we do. I don’t think there can be “one voice” of academic librarianship. It’s got to be a chorus.
Meredith, I’m comparing apples to oranges?! Weren’t you also then, when you said:
“I think people are realizing that blogs have an immediacy that the scholarly publishing process lacks and that it is a fantastic way to share information with one’s peers.”
And to answer your question, “who exactly is clinging to blogging as their sole identity?” I think the way people quickly ran and stuck up the “blog people” button on their website is a representation of what I meant by my statement, “it seems that in the wake of Gorman + Cronin’s comments bloggers have begun to cling to blogging as if it was their sole identity?”
I only suggested the Open Access News as an example of a semi-official blog, another great blog is http://www.davidmattison.ca/wordpress Obviously the list of good library blogs is long, and growing daily.
Look, I like blogs, I read them, I think they serve a purpose. I think Steven Bell goes way beyond “blogging” and for that reason is more of an ‘official’ voice in academic librarianship. The ‘kept-up’ librarian blog represents only a small portion of what Mr. Bell actually knows and does – it is merely a bulletin board of noteworthy news, and that is why it works. I don’t think one person could ever adequately represent all of the issues necessary to understanding what is going in academic libraries today. For this reason http://www.lisnews.com works as a great news and opinion hub.
Obviously “blogs” can share any type of information, they do not have to be electronic diaries. However, I do feel that blogs, when they are owned and occupied by ONE SINGULAR person, often end up being more diary-like then not. They are single opinions stretched out over time in text form.
The question or problem that I am seeking to discover more information about is; why do people who blog believe that blogging is such a great and fascinating technology, that it is going to change the world? Why is it not put in perspective as the latest way in which people are interfacing with networked knowledge, one that will change and go the way of usenet and BBS? (I know I will be asked for examples of bloggers who are claiming to change the world.)
But seriously, I would like to know if there are any blogging people out there in the library community who agree with Blaise Cronin when he says:
“At times as I roamed the blogosphere the words of Alexis de Tocqueville came to mind: ‘One encounters in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which drives the weak to wish to pull the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in liberty.’ Don’t take my word for it; drop into the blogosphere and see just how tawdry and rebarbative the exchanges can be.”
I think there is great wisdom to this statement and what it implies about the act of blogging.
Heh heh heh. Jinx. 🙂
Thanks for mentioning me; I appreciate it. And I see some new blogs I want to subscribe to, so thanks for that too!
You are put in your place, pretentiousness.
The person writing their blog would like to believe that they are writing the interesting, vital pieces of information that only he/she can see. It is not that important and the failure to understand that is the problem.
Wow. It’s funny how this topic brings creeps out of the woodwork — and how they always gun for the women.
Who is a creep, Dorothea? & Is it fair to say that you calling people “a creep” is equally an act of “gunning” as Seth’s one sentence flame?
For the record, I have no problems with blogs, library blogs, or women, or creeps. I simply am very interested in the debate over web logs and their role in academic librarianship. This has been an interesting dialogue, to a certain extant, and I thank Meredith for creating the digital space to house it.
HA! I’ve been called a lot of things, but pretentious has never been one of them! I wouldn’t exactly say that I think what I write is important since I’m still shocked that anyone reads my writing (must less bothers to comment on my posts).
I don’t know exactly why people feel the need to debate blogging’s usefulness or worth. Isn’t that relative? If it’s useful to someone then that’s great. If it’s not, then they shouldn’t bother reading blogs. Blogs can have some cool applications, but so can wikis and a whole lot of other methods of disseminating information. I have never seen someone who argues that blogs are the answer to all the world’s problems, but I certainly have heard that they are the cause of a lot of problems (which is equally bogus). Scholarly publishing is great. Blogs are great.
And tl, why would you think Dorothea was calling you a creep?
Sheesh! I spend a day away from the computer and look what happens!
Thank you, Meredith, for your post and your follow-up.
And by the way, the ‘Blog People’ buttons were both a joke and a statement that not all librarians are throw-backs. It was not a way of shouting to the world, “I blog, therefore I am!” Perhaps those buttons should come with a small-print explanation for those too wrapped up in pretending to be iconoclasts to actually think about them.
It’s always interesting to see people like TL say things like: “why do people who blog believe that blogging is such a great and fascinating technology, that it is going to change the world?” I have yet to hear anyone who actually blogs say that. A similar thing was posted recently on the AUTOCAT list. Someone asked what XML is used for, and one answer was, “Well, it certainly isn’t going to solve all the world’s problems, like some XML advocates have been saying!” In fact, no one to my knowledge has ever made such a claim. XML, like blogging, the internet, and the Roomba, is a very useful tool that some have embraced and others have not. Only when a jerk (no offense to TL or Gorman) decides he can get some attention by denigrating it are ridiculous claims made.
By the way, geting back to the crux of the original posting, ask 10 librarians what the top 10 “issues affecting academic librarianship” are, and you’ll likely get 75+ answers.
Please let me know when Bell finds that single voice he seeks. Then I can add it to all the others.
-M
Thank you Michael for your very well-reasoned response. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote and I couldn’t have put it better myself. 🙂
You know, I’m just still flattered that I was mentioned as being a voice of academic librarianship at all. Esp. since I’m not a librarian.
Still… flattering.
I meant “Seth,” TL. I thought the proximity would be enough of an indication thereof. Sorry about that!