I’ve been reading Walt Crawford‘s book, The Liblog Landscape 2007 – 2008.
Walt’s done a really good job with this book. He’s taken 607 blogs (the list is here) written by library people over 2007 – 2008 and looked at how each blog has changed/developed over the period. Changes in the numbers of posts, comments, images used, and the frequency and length of posts are documented.
Here are my figures.
We also learn a lot of interesting facts from Walt’s study – for instance, academic library folks make up the majority of Walt’s sample (176 blogs, or 29%), followed closely by those who are affiliated with public libraries at 102 blogs, or 16.8. The next category is law libraries or librarians at 26 blogs (4.3% – quite a steep plunge).
Thank you, Walt, for writing this book. Will we all still be blogging in two years, five years, ten years? How will blogging develop as a medium? When we look back at this period, this book will be a valuable record.
5 Comments
Thanks for the commentary (and nice clean scan of a page section). I’ve added a note to my blog entry on reviews and comments for this book.
After blogging for almost 3 years, I have found to write no longer for myself but for the readers who sit in front of the computer awaiting my post! What started out as a personal reflection on books has become some informal forum. Keeping up a blog takes time.
You are famous Con! In a book! 😉
Yes – interesting to think about where all this will be in 5 years time.
What I found most amazing/jolting of the stats presented about my blog was the fact that I started it in June 2005. I hadn’t thought about how long it’s been! I knew that the number of posts I wrote last year dropped when compared to the previous year. This year I hope to increase the number of posts. I am also trying to comment more on other blogs…
You’re right about the time it takes to maintain a blog, Matt. I gain a lot from it though – being able to take part in a conversation is one of the main benefits, and the actual writing helps me too. I guess I will stop blogging when the rewards no longer outweigh the effort!
Yes, it’s amazing/amusing to be in a book, Penny! If I’m not blogging in 5 years from now I hope I’m still doing something that helps me reflect and participate.
Thanks for dropping by, Walt (your comment was trapped by my spam filter until I rescued it)! I scanned the page because I hate writing tables in HTML 🙂