Since Michael set the bar high with his fancy graphics, I tried to follow suit. Here’s a look at the number of library blogs in 2005 & 2006 (note: “internal” shows up as zero in 2005 because I wasn’t tracking internal blogs when I ran these numbers last year):

You will notice that the numbers are slightly lower than the ones Michael reported. That’s because this graph reflects the number of institutions that are blogging, as opposed to the number of library blogs in existence. Since a number of libraries have multiple blogs (news blogs, teen blogs, etc.), I thought a more accurate representation of the spread of blogs in libraryland would be to look at how many institutions are publishing blogs (rather than how many library blogs are being published). Make sense?

In preparation for this post, I undertook a long overdue cleanup of the wiki (sort of related aside: still no wiki spam! None! UGH. A day after I posted this, the vandals hit! I’m monitoring the situation for now but might have to move to login-to-edit. Stay tuned), cleaning up duplicates, moving blogs to appropriate categories, checking URLs, and generally getting the house in order. In the process of checking URLs, I came across a number of blogs that have not been updated in a few months (I defined “a few months” as 6 months or more) and I decided that rather than delete those blogs, I’d keep them on the list and append a “last updated” notice to the link. My rationale here was that even though a blog is no longer updated, there might still be value in retaining it since it could provide good ideas for anyone exploring the list for possible uses of blogs in their institution.

However, as I ran the numbers for the graph above, I knew it would be misleading if I didn’t indicate just how many of those institutions had abondoned their blogs (some were clearly abandoned for a reason and the last post usually spells out that reason; others look like they simply lost steam). Here’s a look at the same numbers again (2006), with “inactive” blogs indicated:

Not extraordinary numbers, by any means, but numbers worth noting for the inevitable questions they beg: why have 16% of public libraries abandoned their blogs? Why do school libraries fair better when it comes to, what shall we call it… blog longevity? I’m sure anyone who has ever done a presentation or written an article on blogs and libraries touts the format for being easy to maintain, so why, then, have 12% of academic libraries let their blogs go stale? Of course, we already know some of the answers to these questions (lack of staff/time/buy-in, etc.), but what this exercise has crystallized for me is the simple fact that, while blogs provide a good solution for some libraries, they aren’t the perfect solution for every institution.

Of course, once I started noodling around my category archives, I started thinking about how I really should be doing some tagging around here, so off I went in search of a tag plugin and found & installed Ultimate Tag Warrior. And now I am resisting the urge to spend the rest of the day adding tags to all the archived posts. If I didn’t have this enticing book at my elbow, I’d probably do it.

Later: shame that the upgrade to WP 2.0.1 changes your feed URL entirely. I’ve set up the redirect and I’m monitoring Bloglines to make sure all goes well. And, look! A tag cloud! I installed the runPHP plugin to make the magic happen.

Right. Now, back to that book.

Later still: it looks like the RSS feed is redirecting as it should. Good. You don’t have to update your subscription, but FYI, the new feed is at http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/?feed=rss2.

There. I feel much better now.

There is little guilt in not delivering on promises made to oneself. But not delivering on promises made to the world at large is another matter entirely! Here, then, are my promises for this month. I’m counting on you to keep me honest:

• Post. Seriously. Not once a month, either. I will stop bookmarking, furling, tagging, “Keeping New” and just post about the things I find. Enough already.
• Clean up the bibliography & bring up to date.

That’s it, just the two. I’ve learned to set realistic expectations for myself.

… a teaching/learning application of information technology that is reliable, accessible, easy to learn, non-intimidating and (incrementally) inexpensive. Each LTA has observable positive consequences, and contributes to important long term changes in teaching and/or learning.

Lately I’ve been spending a bunch of time thinking about information literacy and the role of technology in library teaching & learning, so finding this blog was timely.

Also, I should mention, I’ve updated this blog’s tagline to include “other little technologies” (intentionally vague), so you will probably start seeing other tech but non-blog/rss content here. Just a reflection of my evolving library/tech interests, I suppose.

As you peruse useful, interesting, and fun RSS-enabled sites, you’ll notice something rather extraordinary: librarians really are cool. That may sound surprising (not to librarians of course), but these masters of the information universe are perhaps best suited to finding, organizing, and serving up information in a truly useful way (read.: they serve water in small Dixie cups instead of using the Internet “information fire hose”). [link]

Today’s feed of the day is Shifted, yesterday’s was ResourceShelf, Tuesday’s was bwal.net (aw, thanks, Pluck!), and Monday’s was DocuTicker. All this heady library/librarian lovin’ just makes me trippy (in the best possible way).