Intersections
The Liblog Landscape: Where Are They Now?
After several years of in-depth studies of librarian blogs, it became clear in 2011 that continuing The Liblog Landscape series made no sense, at least not economic sense.
That left a spreadsheet with all the data on the blogs included in The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010—and that spreadsheet is a much more complete representation of English-language liblogs than any of my previous studies or than any other source I know of: 1,304 blogs in all (not including blogs that began after June 1 1, 2010).
As I was preparing the two-part Words essay Thinking About Blogs, and specifically Part 2 with its emphasis on libraries and liblogs, I got to wondering: Where are they now? And I’d seen hints here and there that people were missing a reasonably comprehensive list of what’s out there.
Just seeing whether the blogs were still there and how recently posts had occurred shouldn’t be a big deal, since the spreadsheet included URLs. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even a big deal to recheck 130-odd blogs that were no longer visible to see whether some of them had moved. That’s the background: Given the spreadsheet, checking the status of each liblog as of late July 2012 was a matter of a few hours’ work.
The results come in two flavors. This essay offers the basic facts: How many have disappeared, how many appear to be moribund (or have officially closed) but are still visible, how recently each blog had been updated and some overall comments on longevity. The second flavor is a new page linked to from Walt at Random consisting of two lists of hyperlinked liblog names: One for blogs updated sometime within the past year (when checked—that is, sometime after July 30, 2011) that haven’t explicitly closed, one for closed and apparently-moribund blogs. Blogs that disappeared entirely aren’t in either list. You’ll find that list at waltcrawford.name/liblogs
There’s no point in repeating longevity graphs for 2010, given that more than 90% of the blogs visible in June 2010 are still visible in July 2012. Here’s the quintile table for longevity of blogs as of June 2010, with the textual comments on longevity. Note that the numbers in High, Low and Median are all months—from the first post to the last post as of May 31, 2010.
|
Blogs |
High |
Low |
Median |
Moribund |
|||
|
All |
1,304 |
142 |
1 |
36 |
22% |
||
|
Q1 |
254 |
142 |
62 |
73 |
7% |
||
|
Q2 |
266 |
61 |
44 |
51 |
11% |
||
|
Q3 |
256 |
43 |
31 |
36 |
16% |
||
|
Q4 |
267 |
30 |
16 |
24 |
28% |
||
|
Q5 |
261 |
15 |
1 |
8 |
48% |
||
Table 1. Longevity quintiles, 2010
Table 1 breaks blog longevity down by quintiles—with slightly varying sizes to break at whole numbers. Let’s break that down—and note what may be the most interesting column, that is, what percentage of blogs in the quintile was moribund (where “moribund” is defined as more than a year since the most recent post) or explicitly closed as of May 31, 2010.
· The fifth of blogs that had been around the longest (from first post to most recent prior to June 2010) had been running from just over five years to more than 11 years, with a median of just over six years. Only 7% of these blogs were moribund.
· Blogs in the second quintile—above average but not in the top fifth—had been around from under four years to just over five, with a median of four years three months. 11% of these blogs were moribund, half the overall average.
· Blogs in the third quintile—“roughly average”—had been around from roughly 2.5 to roughly 3.5 years, with a median of three years. One-sixth of these blogs were apparently moribund, slightly below the overall average.
· For the fourth quintile, longevity ranges from one year four months to 2.5 years, with a median of two years—and more than a quarter of these blogs were moribund.
· Blogs with the shortest lifespan range from a single month to 1.25 years, with a median of just eight months—and nearly half of these blogs were moribund.
There’s a touch of obviousness about the overall conclusion here: Blogs tend to die young.
It may be worth noting the currency of liblogs as of June 1, 2010, to see how that compares to currency now. I used buckets dating back from June 1, 2010—one week, two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks, 13 weeks (the start of the measurement quarter), 17 weeks (essentially 120 days, the cutoff some analyses use for minimal blog activity), 26 weeks (half a year), 52 weeks (a year), and two special buckets: 99 (more than a year) and Ceased (explicitly ceased).
Table 2 shows currency for the liblog universe in 2010 (missing seven blogs that, for one reason or another, were difficult to measure).
|
Currency |
Blogs |
Percentage |
Cumulative |
|
1 |
401 |
31% |
31% |
|
2 |
128 |
10% |
41% |
|
4 |
132 |
10% |
51% |
|
8 |
113 |
9% |
60% |
|
13 |
60 |
5% |
64% |
|
17 |
36 |
3% |
67% |
|
26 |
51 |
4% |
71% |
|
52 |
79 |
6% |
77% |
|
99 |
246 |
19% |
96% |
|
Ceased |
51 |
4% |
100% |
Table 2: Currency for all blogs, 2010
The first thing that has to be said is that I didn’t add any newer blogs to the study. I’d bet at least a couple of hundred liblogs have been created since June 1, 2010—but I didn’t go looking for them. This is a quick and easy update on the 2010 study and its universe, not an attempt to determine the current universe. Anyone wishing to make that attempt is welcome to use my lists (linked earlier) as a basis; for a modest sum, I’d even sell you the spreadsheet.
One liblog seems to have disappeared so thoroughly that it’s not even in the spreadsheet—that is, the last line in the spreadsheet is 1,304 (which means 1,303 blogs). Call that an oops.
Beyond that, 1,190 of the blogs had visible posts as of late July 2012—and hadn’t obviously been seized and transformed into entirely different blogs. That’s not bad: 91.3% two years later.
What happened to the other 113 blogs—none of which appear in the online listing, since they’re not liblogs or remnants of liblogs at this point?
· Eighty-two just plain disappeared, in a few cases because the blogging platform itself shut down.
· Twelve may still be liblogs—but now require invitation to view: they’re private liblogs.
· Eight are reused URLs hosting entirely different content or being held as ad pages.
· Five still exist but are no longer blogs (and don’t have blog archives).
· Two are still blogs but now entirely or predominantly non-English.
· The other six are either empty (there’s a page, but nothing on it), non-library-related or impossible to include for some other reason.
A few of the disappeared blogs had long lifespans: 11 had at least six years of posts (in 2010—the last time I could check). Seven more had at least five years of posts, 16 at least four years and 14 at least three years. Twenty had at least two years of posts, 24 had at least a year, six at least six months—and 15 were short-lived, with no more than five months between the first post and the last (when checked in 2010, that is).
Now we’re down to 1,191 liblogs that still have posts visible as of late July 2012; all of these are on the web page.
Note that 297 of the 1,304 blogs checked in 2010 were explicitly ceased or moribund (that is, hadn’t had a post in more than a year): 23% in all.
For 2012, the numbers are much worse. 405 blogs (34%) weren’t explicitly closed but were moribund, with no posts within the previous 52 weeks. Another 54 (4.5%) were explicitly closed.
Of that 54, 33 had already explicitly closed in 2010: They’re still closed two years later, still with visible posts. Another 11 blogs that had explicitly closed by June 2010 have since disappeared entirely, which isn’t that surprising: Those aren’t included in the 54. Perhaps more surprising are seven resurrected blogs—blogs that had explicitly closed by June 2010, but have since resumed posting (although in two of the seven cases the blog is moribund, having at least one post since June 1, 2010 but none since July 27, 2011).
Of the remaining 21 blogs marked as explicitly closed by July 2010, three were moribund in 2010 but hadn’t explicitly shut down. The rest were all relatively current as of June 2010: 11 had posts within the previous week, three within two weeks, two within a month and two within two months. People close blogs for a variety of reasons; in these cases, the reasons usually appear in the final post.
That leaves 731 blogs that began before June 1, 2010 and were still at least semi-active as of late July 2012 (that is, there had been at least one post within the past year and the blog wasn’t explicitly marked as closed). That’s not bad, all things considered: since there were exactly 1,000 blogs with activity during the previous year in the 2010 study, just over a quarter have ceased or gone quiet in the past two years.
|
Blogs |
High |
Low |
Median |
Moribund |
|
|
All |
1,190 |
167 |
1 |
55 |
39% |
|
Q1 |
233 |
167 |
82 |
93 |
9% |
|
Q2 |
235 |
81 |
64 |
71 |
18% |
|
Q3 |
240 |
63 |
48 |
56 |
29% |
|
Q4 |
233 |
47 |
30 |
39 |
47% |
|
Q5 |
249 |
29 |
1 |
16 |
87% |
Table 3. Longevity quintiles, 2012
Table 3 breaks down the 1,190 blogs that still had visible posts as of late July 2012 in the same manner as Table 1.
In some ways, this table should be predictable—at least for all but the rightmost column. Since 25 months elapsed between the two tests, and only blogs in the 2010 study were included in 2012, you’d expect the high, low and median longevity to be roughly 25 higher for each quintile.
That’s not quite the case. The median overall is only 19 months higher because more blogs ceased or went moribund during the 25 months, and that ripples through the figures to a greater or lesser extent.
I think it’s noteworthy that 233 blogs had at least 82 months of posts—just under seven years—even though 9% of those blogs have gone quiet, and that another 233 have more than five years of posts.
What about that fifth quintile—mostly composed of blogs that are moribund, as you’d expect?
· Ten of the blogs were one-month wonders—in one case deliberately (a blog created for a specific seminar).
· A dozen lasted two months, and another ten three months.
· Twenty-four blogs had four to six months of posts.
· Twenty-two had seven to nine months of posts.
· Nineteen had 10 to 12 months of posts.
· Forty-four had posts spanning a year to a year and a half.
Table 4 isn’t entirely comparable to Table 2, because I omitted the “17” category (four months), adding those blogs into the “26” (six-month) category.
|
Currency |
Blogs |
Percentage |
Cumulative |
|
1 |
225 |
19% |
19% |
|
2 |
94 |
8% |
27% |
|
4 |
105 |
9% |
36% |
|
8 |
93 |
8% |
43% |
|
13 |
56 |
5% |
48% |
|
26 |
73 |
6% |
54% |
|
52 |
85 |
7% |
61% |
|
99 |
405 |
34% |
95% |
|
Ceased |
54 |
5% |
100% |
Table 4. Currency for all blogs, 2012
The optimistic comment here: Of liblogs that have been around for 25 months or more, 19% still seem to have new posts at least once a week—and more than a quarter have new posts at least once every fortnight. All things considered—including the growth of Twitter and Facebook and the extent to which blogs are no longer Shiny—that’s not bad, even compared to 31% and 41% respectively two years ago.
The pessimistic comment: Fewer than half of the blogs had posts within the latest quarter, as compared to nearly two-thirds two years ago.
To close this quick update, here’s a list of the liblogs that have or had posts over at least seven years—an impressive span, regardless of the current status of the blog. (This list combines portions of two lists from The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010, namely pioneering blogs and long-lived blogs that weren’t old enough to be pioneering.)
Blog................................................ Months
ResearchBuzz........................................ 167
librarian.net........................................... 159
oss4lib..................................................... 155
Search Engine Showdown Blog.......... 143
ResourceShelf........................................ 138
The Handheld Librarian...................... 138
Librarisaurus Rex................................. 136
Random Access Mazar......................... 134
AnthoBLOGy......................................... 132
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog 132
The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind 129
EngLib.................................................... 125
infolibre.................................................. 125
BookBitchBlog....................................... 124
Catalogablog......................................... 124
Library Banter....................................... 124
MaisonBisson.com................................ 123
eclectic librarian.................................... 121
LibraryPlanet.com................................ 121
Old Fox's KM blotter............................ 121
Raspoid Maunderings......................... 120
rawbrick.net........................................... 120
beSpacific............................................... 119
Confessions of a Bibliovore................ 119
The Aardvark Speaks........................... 118
Confessions of a Science Librarian..... 117
frontier librarian.................................... 117
the pod bay door.................................. 117
DrWeb's Domain................................... 115
mamamusings....................................... 115
the cynic librarian................................. 115
Library Link of the Day....................... 114
Library Stuff........................................... 114
Sites and Soundbytes........................... 114
Archivalia............................................... 113
Capital City Desk.................................. 113
Citegeist................................................. 113
Pattern Recognition.............................. 113
Peter Scott's Library Blog..................... 113
The world is my dinosaur…............... 113
Book Kitten............................................ 112
TangognaT............................................. 112
The Shifted Librarian........................... 112
j's scratchpad......................................... 111
The Invisible Library............................ 111
Virtual Dave…Real Blog..................... 111
Attempting Elegance............................ 110
Creative Librarian................................. 110
Library Monk........................................ 110
DIY Librarian......................................... 109
explodedlibrary.info............................ 108
Free Range Librarian............................ 108
Librarian Avengers............................... 108
Travelin' Librarian................................ 108
Dirty Librarian...................................... 107
Monica's jeans....................................... 107
Redhaired Librarian............................. 107
Waking Brain Cells............................... 107
David Lee King..................................... 106
Information Takes Over....................... 106
Knowbodies.......................................... 105
LibrariAnne........................................... 105
Library Chronicles................................ 105
Overdue Ideas....................................... 105
Books to curl up with: a librarian's musings 104
Borderland Tales................................... 104
etc............................................................ 104
Lorcan Dempsey's weblog.................. 104
The In Season Christian Librarian...... 103
The Kept-Up Academic Librarian...... 103
The Misadventures of Super_Librarian 103
GoddessLibrarian................................. 102
Informationoverlord............................. 102
A Library Writer's Blog........................ 101
Jen in Transition.................................... 101
zydeco fish............................................. 101
ADHD Librarian................................... 100
Bibliotherapy for obsessive/compulsive Readers 100
Christina's LIS Rant.............................. 100
Loomware - Crafting New Libraries.. 100
Tame the Web........................................ 100
walking paper....................................... 100
Carolyne's pages of interest.................. 99
CogSci Librarian..................................... 99
Dilettante's Ball....................................... 99
Helene Blowers....................................... 99
Libraryman.............................................. 99
Confessions of a Mad Librarian........... 98
Matthew 2.0............................................. 98
The Distant Librarian............................. 98
Tillabooks: Will's Book Blog ............... 98
bookshelves of doom............................. 97
Booktalks--Quick and Simple blog...... 97
Grumpator............................................... 97
Professional-Lurker:
Comments by an academic in cyberspace 97
SciTech Library Question...................... 97
The Bruised Edge................................... 97
The Krafty Librarian............................... 97
Connie Crosby......................................... 96
From a KC Librarian.............................. 96
Killin' time being lazy............................ 96
Miss Information..................................... 96
Open Access News................................. 96
Radical Reference................................... 96
Rambling Librarian................................ 96
Revelations.............................................. 96
Venn Librarian........................................ 96
Digitization 101....................................... 95
Ravings of a Lunatic Librarian............. 95
The Real Paul Jones................................ 95
Unclassifiable Librarian......................... 95
Bad Librarianship Now!........................ 94
Bubble Room........................................... 94
Digital Reference.................................... 94
LibraryLaw Blog..................................... 94
Librarian In Black................................... 93
librarygrrrl.net......................................... 93
Panlibus.................................................... 93
Rachel Vacek........................................... 93
Shelly's Book Shelf.................................. 93
The Goddess of YA Literature.............. 93
The Search Lounge................................. 93
The Society for Librarians Who Say…. 93
Free Government Information (FGI).... 92
Frequently Answered Questions......... 92
Information Wants To Be Free.............. 92
Kegliography.......................................... 92
Librarians Build Communities............. 92
Outsidecat................................................ 92
Txt-based Blogging................................ 92
User Education Resources for Librarians 92
Biblio File................................................. 91
DigiCMB.................................................. 91
Hidden Peanuts...................................... 91
Innovate.................................................... 91
Larocque and Roll.................................. 91
Law Librarian Blog................................. 91
Legal Marketing...................................... 91
Library Web Chic.................................... 91
T. Scott...................................................... 91
The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian! 91
The Information Literacy Land of Confusion 91
Vancouver Law Librarian Blog............ 91
A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette.......... 90
A Wandering Eyre.................................. 90
Bill the Librarian..................................... 90
Booknash.................................................. 90
Filipino Librarian................................... 90
habitually probing generalist............... 90
Incoherent Scribblings............................ 90
infosophy................................................. 90
Marcus' World......................................... 90
Michael Zimmer.org.............................. 90
PLA Blog.................................................. 90
PomeRantz............................................... 90
Recreational Reading............................. 90
reeling and writhing............................... 90
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics 90
Beyond the Job........................................ 89
copy this blog.......................................... 89
garish & tweed........................................ 89
lauren's library blog............................... 89
Library Boy.............................................. 89
Library Voice........................................... 89
ricklibrarian............................................. 89
Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force 88
Library Technology in Texas................. 88
New York via Melbourne...................... 88
nostuff.org................................................ 88
OUseful.Info, the blog............................ 88
RSS4Lib.................................................... 88
The Centered Librarian.......................... 88
A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy...... 87
Depraved Librarian................................ 87
DigitalKoans............................................ 87
Intelligence, A Swiss Army Knife, And Charm 87
Librarian on the edge............................. 87
Love the Liberry..................................... 87
Online Insider......................................... 87
Outgoing.................................................. 87
Plinius....................................................... 87
School Librarian in Action..................... 87
The Gypsy Librarian.............................. 87
The Search Principle blog...................... 87
Walt at Random...................................... 87
Colorado Libraries................................. 86
Epistemographer.................................... 86
Foxylibrarian.com................................... 86
Lesa's Book Critiques............................. 86
Library clips............................................ 86
lis.dom...................................................... 86
Lupe's journal......................................... 86
Musings from Vermont.......................... 86
OA Librarian........................................... 86
Of Life, Education, E-bay, Travel & Books 86
The Itinerant Librarian........................... 86
"Self-plagiarism is style"........................ 85
Library Grants......................................... 85
LITA Blog................................................. 85
Shimenawa............................................... 85
Stephen's Lighthouse............................. 85
The Hot Librarian................................... 85
Tombrarian.............................................. 85
Andrew Whitis........................................ 84
Better than Cheesecake.......................... 84
Bowllan's blog......................................... 84
Connecting Librarian............................. 84
derivative work....................................... 84
fresh + new(er)......................................... 84
Open Reading Frame............................. 84
Quædam cuiusdam................................ 84
Slaw........................................................... 84
The Good Library Blog.......................... 84
The Invisible Web Weblog.................... 84
The Library Lady Rants......................... 84
Thoughts from a Library Administrator 84
Some of the names here may not be the same name the blog had throughout its life—just as the online page won’t always have either the same name or the same URL that a blog began with.
Whenever I could be reasonably certain that a current blog was effectively a continuation of an earlier one (either because of a forwarding link, an archive including earlier posts or other reasonably good evidence), I included all iterations of the blog in the quick study.
The list of 216 blogs above is, I believe, testament to the continued worth of blogging for a significant number of library people. It’s not the only tool, and for many people it’s no longer the best tool—but for people who still have something to say and need more than a few words to say it, liblogs still work.
Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large, Volume 12, Number 9, Whole # 153, ISSN 1534-0937, a journal of libraries, policy, technology and media, is written and produced irregularly by Walt Crawford.
Comments should be sent to waltcrawford@gmail.com. Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large is copyright © 2012 by Walt Crawford: Some rights reserved.
All original material in this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
URL: citesandinsights.info/civ12i9.pdf