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Friday, March 28
Friday Fun Link - 2008 LJ Movers and Shakers (March 28, 2008)
by
Jason
on Fri 28 Mar 2008 09:39 PM CST
A recent post on Librarian.net reminded me that this year's list of Library's Journal's 2008 Movers & Shakers is now out. Congrats to Amy Buckland for getting the nod! (<old man voice>I remember when Amy was just a wee lass, firing off e-mails to library school-focused blogs asking about the merits of various schools.</old man voice> Obviously I didn't do a good enough sales job for UWO and she landed at McGill. London's loss is Montreal's gain.) Looking at the list of recipients and seeing how many of those named have blogs (and/or are doing work focused on technology and Web 2.0 stuff), it made me wonder what sort of relationship there is between having a blog and the "real world" of libraries? Classmate John Miedema of the Slow Reading blog recently presented at Salt Lake City Public Library's "Thinking Ahead" conference. I'm not sure if his blog was how they found him and/or if it helped lend credibility to his application if he "cold called" them as a potential speaker but I'm sure it didn't hurt.Maybe that's part of it - you need to have a certain specialty or theme that you're "known" for? (See #4 here.) Amy runs Library Student Journal, John has become a leading proponent of the Slow Reading movement. I haven't won any awards or been invited to any conferences because of my blog (yet!  ) but as I recently blogged about, it's been an amazing way to become connected to a wider library community that I wouldn't otherwise have in the pre-Internet days. (Of course, I also have my days when I think bloggers are a lot like poets and professors - namely, a group of people who are mostly interested in what other people in the same area are doing while no one else gives a toss. I've organized enough poetry readings in my life to know that 99% of the people who come to them are other poets. And the citation count wars of academics trying to get their papers cited by other academics often seemed like more of an academic circle jerk than anything.  )Er, anyhow, ranty tangents aside, being a part of the conversation has been useful, even if it hasn't paid off in awards, conference invites or Google-buyout offers. Even something as simple as being able to post the full version of my essay that won second place in the CLA student essay contest last year since CLA didn't have room to print anything but the winner in Feliciter has generated the a couple hits from people who searched for it after the winners were announced last year. And who knows - it may do so into the future as well. And then? That CLA conference invite can't be far off! (How can you tell it's conference season? I'm hoping to go to SLA this year - and to maybe get a chance to meet the famous Jessamyn West of librarian.net and MetaFilter.com - but CLA looks like it's not going to happen, what with the price of diapers and whatnot.)
Sunday, March 23
Blog Survey Results
by
Jason
on Sun 23 Mar 2008 12:08 AM CST
I recently
posted the second annual "Head Tale Blog Survey" to find out a bit
about the visitors to this site - how they get here, what they like
about the site, what they want to see more of and so on.
Here are some of the results...
- 75% of
respondents read the site via RSS with 55% occasionally clicking
through to the site and 20% never clicking through. 25% visit directly
via a bookmark.
- it was pretty
evenly split between Google Reader and Bloglines with 60-40% for each
respective service. Even though I love it and have raved about it on
this blog multiple times, no one uses NetVibes. 
- 30% of people
read/visit the site when they see a new post, 12% visit multiple times
per day, 20% visit daily, 20% visit every few days, 6% visit weekly and
12% visit "whenever the mood strikes me". Nobody answered "monthly or
less frequently" but then again, I don't think I've had the post up for
a month yet! 
- Given that the
blog started when I was in library school and is known mostly to people
who are either professors, alumni, former colleagues from when I was
attending FIMS or current students there now (and the same categories
from other library schools to a lesser degree), it's no surprise that
"Library related" and "Library school" are, by far, the most popular
types of posts being picked by 87% and 73% of respondents. Other
popular categories with more than 50% of people picking them were
"Work-Related" (a new category I added to the survey this year) and
"Miscellaneous Ramblings" (which sort of surprised me as I don't do a
lot of these and tend to not like them as they often feel unfocused and
random. But hey, didn't I just describe 90% of blogs in general?)
-
"Baby-related", "Pop Culture", "Technology" and "Humour" were all just
under the 50% level in terms of popularity with survey respondents.
- Everything
else got at least a double-digit approval rating except "Hockey" which
only got a 6% approval rating including one person who went so far as
to write-in "I like everything you write about except hockey!" 
- Sending a strong message to get back to the theme that this blog started with (a message which I may or may not hear!  ),
"Library-related" was not only the most popular category for posts I do
now but also, by far, the category people would like to see more posts
in with 67% of respondents citing it. "Work related" (which you can
probably view as a vote for "library related" in some ways) and
"Miscellaneous ramblings" were the other top vote getters in this
area.
- "Comments"
were by far the most popular widget with people indicating that they
read them, even if they don't post them. Every other widget got at
least a vote or two except for the LastFM "last song played" widget and
the Regina/Calgary/London weather widget (but I use that one on a daily
basis so it ain't going anywhere!)
- Maybe
surprisingly, 100% of respondents who answered the question liked that
this blog has daily posts! (If I remember correctly, last year, it was
only a slight majority who thought this was important.) Thanks for the
vote of support folks. I'll try to keep it up (even if I have to
occasionally "fudge" time stamps the following day to do so!).
- the general
comments were very supportive of what I do with this blog and it was
nice to see that the respondents included a few former
classmates/colleagues from FIMS because I didn't know if those folks
were still "out there" reading now that we've all gone our separate
ways.
- Pace got lots
of kudos as well and I'm sure he'll continue to be a regular feature on
the blog. (Idea for a future post - the security/privacy issues around
putting up pictures and updates about him - something I've thought
about a lot while doing my computer/Internet training sessions the past
three months. I didn't show Shea's Flickr account or our YouTube
videos at every workshop but occasionally it would come up and then I
often had to explain our choice to put this type of material on the
Internet to people who still buy into that media-generated hysteria
about pedophiles lurking around every URL and IP address.)
- as for ideas for other future posts from the respondents, I can address this one right now: "Will a Large Hadron Collider experiment create a mini black hole that consumes the earth? Or, do aliens blog more than humans?"
Answer: Uhm, no idea. And also, no idea. (Next time, I'm going to
include a question about what you're smoking when you fill out the
survey! )
Saturday, March 15
Link Dump (and Blog Survey Reminder)
by
Jason
on Sat 15 Mar 2008 01:42 AM CST
Just clearing up some things I've come across recently. I sometimes forget to make a note of where I found stuff so if I got this from you or your site, apologies in advance - feel free to post a comment or drop me a line to let me know (although admittedly 90% of my stuff tends to come from Reddit these days so you can usually find the discussion for these sites there by doing a search on the relevant topic.)Also, this is a good place to remind you that my annual blog survey is open right now. If you haven't already, please take a quick moment to fill out the 10 questions (most of which are checkboxes - can it get any easier?)
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to respond so far. I can only make educated guesses as to who's reading this blog from the various programs I have tracking traffic to this site. So it's especially nice to see responses from former classmates and colleagues at FIMS when I wasn't sure if they were still "tuning in". On to the links...Bookshelf Blog
BookShelves By ColourR.E.M. to debut new album on the social networking application, iLikeThe World's 50 Most Powerful BlogsAnd for the survey respondent who said "Pace rocks - more Pace!", here you go...
Tuesday, March 11
2008 Head Tale Blog Survey
by
Jason
on Tue 11 Mar 2008 09:49 PM CST
I did a blog survey last year which was very informative about who's reading my blog, how they get here and how often they visit, what they like once they get here and what they'd like to see more of. For that reason, I've decided to repeat the survey again this year. I thank-you in advance for taking a few short minutes to fill out the survey. I don't think I posted the results last year but I think I'll do so this year (mainly because I'm always desperate for content!  )
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