Blogging triptych

Well, anyone would think that I’d been sitting around avoiding doing work for my dissertation!

In a move that reeks of impending disaster, I have abandoned my timetable* and am enjoying just reading law blogs, following links and being inspired. Heatwaves are clearly not good for my work output.

My blogroll (over there on the right if you’re not being ‘fed’) probably gives some indication of the type of thing I’m reading, but not the value I place on the content of these blogs, so – taking inspiration from the glorious weather and my desire to be on a beach – here are three law related blogs I wouldn’t mind being stranded on a desert island with:

3L Epiphany
While 3L Epiphany is on hiatus at the moment I’m still finding it useful reading. The author, Ian Best, is coming at law blogging from the other angle – the law angle. It has to be one of the richest resources I’ve come across. Oh, and I really wish I’d got to the idea of a taxonomy of legal blogs before him.

Human Law
Again, a blogging lawyer, and one who very kindly linked to me back in June despite my appalling lack of updates. Author Justin Patten raised an interesting point back then in June. He tipped his hat to the skills of law librarians when it came to blogs and blogging. As someone with both a law and library education I can appreciate the importance of both when it comes to the writing and reading of legal blogs.

In the past year I have had my eyes opened by the lack of awareness of the law and its institutions and processes by librarians with no law-related education. On the other hand, I have also been amazed by lawyers and their deficiencies when it comes to information skills. I think maybe a lecturer of mine may have been right when he said that the combination of a law education and a library education was a “sexy combination”.

Sentencing Law and Policy
This American, sentencing law blog is the perfect example of the potential of blogs as information sources. Written with authority by Douglas A. Berman, a professor at Ohio State University, it covers current law of interest and use to its readership. Why can’t they all be like this?

*The thing I should be doing: piloting survey of law blog readers.

Research proposal abstract

Research into the use, value and reliability of weblogs as sources of legal information is proposed. A history of weblogs is presented along with a preliminary review of literature concerned with weblogs as sources of information. A plan of action is discussed detailing the proposed methodology of the research. In an attempt to understand the types of information that weblogs are used to disseminate, a continued literature review is planned in conjunction with both content analysis of relevant texts and a web questionnaire aimed at those who read such weblogs. The proposal discusses the selection of texts and categories to be analysed. The benefits and potential problems of both content analysis and the web questionnaire are discussed. The kinds of questions that it is hoped can be asked in the questionnaire are presented. Other matters including a timetable for research, possible resource requirements and ethical considerations are also considered.

Research proposal oral

I'm fresh out of my research proposal oral.  My supervisor and the second assessor were both helpful, but pressed me to be more specific about my methodology.

We agreed that somewhere in the range of 10 – 20 blogs would be about right for the content analysis.  My supervisor did, however, suggest that I should go away and actually sit down with a typical 'blawg' (ugh, hate the word) and see how long it would take me to do the content analysis and see exactly the sorts of things I would be coding.

She also suggested that the blogs I look at need not have been recently updated.  There are still archives to go through and there may be something interesting behind why the blog is no longer updated.

There was a concern that information professionals might not be keen to respond to surveys.  Suggestions – use BIALL to get in contact with people, alternatively once I have identified my sample, get in contact with the blog owners and request that they promote my questionnaire on their blog.

My supervisor suggested putting my survey here in my blog (after I had made my blogging confession – why is blogging regarded as such a bizarre thing to do?!?).

They were both encouraging and the second assessor (who also happens to be the research proposal module leader) seemed particularly enthusiastic about what I am proposing to do.  My supervisor reassured me that it did seem a feasible thing to be doing as an MSc project.

I am glad it's over though.

T. Mortensen & J. Walker, ‘Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool’

T. Mortensen & J. Walker, 'Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool' (pdf)

in A. Morrison (ed), Researching ICTs in context, InterMedia Report, 3/2002, Oslo, 2002.

Authors: T. Mortensen, Volda College and J. Walker, University of Bergen.

The authors examine weblogs as a tool for aiding academic research.

They look at weblogs as methods of publishing research and ideas as they develop.

They see weblogs as “connecting dispersed discoveries”. This relates to the idea of clusters of topical blogs.

Evan Williams (one of the creators of Blogger): "I realised early on that what was significant about blogs was the format – not the content". (As quoted on p.249)

Blogs are more than journals – "a hybrid between journal, academic publishing, storage space for link and site for academic discourse". (p.250)

About exchange of information. "A weblogger filters a mass of information, choosing the items that interest her or that are relevant to her chosen topic, commenting upon them, demonstrating connections between them and analysing them". (p.250)

Bloggers – journalists, editors and researchers in one. Directing others, trailblazing (see below).

Online presence useful – gives credibility if researching online matters.

Authors' methodology: research from the inside, personal experience, 'Action Research' – problem of lack of distance between researcher and object of study, no detached observation.

Lack of published material (in 2002). Blogs being treated as part of popular culture or as 'folk journalism'.

Note projects exploring weblogs in education: Weblogs in Education, Edublog, Weblogg-Ed – focus on practical use of blogs in teaching.

"Many professionals keep weblogs, and they often use their blogs to reflect upon their work, to follow developments in the field and to publish ideas". (p.252) Weblogs very much about research.

Blogdex – indexes links in blogs, looks at connections between blogs – plots social networks. Interlinked nature of blogs.

Blogging software.

Blogs – "straddle the boundaries between publication and process". (p.256) They allow "single, small, insignificant ideas to be expressed and formulated [...] ideas grow. Someone links their site to the first post, comments on it, and a conversation grows forth [...] Links are like roots, tendrils, reaching out between fragments, creating a context for bits and pieces that at first glance may seem to be unconnected fragments". (p.259)

Blogs – "written to share experiences rather than just display them". (p.261)

Public/private spheres.

Subjective nature. Don't necessarily go with consensus, e.g. 11 September 2001, "weblogs showed the dissent among individuals". (p.259)

Changing nature of academic communication, as more information is available.

Mismatch between protecting academic thought until publishing and blogging as you go along.

H. Jenkins, 'Blog this': "objectification and alienation" of bloggers. Jenkins needed blog presence in order to defend his position. 'Problem' of bloggers analysing the researcher.

Blogging and conferences – immediacy of the medium.

Trail blazing – "establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record" (Vannevar Bush, 'As we may think', as quoted on p.265)

"connecting dispersed discoveries" (p.265)

"a weblog allows us to share this found information, and to participate in discussions about it" (p.265) – about research and dissemination of research.

Conversations between blogs.

Sponteneity of publishing – minimal editing – less formal tone.

"Most ideas a researcher has never make it to a formal article or book; they are forgotten or cast aside because they don't fit the whole. Weblogs elucidate the constant flow of thought and the ever-changing nature of research". (p.267)

"The idea that some kinds of knowledge are discarded because they do not fit into the stable formulas [sic] of a genre could be applied to both weblogs and to the scholarly article or book". (p.271)

"a visible trace of the process of research" (p.268)

Rebecca Blood, (Rebecca's pocket) – history of blogging article. Blogs good for finding voice and defining own interests.

Archive and searchable.

How do you measure what is a 'good blog'? Popularity (i.e. links from other blogs)? Weblog clusters which link to each other. A-list cluster (people like Rebecca Blood, Evan Williams etc). Distortion?

Cameron Marlow (Blogdex developer) – social networks between blogs.

"highly social nature of weblogging" (p.272)

"In the semi-social structure of weblogs, linking is a measure of popularity, which again is generally interpreted as a measure of quality". (p.272)

(Apologies for the excessive quoting – it's a good article!)

J. Maxymuk, ‘Blogs’

J. Maxymuk, ‘Blogs’
The Bottom Line: Library Finances, 18(1), 2005, pp.43-45

Author: J. Maxymuk, ? at Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University, New Jersey

Currency of information and expertise of political bloggers – Powerline, Instapundit.

Notes the value of good blogs and reviews some general library-related blogs and some more specific, subject-related blogs. (The abstract suggests more than the article delivers).

“As in any other form of communication, what sets the best sites apart is the stylishness of the writing and the quality of the content. A well-written and trustworthy blog on a popular topic will draw flocks of readers and thus can be a very effective tool for spreading the word”. (p.43)

Library blogs: Jenny (The Shifted Librarian) Levine’s Librarian’s Site Du Jour (no longer working?), begun in 1995.

Libdex – “Scott’s compilation of library blogs is annotated, comprehensive and international in scope”. (p.44)

Examples of blogs on general librarianship-related topics:
blogwithoutalibrary.net (about how libraries are using blogs), Bibliolatry (general news and links – seems to be covered in ads at the moment, not active?), Free Range Librarian (Karen Schneider’s blog), The Kept-Up Academic Librarian (news and developments in HE), The Information Literary Land of Confusion (information literacy), Research Buzz (news about online research tools), Retrofitted Librarian (local library news, San Francisco – lighthearted), Infojones (library-related and personal), Library Grrrls! (library work, women’s roles in libraries, general), The Laughing Librarian (humourous).

More subject-specific library blogs:
Science/medicine-related – Confessions of a Science Librarian, The (sci-tech) Library Question, The Krafty Librarian (medical librarianship issues).

Law-related – Keeping Legal (UK and US legal issues – seems to have disappeared), beSpacific (law and technology news), LibraryLaw Blog.

Charles Bailey’s Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (blog-style bibliography of resources about electronic publishing on the Internet – big list of articles!).

Technology-related – LibraryCog (library systems information – not working for me at the moment, has been updated recently though), Loomware (information and technology in academic libraries, universities etc), Bazac Weblog (search engine-related), LibrarianInBlack (web design, technology etc), TechnoBiblio (technology news for librarians and more general stuff).

The Shifted Librarian (“attempts to come to terms with the great shift taking place in how information is consumed” (p.45)).

P.J. Moorman, ‘Mining information gold in the blogosphere: how to use web logs as reliable research tools’

P.J. Moorman, ‘Mining information gold in the blogosphere: how to use web logs as reliable research tools’
New Library Scene, 24(1), 2005, [pp.3-5?]

Author: Reference/electronic services librarian, Pepperdine University Law Library, Malibu.

Problem of finding information in blogs, due to huge numbers of blogs, many of these are of poor quality. However, with good blogs we see “bloggers at the top of their various professions, using their blogs [...] to discuss weighty issues of the day and undoubtedly influence policymakers and the public”.

Specific mention of law blogs – ‘blawgs’ – and of The Volokh Conspiracy and The Virtual Chase (a legal research website, not a blog). Currency of information, bloggers “in the trenches”, ideal for information on new developments.

Advice for finding information in blogs, including instructions for Google (add ~blog inurl:archives to search), Yahoo (add blog inurl:archives to search) and Teoma (merged with Ask – add blog archives to search). Blog-specific search engines: Feedster, Bloglines – bigger list at Ari Paparo’s Big List of Blog Search Engines.

Blogrolls as a way of building a set of trustworthy resources in an area of interest. Way of assessing relevancy, usefullness, bias etc. Look at bloggers’ biographies as a measure of their worth.

Blog directories, for example: blawg.org (“a particularly valuable tool for a law librarian”), kinja.com.

RSS feeds for following blogs. RSS for Non-Techie Librarians by Steven Cohen. Feedreader.

first post

I’m a postgrad library and information studies student researching the use and value of blogs as information sources. I’ve had a personal blog, on and off, for almost four years. I plan on keeping a record of my work and research here.