I already have the sense that it’s a little odd for one semi-retired individual to be carrying out the kind of study that might typically be done with a grant or by a library school–and I think “the effect of Twitter on the depth of reading/writing in the library blogosphere” might be such a study. I might be able to contribute a bunch of background data, on the other hand…

(One real virtue of institutional/grant-funded studies: $ up front. The feedback and results from the research I did on library blogs, as opposed to liblogs, has not–shall we say–enormously encouraged me to carry out deeper or lateral research in that area. “Run! Run away!” is more like it. But that’s another post!)

And, as you say, your results do not show “that the community is engaging less deeply or reading less.” Not yet. My point is that the type of numbers you are collecting are the beginning of what could be a very interesting media study, the effect of Twitter on the depth of reading/writing in the library blogosphere. Other lib-bloggers are noticing changes in these patterns, but there are no numbers yet.

I do not lament the change. If people are shifting to Twitter for their conversations, there must be something to it, even if it is not my preference. More power to them.

You may or may not decide to look at the Twitter element, and the patterns in reading/writing in the library blogosphere. Entirely up to you of course. Just wishful thinking because it interests me.

John: I have to admit that I see no reason to lament tiny little spur-of-the-moment things going to Twitter rather than blogs–and I’ll certainly be looking at average post length as one of several correlations, once I’ve gone through the rest of the sampling.

In fact, I see no reason to lament at all. Even these possibly-biased, single-factor results don’t suggest that the community is “engaging less deeply” or “reading less.” The general increase in comments per post (if that holds up) suggests the opposite, if anything–that fewer posts are getting lost in the shuffle, that people are responding when appropriate.

But then, I’ve never been much for lamenting. Which is probably a good thing!

“Admittedly, we’re dealing with tiny obscure little companies here. Presumably you feel safe ….”

Absolute pure genius snark, Walt. I love it.