Walt at Random

This seems to be a day for metablogging. So, in the spirit if not the letter…

I’m honored by this post by Kathryn at librariesinteract (a really interesting, fairly new group blog for Australian librarians).

I’m put firmly in my place by this series of comments regarding a silly little post in which I objected to an over-the-top characterization of a certain automobile. Now I’m reliably informed that I’m a 70-year-old unemployed librarian who’s a whiner, semi-literate, possessed of a degree in a major that shouldn’t exist, too poor to buy serious cars and so reduced to driving a car that’s equivalent to a #2 pencil, and writing an “annoying little blog” that signifies nothing. I’m so ashamed…and really have to wonder what those 300+ subscribers and 1,000+ average daily visits are all about, since there’s clearly nothing worthwhile here and it’s from such a disreputable source!

I don’t have the requisite five lesser-known blogs to recommend. I believe I’ve done that, several times over, in the Cites & Insights “Look at Liblogs”–except, of course, that I didn’t specifically recommend five blogs.

And then there’s the blogging meme. OK, I’ll give it a try:

• Why did you start blogging? Because (a) there were things I wanted to say that weren’t quite right, or not yet ready, for my ejournal, (b) because people had been bugging me to and I finally gave in, (c) because Michael Gorman’s ill-advised rant pushed me over the edge.
• What do you blog about mainly? There are 18 categories with more than 10 posts each, but the top six (in descending order) are: Writing and blogging, Libraries, Net media, Stuff (my favorite!), Cites & Insights, and Moviest and TV.
• Do you blog in your first language or in another language, and why? Sigh. Unlike computer languages (where I’ve probably used at least 8), I’m haplessly monolingual for human languages, after several attempts to try (and severe damage to my GPA in high school and college). It may not always sound like it, but English is my first and only language.
• What motivates you to keep blogging even if (like most bloggers) you’re not paid much for it? “Not paid much”? Bwahahah… I keep doing it because it’s easy, it’s fun, and people comment enough to let me know it’s read.
• Is your audience mainly inside your own country or around the world? Yes.
• What do your family and friends think about the fact that you are a blogger? My wife thinks we all have too much time on our hands. My friends who aren’t bloggers probably don’t care. I don’t think of myself as a blogger; I’m a part-time writer who happens to have a blog.
• Does your boss know you have a blog? Yes.
• What is the relationship between blogs in your country or region and the mainstream media? My own take: The Hot Political Blogs have less influence than they think they have–and more than mainstream media wants to admit. On the other hand, my impression is that many of the Hot Blogs really are mainstream media, just in another form.
• When you blog, how would you describe what you write? Is it part of a conversation? Is it ranting? Is it a daily diary? Is it journalism? Is it some or all of these things at different times? Does the definition matter?
  Frequently part of a conversation; certainly not a diary; not particularly journalism; the definition doesn’t matter.
• Have blogs started to have an impact on politics in your country? Have they started to influence what stories get covered in your country’s media? We’d love to know some examples.
  Same answer as two bullets up.

Seems like every time I do a Really Big Essay, I wind up doing a followup here–usually with various clarifications, apologies, whatever.

This time? Not so much. Admittedly, the issue came out in the dead of vacation time (and the stats show that), so reactions may keep trickling in, but I think the first wave has arrived.

Here’s what I conclude and will or won’t clarify based on that wave:

• I spelled out the selection criteria clearly enough. At worst, I had to suggest that people go back and read the first part of the article. No apologies required.
• Including non-English blogs was the right thing to do. So, I think, was not offering any qualitative comments on the blogs: Letting them “speak for themselves” through taglines, categories, and sample post titles.
• I should possibly have spelled out more cases in which good blogs in the Great Middle fell out during metrics. Free Government Info is another case where the blog setup made metrics too time-consuming to be worthwhile (as it offers archives on a one-day-at-a-time basis). There may be others.
• The effort was probably worthwhile, based on responses so far. Not every essay has to have a direct point, at least not in C&I.
• The wombats will always be with us. I should remember to ignore certain of them.
• You can’t please everybody, and I already knew that.

Further comments definitely invited. Suggestions for new sources of blogs? Not so much. I already know what I plan to do next year (energy, time, world conditions allowing), and I don’t believe it will include scouring the internet for liblogs. Unless I do two feature articles, and that’s not in the current plans. (And, as we all know, plans never change!)

So there’s the mandatory followup.

Oh, one more thing: I’m seeing lots of links to the HTML version of the essay. That’s fine, as long as you expect people to read 18,000 words online. Otherwise, you’re helping to use more paper: Remember that the easy-to-read, designed PDF takes 30 pages and the HTML version of the lead essay will typically take 48 or more. I almost didn’t do an HTML version for precisely that reason. I know some of you detest PDF for whatever reasons; but printing out the HTML really is the wrong way to go. Reading it all on screen? If that’s your preference, that’s why I did the HTML.