Once again looking at the 231 academic library blogs included in Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples, this time looking at total words during the three-month/92-day study period.
The complete set of posts total 852,930 words. The average blog had 3,692 words. The median was 2,244. Comparing that to public library blogs, the average academic blog was about 10% shorter–but the median academic blog was about 17% longer.
The quintiles:
- Q1: Longest blogs: 5,656 words to 39,000 words.
Average (mean): 10,205 words.
Median: 8,408 words.
This group includes 55% of the words in all the blogs. - Q2: Longer blogs: 2,978 to 5,652 words.
Average: 4,181 words.
Median: 4,268 words.
This group includes 22.6% of the words in all the blogs. - Q3: Average-length blogs: 1,733 words to 2,969 words.
Average: 2,278 words.
Median: 2,244 words.
This group includes 12.6% of the words in all the blogs. - Q4: Shorter blogs: 888 words to 1,716 words.
Average: 1,300 words.
Median: 1,338 words.
This group includes 7% of the words in all the blogs. - Q5: Shortest blogs: 69 words to 886 words.
Average: 529 words.
Median: 524 words.
This group includes 2.9% of the words in all the blogs.
You’d need to take the hundred longest blogs–43% of the total–to include 80% of the words.
Comparing these to public library blogs by quintile, it’s a matter of gentler extremes: the longest academic blogs are shorter (the Q1 average and median are both lower), while the other academic blogs are slightly longer (that is, Q2-Q5 average and median are higher for academic than public library blogs).
