Still available: Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples.
- Price: $29.50 (or $20 for PDF download, only from Lulu)
- Includes 231 English-language academic library blogs from 156 institutions.
- Coverage rules same as for Public Library Blogs.
- Similar metrics and inclusions–but this book also makes a few comparisons between academic and public library blogs. (I do not attempt to characterize academic institutions by size of user population or any other characterization.)
- x+279 pages, 6×9, 60lb. cream paper.
- Cover photo taken at Ephesus
- If you need an ISBN or prefer Amazon, the Amazon/CreateSpace version is the same price and carries ISBN 978-1434832894. (Unlike earlier Amazon/CreateSpace versions, this one is also 60lb. cream book stock.)
This is, as far as I know, the broadest and only study of its kind–showing how academic libraries actually use blogs in scores of cases, not just theory and a few hand-picked examples.
Why you or your library should buy this book
For a library attached to a library school, I think it should be a no-brainer: A unique study that provides a broad basis for understanding actual use of blogs by academic libraries.
For 231 blogs in 156 institutions of higher education, you can see metrics including number of posts, length of posts, number of comments (if any) and use of illustrations. Additionally, I attempt to show how each blog links (or doesn’t) to its library’s home page (and vice-versa), special characteristics, and a sample post.
If you’re in an academic library that’s blogging or considering blogging, this book should help guide you to blogs you might want to use for inspiration–and some of the numbers may give you a bracing sense of reality as you set expectations.
If you’re speaking or writing about library blogging, this book will provide facts on actual blogging across a broad range of examples.
Possible scarcity or replacement:
This book came out January 15, 2008. As of mid-May, it’s sold 28 copies.
Depending on future sales of this book and Public Library Blogs and other factors (including feedback), I may or may not replace both books with a new library blogging book that looks at changes in blogs between March-May 2007 and March-May 2008.
Otherwise, this book will stay on sale for at least a year–but after that, it may be taken out of print if sales fall below an average of one copy a week. (At the very least, the Amazon version might disappear.)
