Why Librarians Should Care About Blogs
I spent some time with a business librarian last night talking about blogs. She doesn’t understand why blogs could be important to librarians, but she also admitted that most of the blogs she’s seen are all online journal types of blogs–the “I hate winter,” “here’s what I think about x,” “while I was looking for something in the supermarket…”–not blogs that she sees much value in or wants to read. I told her that there are other kinds of blogs: blogs about librarianship, resources for current awareness, postings about subjects related to her work, and sites covering corporations and corporate information–maybe a corporation she’s researching has a blog. Unfortunately, business information is one of my weak areas, so I couldn’t recommend any specific resources. As if on cue, David Wessel’s Capital column in today’s Wall Street Journal is about online sources for economics, including a few blogs, like that of Brad DeLong, one of America’s leading economic historians. Why wait a few months for his next journal article or a year for his next book when you can read his thoughts more frequently? (Unfortunately, Wessel’s column is probably restricted to subscribers.)
