ConnectMidwest

Yesterday, your intrepid chapter blog editor took the Survey of Health Sciences Librarian Blog Readers for Marcus Banks. Although I realize that I monitor and read quite a few librarian blogs, answering the survey questions was a revelation to me. I read A LOT of librarian blogs. There are over 50 blogs written by librarians or published by libraries in my Bloglines feeds. Why? How else could a solo hospital librarian keep up with our rapidly changing profession? I'm always looking for ways to improve services to my library clients. Aren't you? I'm really interested in the results of the survey...perhaps I should go to Las Vegas for the meeting myself!

And here is where I confess that there are a number of blogs that I monitor just for fun. There's Cute Overload, Neatorama, and ever useful, The Generator Blog.

The results of the survey are in! It is nice to see the raw results, but I am wondering about how many specific groups of librarians read quite a few blogs as I do. So how many solo hospital librarians with many years of experience like me read a lot of blogs?

This week your intrepid blog editor has been watching an idea spread like wildfire through the librarian blog world, also known as the biblioblogosphere. On Sunday evening, Marcus Banks (NOT the NBA Marcus Banks) posted Why Professional Librarian Journals Should Evolve into Blogs. Here is his idea:

I became firmly convinced that the traditional journal model is antiquated for sharing research and knowledge among librarians. A better course is to develop and nurture excellent blogs, with multimedia capabilities and guaranteed preservation of the postings.

David Rothman picked it up right away Monday and included the slide show that Marcus used to present his librarian blog survey results. (Yikes, my poor old Gateway takes a long time to load this page with the embedded slide show.)

T. Scott was on it by Tuesday early with Editing and Peer Review. Dean Giustini chimed in later in the day with Blogs Destabilize LIS Publishing - But Research.

Then David Rothman posted about it again later in the day with Troubled Tuesday, commenting on T. Scott and Dean Giustini and noting that LibraryStuff and LIS News had also posted the link for their readers.

Talk about a flurry of activity! Read about it yourself. What do you think?

Your intrepid blog editor thinks that for for some librarians like herself, blogs have already replaced professional journals as the primary means of "keeping up" with developments in the field. "What's the latest and how can it be useful in my library?" just cannot be answered in peer-reviewed journals. The time to publication is too long. I hate to admit it, but the latest issue of JMLA is sitting back in the office on my desk with a bookmark at the Janet Doe lecture, still waiting to be read.

In last summer's issue, MIDLINE featured an article by Carol Perryman about the Alliance Library System's project "Providing Consumer Health Outreach and Library Programs to Virtual World Residents in Second Life." Funding for the project was provided by the NN/LM Greater Midwest Region. Yesterday, she announced the publication of the project's final report on MEDLIB-L.

The report is 46 pages with lots of illustrations. And well worth the read! A lot of real people were served (via their avatars) by the project with displays, workshops and presentations, support group meetings, and even by answering old-fashioned reference questions. I had no idea! Clearly, an important need is being served.

P.S. Did you know that the way a person's avatar looks can affect real life behavior? I picked up this All Things Considered story in my feed reader last week. And I quote: "If you want to get thin, get a virtual life." It is called vicarious reinforcement. An interesting approach to weight loss!