Weblogs

What are weblogs?

A weblog is a website or page that is the product of (generally) an individual or of non-commercial origin that uses a date limited or diary format, and which is updated either daily or at least regularly with new information about a subject, range of subjects, or personal details.
This information may have been written by the author of the log, obtained from other sources on the web, contributed by others, or a combination of those. They are consequently usually topical and timely, and can be viewed as a developing commentary on a situation, event or subject.
Weblogs are also referred to as logs, Blogs, Web logs and so on. The term most often used however is 'blog'.

There are a variety of different types of weblog, all doing different things. The single most popular weblog is Slashdot which is the work of programmer and graphic artist Rob Malden and some of his colleagues. Slashdot is an extended weblog, in that it carries discussion threads which are contributed to by various individuals, and on many subject areas, such as games, hardware, programming and so on. To this extent, it may appear to be more akin to a portal, rather than a diary.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Weblog of Jenny Levine The Shifted Librarian which is a personal weblog of an information professional.

Despite their differences, they have several key elements in common:

Content changes on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.
There is a personal point of view
There is an opportunity to contact/collaborate with the author
Viewers will find topical material that will (usually) relate to them
Issues of the day are generally those that are discussed in detail
They respond to, rather than creating news
They are written in a format with the most recent material at the top, while older material is further down the page, or stored in an archive, which is almost like reading backwards through a book.

Brief history of weblogs

It could be argued that the first webpages, the creation of Tim Berners-Lee, were themselves a weblog while he was documenting the origins and growth of the environment he was creating.
However, it has only been towards the end of the last decade, 1997-98 that people started to create weblogs. The name ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997. In 1998 the first list of weblogs was created at http://www.camworld.com/ Another listing, http://www.jjg.net/portal/tpoowl.htmllisted those weblogs that existed in the early days. This listing has not been updated since 12^thOctober 2000, so it is of little use now as anything other than historical value. Peter Merholz established the pronounciation ‘wee-blog’, which then was shortened to blog, and the author or editor in turn became a ‘blogger’.
Weblogs shortly then began to expand as more people created them. Brigitte Eaton produced an early listing of every weblog that she was aware of at http://portal.eatonweb.com/ and the listing currently stands at 11,654.

A small sampling of some other blogs that you might like to take a look at:

Explodedlibrary.info at http://blogs.salon.com/0001429/
Gary Price – ResourceShelf at http://www.resourceshelf.com/
Phil Bradley’s blog at http://www.philb.com/blog/blogger.html
David Little’s weblog at http://www.david-little.org.uk/weblog/
My new weblog at http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/
My 'I want to...' weblog at http://philbradley.typepad.com/i_want_to/
Freedom of information blog at http://foia.blogspot.com/
Electronic information for the NHS at http://andyrffc.blogspot.com/
Tom Roper's weblog at http://tomroper.typepad.com/
Karen Blakeman's blog at http://www.rba.co.uk/rss/blog.htm
Ian Snowley's weblog at http://snowley.typepad.com/ian_snowleys_weblog/
The Loopy Librarian at http://loopylibrarian.blogspot.com/
The Information Overlord at http://www.informationoverlord.co.uk/
UK School Librarians Unite! http://ukschoollibrarians.blogspot.com/ (may have died)
The librarians tangents at http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/kercal/
SLA weblog at http://www.sla.org.uk/blog/slablog.html
Google group for British librarian bloggers at http://groups.google.com/group/britlibblogs

How do you find weblogs that you want to read?

Using a general search engine
The easiest approach is simply to go to Google or some other search engine and run a search for weblog <insert subject area of interest>. For example, a search at Google for weblog librarian results in over 50,000 results, so you might want to add in a few more terms to narrow that down a little further. Google has a directory category that covers weblogs at: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/Personal/?tc=1/Yahoo also has an offering at: http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Weblogs/ (This is in my opinion a better collection than the Google offering)
Icerocket at http://www.icerocket.com/ is a general search engine, but has a specific section for weblogs. Google now have a specific blog search engine at http://blogsearch.google.com/

Using a blog specific search engine.

Daypop at http://www.daypop.com/
Daypop searches 35,000 news sites, weblogs and RSS feeds for current events and breaking news. It crawls ‘the living web’ daily, and search options exist to allow searchers to search News, Weblogs, both or RSS headlines. All the usual search options are available – “phrase searching with quotes” +including –excluding. You can also search for a specific link to a URL with link:www.mysite.com or in the Advanced search function, limit to a country or language. There are also options to check the top 40 links, top news stories, top posts, word bursts, news bursts, and top weblogs.

Feedster at http://www.feedster.com/

Technorati at http://www.technorati.com/

Blogpulse at http://www.blogpulse.com/

Blogdex at http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/search.asp
This is very basic in terms of search techniques and syntax.

BlogStreet at http://www.blogstreet.com/
This search engine lists and indexes the way that blogs link to each other in neighbourhoods, so it can be quite useful in terms of finding other blogs that you might like to read based on those that you already do. It also allows you to search the top 10,000 blogs, view the top 100, and see the most important blogs. It indexes 138,000+ blogs.

Detod at http://blawgs.detod.com/
Specialised engine for searching legal blogs. As well as a search facility it also lists top stories (current to a few minutes).

BlogSphere news aggregator at http://www.alpern.org/weblog/php/blogsearch/writeup.html

Weblog directories

Another way of finding the right blog(s) for you. These directories work in the same way that Yahoo does – listing types, rather than being a search engine.

Library weblogs http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html
This site is primarily designed to list weblogs by, for or about librarians.

Blogs4God http://blogs4god.com/linker/index.php
A semi definitive listing of Christian orientated weblogs.

Blogwise at http://www.blogwise.com/

Pubsub librarians list of blogs at http://www.pubsub.com/lists/librarian.php

Globe of blogs http://www.globeofblogs.com/
This lists blogs by location and topic. Quite small, with only 5,000+ listed.

Diarist http://www.diarist.net/
This tends to be more for personal blogs.

Diaries and Journals http://www.worldimage.com/diaries/
Very small collection of personal blogs.

Weblogs http://www.weblogs.com/
Huge collection, though not well arranged or organised.

LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/
Arranged by region, community or interest. Also has an option to start your own.

Weblogs specifically for librarians.

Acme Book News http://www.acmebook.com/
BookNews http://futureofthebook.com/
Engineering libraries – news for http://www.englib.info/
Eprintblog (academic bias) http://eprintblog.crimsonblog.com/
Liblog – library and technology oriented blog http://www.rcpl.info/services/liblog.html
Library notes – news and events of interest http://www.librarynotes.net/
Lisfeeds news and events of interest http://www.lisfeeds.com/
Manitoba Library Assocation weblog http://mla.blogspot.com/
Research Buzz – search engines and databases http://www.researchbuzz.com/news/index.shtml
Scholarly Electronic Publishing weblog http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm

News and Weblog aggregators

Amphetadesk http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/
This is the tool that I prefer to use. It’s fast, quick, effective and free. It’s a download and sits on your desktop.

Active Refresh http://www.activerefresh.com/
Website content monitor, checks news sources and aggregates RSS feeds. Commercial desktop product.

Abilon http://www.activerefresh.com/abilon.php
From the same company as Active Refresh, this is a free RSS aggregator.

Feedreader http://www.feedreader.com/module.php?mod=image&tid=2
Download desktop aggregator. I think it’s free, but it’s difficult to tell from it’s home page!

Fyuze http://www.fyuze.com/zero/
Online news aggregator. Free, but you need to register.

MyRSS http://myrss.com/
This one is slightly different because you can create an RSS channel out of any news type page. Easy way to keep an eye on what the competition is doing.

MyRSS by popular channel chttp://myrss.com/catalog/popular.html
Aggregates content from popular channels.

NewsIsFree http://www.newsisfree.com/
Aggregates content from 5600+ new sources. Online rather than download. Free and commercial versions of the product.

Newsgator http://www.newsgator.com/
An aggregator that works with MS Outlook. I don’t use Outlook, so can comment no further.

NewsMonster http://www.newsmonster.org/
Free download. Works with websites and news sites and weblogs

Wildgrape News desk http://www.wildgrape.net/
Aggregates rss feeds. Free, but requests donations.

Syndirella http://yole.ru/projects/syndirella/
Free download. Another news aggregator.

Creating your own weblog

Blog Easy http://www.blogeasy.com/
Simple, easy and free way to quickly create your own blog.

Blogger http://www.blogger.com/
This is a free tool, but there is a commercial version as well. Blogger can host your site, or it can be configured to update on your own server.

EasyBlog http://www.elka.cz/easyblog/howto.htm
Download the software onto your computer and update your blog onto your own server.

Electric Diary http://www.electricdiary.com/main.aspx
Emphasis is on writers and creating communities, but everyone is welcome to create a free blog.

LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/
Community feel, easy and free to set up a blog. Can update it either on their site or download a small utility to do it on your own computer.

Microsoft My spaces http://spaces.msn.com/Default.aspx
Does the job perfectly well. Good if you tend to use MSN Search & toolbar.

Moveable Type http://www.movabletype.org/
Well regarded software package that you download and create your blog from your own computer. Free, but donations welcome.

Radio UserLand http://radio.userland.com/
Commercial product and very well regarded by the blogging community.

Weblogs compendium http://www.lights.com/weblogs/hosting.html
I've not tried this one, but it looks easy enough.

Xanga http://www.xanga.com/
Cheap (free!) and cheerful. Easy to set up and run. Allows for comments to people’s weblogs (if they wish). The whole design is for a ‘community’ feel.

Further sources of information

Blogging @ your library – feature article http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/features/2003/blogging.html

Stephen Cohen’s presentation on an introduction to RSS and blogging http://www.librarystuff.net/presentations/neasist04282003_files/frame.htm

Guardian article on working with newsreaders. http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,781838,00.html

Guardian article on weblogs. Nice, concise, to the point and with a good listing of weblogs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/special/0,10627,744914,00.html

A short history of weblogs http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Matt Maldre’s comparison of blog systems if you want to create your own. http://www.spudart.org/etc/blogresearch/

RSS info. Good collection of aggregators, some of which I’ve not mentioned. Worth a look.http://blogspace.com/rss/readers

RSS technical specifications that you probably don’t want to know about! http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec

Danny Sullivan (Searchenginewatch) article on weblogs http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175281