Librarians and information scientists in the blogosphere: An exploratory analysis

Blogging, though a relatively new phenomenon, has already gained greatly in popularity, and blogs have become an essential information channel in the Web 2.0 information world. Research into 30 topic-oriented blogs dealing with librarianship and information science, focusing specifically on tagging and folksonomies, was conducted over a period of two months. The purpose of the analysis was to describe and classify the LIS blogosphere, with the purpose of understanding the tagging patterns of librarian and information scientist bloggers and the nature of the folksonomies they form. Findings indicate that professional LIS blogs reflect the most up-to-date interests of US professionals as well as bloggers' personal lives and experiences. Content analysis reveals that the tag schemes generated by users contain their own internal logic and order. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.