A survey by Information World Review (yes, I’m just in the process of reading it as you probably guessed!), has found that when readers were asked to rate six named blogs with relevance to information professionals the vast majority of readers viewed them with indifference. When asked if they read the following blogs, each blog’s readership was only around 20% of the respondents. (Blogs included were: Lorcan Dempsey’s Libraries; Martin De Saulles Reuse of Public Sector Information; K G Schneider Free Range Librarian; Peter Scott’s Library; Peter Suber’s Open Access; and Steve Wood’s Freedom of Information Act) . (From Information World Review, Issue 219, pg.15)

They claim that if this is representative of the UK as a whole, then 4 out of every 5 information professionals are not tuning into the ‘blogging phenomenon’. I have to admit that I am sceptical of these results, as I have for the past few weeks been scanning the net for various library/information related blogs and newsfeeds, and in that time I have only come across two of the six blogs mentioned above. I have, however, encountered numerous others, as well as a great number of interesting and relevant newsfeeds which I am keeping up to date with. Perhaps choosing only six blogs as representing the vast numbers of those available was a mistake in this instance, and not entirely representative of the profession as a whole. It also suggests that there may very well be a problem with ensuring that relevant blogs reach the desired target audiences - how exactly do you find these blogs if they are not listed by search services such as technorati or google blog search??