or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk


Librarian Blog Rankings

   September 6th, 2007 Brian Herzog

Earlier this week, the Online Educational Database released its rankings for the top 25 librarian bloggers. Although I am tops with some people, I am not tops with them. Sigh.

But don't despair; I have a theory. As I was looking down the list, I noticed something: they all have a cool, easy-to-use name. librarian.net. LibrarianInBlack. The Travelin' Librarian. See? Compared to them, "herzogbr.net blog : A Hitchhiker's Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk" is a bit cumbersome.

PageRank? Subscribers? Pshaw. I'm convinced that if I just had a catchier name for this blog, I would be much more popular.

I had actually thought about the whole name thing a few months ago, and came up with a couple options. But a friend of mine recommended against adopting one. The logic was this: it might be counter-productive to rename an already established entity, because that would be confusing and erode whatever name recognition already existed. Which makes sense.

But now, not making the top 25-tier, well, that's just the clincher. I've decided I am going to start using a new name - and redesign the entire website, as well (which I've been meaning to do for awhile, anyway). My goal is to design solely with style sheets, and use WordPress as a CMS, to finally move away from my oh-so-'90s static html pages with table-based layout. It'll take a little while, but I'll keep posting my progress.

That being said, I would like to get back to the list of top 25 librarian bloggers. First of all, congratulations to everyone on the list. Thank you for contributing to the overall library world - even Annoyed. Well... maybe.

I was also curious how my blog fared based on the metrics the OEDb used. As near as I can tell, here's where I stand in each category:

Metric My Score*
Google Google PageRank 4
Alexa Alexa Rank 5
Technorati Technorati Authority 5
Bloglines Bloglines Subscribers 1
Total Score: 15

*These numbers are estimations; I just found my rankings, found one of the top 25 that was close, and adjusted from there

So, with an overall score of 15, I'm really not that far out of the running - #24 and #25 both scored 17. Of course, as Jessamyn (a.k.a. #1) points out, the methodology of this study is somewhat questionable, so who knows.

Besides, there's always next year.

blog, blogs, librarian, librarians, libraries, library, online education database, rankings, top 25 librarian bloggers



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