Salem Press Library Blog Awards
June 3rd, 2010
The winners of the first Salem Press Library Blog awards were just announced - congratulations to:
General Library Blogs
- First place: Libraries and Transliteracy
- Second place: Centered Librarian
- Third place: librarian.net
Quirky Library Blogs
- First place: Awful Library Books
- Second place: Library History Buff
- Third place: Going Green At Your Library
- Another Third place: Judge a Book by its Cover
Academic Library Blogs
- First place: No Shelf Required
- Second place: Resource Shelf
- Third place: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian
Public Library Blogs
- First place: Agnostic, Maybe
- Second place: Blogging for a Good Book
- Third place: Library Garden
School Library Blogs
- First Place: Bib 2.0
- Second Place: Not So Distant Future
- Third Place: 100 Scope Notes
I hadn't heard of most of these blogs before this award, so yay for having a bunch of new people to listen to (which I end up doing every year when LISNews announces their 10 Blogs to Read, too).
Another nice side effect of this contest is that Salem ended up with a Library Blog Directory, of all the blogs that were submitted or nominated for the awards. They're divided into categories, General Interest Blogs, Quirky Blogs, Academic Library Blogs, Public Library Blogs, School Library Blogs, which makes finding even more points of view relevant to your field easier. Thanks for doing this, Salem Press.
One last point: my website earned a gold star in the Public Library category, meaning it was judged "to be of significant quality that they stood above the norm." This made me realize one huge drawback of the online world - it's much more difficult to hang something like this on the refrigerator. Too bad for the kids who have to turn their homework in by email or Google Docs - they're missing out.
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:27 am
Whoo! Speaking as a representative of Blogging for a Good Book (which is especially enjoyable, in my opinion, if you click on the “Jessica’s Picks” link, but perhaps I am biased), I’m pleased to see these awards, and tickled to see BFGB getting #2 in the public category.
Speaking as one of the people who nominated Swiss Army Librarian, however, I’m surprised that you didn’t get, like, first place. I’m forever stealing your reference ideas and learning from the posts you write. Which is really cool, because then I can take those ideas, present them to my library, and give the general impression that I am innovative and learned.
(If you want, I can transcribe that paragraph to a sticky note and drop it in the mail. You’d be able to hang it on your fridge– no magnet required!)
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Thanks Jessica (and for nominating me). Salem Press explained their judging criteria, but I certainly don’t mind not placing in the top three. The library world is a big place, and there’s plenty of room to share. And I’m glad you’re able to use stuff from my blog – I point my patrons to your book reviews, and I’ve got it indexed in our book review search at the bottom of our Reading Suggestions page.
June 4th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Congrats on the gold star! I nominated your blog (along with Librarian in Black), and I was disappointed you weren’t in the top three, but it is so nice to know that they did acknowledge your awesome contributions with a star! As for not being able to hang the acknowledgement on the refrigerator–well, I think that must be why people first started making web page badges to show all the awards their site had won!
June 5th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
@Erin: thank you for nominating my website – I’m happy that you like it. In fact, thanks to everyone who nominated me, and who read and comment. I like to think that my website is useful, but I think all of the contributions from everyone else are more interesting than my blah blah blah’ing three times a week.
June 12th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
@Erin: Your comment gave me the idea to add the gold star to my “digital refrigerator” – ha.
May 10th, 2011 at 7:54 am
[…] year I was awarded gold star recognition, which is great. But what I like most about these awards is how they work as a discovery tool in […]