Top 25 Librarian Bloggers (By the Numbers)

Published on Tuesday 4th 2007f September, 2007

At OEDb, we understand the importance of libraries to education and research. In fact, we recently launched our own Library 2.0-themed blog, iLibrarian. Recently, our interest in the amount of blogs authored by librarians begged the question: which librarian bloggers have the biggest reach? With nowhere to turn to answer this question definitively, we thought it would be an interesting exercise to rank all of the biggest blogs by librarians.

In ranking the top librarian blogs, our goal was to show — using objective data from reliable sources — which blogs are the most popular, according to visitor traffic and site backlinks. To this end, we used data for these four metrics to calculate the rankings:

• — Google PageRank
• — Alexa Rank
• — Technorati Authority
• — Bloglines Subscribers

Top 25 (see complete methodology below)

Rank	Site					Score
1	librarian.net	7	10	10	10	37
2	The Shifted Librarian	7	9	10	10	36
3	LibrarianInBlack	6	9	10	10	35
4	Free Range Librarian	6	9	10	10	35
5	Law Librarian Blog	6	10	9	8	33
6	A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette	6	6	10	10	32
7	The Travelin' Librarian	6	8	9	8	31
8	Walt at Random	6	7	9	9	31
9	Filipino Librarian	5	10	9	5	29
10	h20boro lib blog	6	8	7	7	28
11	InfoTangle	5	6	9	8	28
12	The Ubiquitous Librarian	5	5	8	9	27
13	Confessions of a Science Librarian	6	5	8	7	26
14	Libraryman	2	5	10	9	26
15	Google Librarian Central	7	8	0	10	25
16	The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian	6	4	6	9	25
17	Vancouver Law Librarian Blog	6	4	8	7	25
18	Annoyed Librarian	5	3	8	8	24
19	Librarian	5	7	6	4	22
20	Connie Crosby	5	3	8	6	22
21	The Handheld Librarian	5	2	5	7	19
22	The Other Librarian	5	1	7	6	19
23	Alternative Teen Services	4	0	7	8	19
24	Jason the Content Librarian	3	6	7	1	17
25	The Krafty Librarian	4	0	7	6	17

Methodology

To begin, we found a set of Web sites that met a certain criteria. To become a member of the set of Web sites to be ranked, a Web site must, as of August 14, 2007:

• be listed on the DMOZ page Library and Information Science : Weblogs and be a blog written by a librarian; or
• be listed in the top 200 results for a Google search for librarian blog and be primarily a blog site; and
• not be hosted on a subdomain of a domain whose purpose is not primarily related to a blog written by a librarian.

For each metric, a score was assigned on a 0–10 scale. For Google PageRank, raw PageRank data was scored. For Alexa Rank, Technorati Authority, and Bloglines Subscribers, the Web sites were broken up into deciles. If a Web site was in the 0>10% decile, a 1 was scored; for the 10>20% decile, a 2 was scored; and so on, up to a 10 being scored for the 90–100% decile. If no data was available, a 0 was scored.

The overall score for each Web site is the sum of the scores of the four metrics. In the event of a tie in overall score, the tie is broken according to the Alexa Rank raw data.

Raw Data for Entire Set

Rank	Site
1	librarian.net	7	394,859	2,158	4,679
2	The Shifted Librarian	7	524,421	653	56,588
3	LibrarianInBlack	6	439,153	434	3,786
4	Free Range Librarian	6	474,317	348	1,185
5	Law Librarian Blog	6	170,063	154	332
6	A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette	6	2,026,168	172	965
7	The Travelin' Librarian	6	1,130,884	111	340
8	Walt at Random	6	1,435,484	121	530
9	Filipino Librarian	5	370,137	110	88
10	h20boro lib blog	6	819,280	51	159
11	InfoTangle	5	1,606,542	124	349
12	The Ubiquitous Librarian	5	3,451,634	84	648
13	Confessions of a Science Librarian	6	2,789,861	107	252
14	Libraryman	2	3,325,619	434	549
15	Google Librarian Central	7	542,721	0	1,183
16	The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian	6	3,523,595	36	527
17	Vancouver Law Librarian Blog	6	3,616,489	107	173
18	Annoyed Librarian	5	3,780,707	94	525
19	Librarian	5	1,435,484	39	73
20	Connie Crosby	5	4,202,406	68	135
21	The Handheld Librarian	5	6,559,150	19	238
22	The Other Librarian	5	7,808,493	42	129
23	Alternative Teen Services	4	N/A	53	256
24	Jason the Content Librarian	3	2,100,836	52	19
25	The Krafty Librarian	4	N/A	52	110
26	teenlibrarian	5	N/A	19	193
27	MotherReader	4	N/A	62	133
28	The Cool Librarian	4	N/A	39	110
29	A Librarian At The Kitchen Table	5	N/A	23	97
30	hiplibrariansbookblog	5	N/A	18	87
31	Feel-good Librarian	5	N/A	0	718
32	Theoretical Librarian	5	N/A	3	121
33	OA Librarian	6	N/A	0	313
34	The Illustrated Librarian	4	6,215,400	4	45
35	Travels with the State Librarian	5	N/A	9	56
36	Hyperactive Librarian	5	N/A	14	44
37	OPL Plus	5	8,420,796	0	142
38	Union Librarian	5	N/A	19	31
39	Becoming a Librarian	3	N/A	24	47
40	CogSci Librarian	4	3,636,866	0	86
41	News from Nancy, State Librarian of Michigan	4	N/A	12	37
42	Librarian on the edge	6	N/A	6	22
43	The Patent Librarian's Notebook	5	7,575,222	0	55
44	Information Literacy Librarian	4	N/A	2	36
45	Connecting Librarian	5	N/A		109
46	Bad Girl Librarian	5	N/A	3	26
47	Spartanburg County Public Libraries	4	N/A	2	29
48	Virtual Library Cat's Eye View	4	N/A	4	11
49	baa baa... blog of a craftylibrarian	4	4,381,539	0	33
50	The Itinerant Poetry Libriarian	2	N/A	14	4
51	The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind	5	N/A	0	28
52	The Indie Librarian	4	N/A	0	37
53	Grassroots Librarian	3	N/A	3	5
54	Strategic Librarian	0	N/A	0	77
55	Library Science, not Rocket Science	2	N/A	0	0

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