The LISNews 10 Blogs To Read In 2008

Our final Blogs to Read in 08 list includes an anonymous blogger, a medical librarian, a techie, a generalist, a law librarian who doesn’t write about law libraries much, a group of law librarians, a VP, a DB specialist, and someone who pioneered the format.

The Annoyed Librarian (Feed)
David Rothman (Feed)
iLibrarian (Feed)
Judge a Book by its Cover (Feed)
Law Librarian Blog (Feed)
Library Stuff (Feed)
Marylaine Block (Email list)
Off The Mark (Feed)
ResearchBuzz (Feed)
Stephen’s Lighthouse (Feed)

Once again there’s no “honorable mention” list, no “see alsos,” or “just in case,” just a simple list of 10. The goal was a list of people who write about libraries. Read on below to see why each site made the list. If you don’t like the list, please do supply your own, or let me know who we missed or who we should’ve left off. You can also read about how the list was made Here.


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The Annoyed Librarian was this year’s most popular blogger, by a wide margin. It seems everyone is reading The Annoyed Librarian (Feed). I found it difficult to summarize the exact theme @The Annoyed Librarian, other than to say “she’s” no fan of the ALA. “The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free. The Annoyed Librarian is a free spirit and you are lucky to have her.”

David Rothman (Feed) explores “Medical Librarianship and Web Geekery” on his blog. David Rothman now works as the Information Services Specialist at the Community General Hospital Medical Library, managing the day-to-day operation of the CGH Medical Library under the supervision of Wendy Tarby (MLS, AHIP). He writes about issues that influence medical librarians, with a healthy does of librarian geekery thrown in for good measure.

Picking a blog that focuses on “2.0” techie stuff wasn’t easy (There’s a million of them), but I quickly saw a standout at iLibrarian (Feed) for a few months because Ellyssa Kroski points to some good stuff. She tags her blog as “News and resources on Library 2.0 and the information revolution.” If you are looking for a techie focus, iLibrarian is one of the best blogs to follow.

We all need to read something that makes us laugh occasionally. Something that is just useless & fun. Judge
a Book by its Cover (Feed) should do the job. Just what, exactly, is Judge a Book by its Cover? For those of you who don’t know, maughta works in a public library. She sees literally thousands of books every week; the good, the bad, and the truly hideous. These are the covers from the latter category.

We had a hard time picking a law librarian blog. Our “final cut” list included three choices, and each seemed worthy to be our single final choice. In the end Law Librarian Blog (Feed) edged out the others for several reasons. For me the biggest reason was collaboration; Law Librarian Blog has 2 editors, and several contributors. They cover a wide range of topics in the law library niche, and point the way to good tools and resources.

Before Steven M. Cohen started Library Stuff (Feed) and sold out to “The Man,” he was blogging at LISNews. Library Stuff was the second most popular blog in voting this year. Most people that nominated him pointed to his frequent posting, and his style. Steven tends to post quick takes and short links to interesting stories that range from Law Libraries (He’s a law librarian) to Flickr Follies. I like The Stuff because he tends to be somewhat less focused on a single topic, so you’ll see funny pictures, stuff about libraries, stuff about his life and stuff about other blogs. It’s all… Library Stuff.

Marylaine Block has been online since, well, since there’s been an online. She started “Best Information on the Net” way back in 1995! Marylaine.com is full of her writing and speeches, and is a worthy weekly stop in your internet travels. Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies and Marylaine’s Neat New Stuff are the two best reasons to make her site a weekly visit, Or Subscribe, but you’ll also find other writing and text of her many conference presentations. You may not consider this site a blog, but it should be required reading for anyone interested in staying current. It was a “blog” before there were blogs, and it continues to be a wonderful resource to our profession.

Mark Linder calls himself a “habitually probing generalist” and Off The Mark (Feed) shows that to be true. He writes, and reads, ALOT! I’ve been especially interested in reading his “Some things I read this week” posts because he’ll actually point to print resources, a rarity, it seems, in the blogosphere. His links and analysis are standouts in our crowded blogosphere niche. Our list is full of specialists; it’s good to have at least a couple generalists.

Tara has been posting “News about search engines, databases, and other information collections.” at ResearchBuzz (Feed) since 1998. ResearchBuzz is simply the best site for the topics she posts. As librarians all of our primary tools are all backed by databases of some type now, and following ResearchBuzz means knowing what’s changing in that world.

Stephen’s Lighthouse (Feed). You might think a man that’s on the road non-stop wouldn’t have the time to write much. Mr. Abram must have some long lay overs, because he’s proven to be a dedicated blogger. As VP Of Innovation At SirsiDynix he’s able to add some interesting insights to his posts.