Gender and content type in library weblogs:

An analysis of library directors’ blogs

Agnes Wnuk

Southern Connecticut State University

ILS680-S71

December 12, 2007

Abstract:

Weblogs or blogs¹ are becoming an increasingly widespread form of computer mediated

communication in both personal and professional interaction. Some attention has been

given to this general subject in popular and scholarly writing. This study builds upon

earlier research concerning the relationship between gender and weblog types, namely the

Herring, Kouper, Scheidt, Wright (2004) study of blog types and author demographics.

Where the Herring et al. research focused on general blogs authored by teens and adults,

this study focuses on library weblogs authored by public and academic library directors

specifically. This research presents quantitative evidence based on analysis of the

relationship between gender and blog type using a specific sample of twenty-five library

directors’ weblogs included on Etches-Johnson’s blog directory. It is limited to library

directors’ blogs in the United States. Results of the study indicate that there are more

female library directors using weblogs and that a majority use none of the traditional

weblog type as described by Herring. There is no indication that gender influences blog

type among library directors, results which are consistent with some of the general blog

research of Herring et al.. This study recognized general library blogs and personal

librarian blogs as topics requiring further investigation, and considering the continued growing  

popularity and evolution of blogs in library settings it is both a timely and a necessary

topic of exploration.    

1. Introduction

Weblogs have evolved from a new phenomenon to a common choice of both personal

and professional computer mediated communication. Although their history is of short

duration, weblogs are found in many settings ranging from businesses to education to libraries.

There are many issues of blogs that could be investigated, such as domestic versus

international or personal versus professional. This study concentrates on the relationship

between gender in weblogs, and weblog content types in library director blogs.

Although weblogs have become a widely adopted communication tool

their history is relatively short. Two active bloggers and blog historians, Herzog and

Winer,  credit Tim Berners-Lee with instituting the original weblog concept through his

“What’s New” page in the early 1990’s (Herzog, 2007, Winer, 2001). In terms of the current

weblog format Herring notes that Dave Winer himself is “often credited with creating the

first weblog circa 1996”(Herring, 2004).

The use of weblogs has grown considerably since their inception. Blood notes that in

1999 there were only twenty-three blogs listed on Jesse James Garrett’s “page of only

blogs” site (Blood, 2000). In a phone survey conducted in 2003, the Pew Internet &

American Life Project found that two percent of Americans had created blogs. A year later

the number was between two and seven percent. However, the study also noted that 11 percent

had read blogs (Lenhart, 2004) Two years later another survey showed a slight increase

of creators but a significant number of readers. “Eight percent of internet users, or about

12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about

57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005” (Lenart, 2006).           

Librarians have been blogging since the mid 1990’s. Maxymuk and Cohen mention

Jenny Levine’s weblog, titled “Librarian’s Site Du Jour” and developed in 1995, as the

first blog created by a librarian (Maxymuk, 2005, Cohen, 2003). Furthermore, Levine’s is

also one of the first librarian blogs to win an award. In 2004, her new blog “The Shifted

Librarian” received honorable mention from an online weblog awards (Edublog-awards.com).

From its formal start just a few years ago, library blogs continue to grow. In a 2003 study, Clyde 

counted 57 worldwide library blogs, with 48 of them in the United States(Clyde, 2004) Today, Peter 

Scott counts some 230 varied library and librarian related weblogs (Scott, 2007).

There are two styles of library related blogs: librarian created and library created. The

first approach includes blogs maintained by a single librarian using a blog hosting site.

The second approach encompasses blogs maintained by librarians at a library and found

on the library website. Individual librarians use the weblog format to discuss library and

information related topics, such as law, science or medicine, reference or cataloging.

Others consider library science and information technology subjects. Libraries, especially

public and academic, implement library wide weblogs to present news, services, exhibits

to their user community and the public at large. Public library website’s provide blogs for

teens, children and adults, and sometimes a director’s blog. Academic websites provide

reference, news and director blogs, and tend to be linked directly to the library website.

It is this common feature of director blogs among all library related blogs that led to

this being the focus of the study. The issue of gender and blog type was

chosen because of existing research on those topics in the general field of computer

mediated communication. Herring et al. found a correlation between journal blog types

and women, and filter and K-log type blogs and men. Based on the results of their study,

Herring et al hypothesized that “There is thus a relationship between blog type and author

demographics”(Herring, 2004). What is missing in this study and other blog and even

library blog related literature is the investigation of gender and blog type in library

settings. Is there a correlation between gender and blog type in library director blogs? Do

female library directors tend to write journal type blogs and male library directors tend to

write filter or K-log blog types? It is worth studying this group of library directors to see

whether they, and presumably others, fit into the larger construct of weblog authors as

delineated by Herring et al. in their research or whether they have different authoring

characteristics.

Although it is small compared to the millions of blogs currently maintained in general,

there are continually, if slowly, new blogs created by libraries and library directors. As

Cohen says it is important for librarians to keep current in and to use new technologies to

improve their services (Cohen, 2003). This is especially true of library directors as

leaders in their own library and in the field in general. As Clyde notes “…the professional

librarian will have to make some decisions about weblogs…and it is the librarian’s

responsibility to make choices on behalf of others. Just as for selecting books or Internet

resources…” (Clyde, 2004 p.27) This would also be true of library directors and the

choices they make in the information they provide in their library affiliated weblogs.

Of course, it begs certain questions. Should they be more journal type, more filter type or more 

knowledge type? Which are they currently? Is there a difference between the genders in this situation?

2. Literature Review

This study deals with two variables, gender and weblog types, using library directors’

weblogs as an example. To date there is a considerable body of work detailing gender in

computer mediated communication in general. There are several studies on the subject of

weblogs in particular, some dealing with gender and others dealing with content type.

There are also limited studies on library weblogs. However, little research exists that

deals with library weblog gender and content type issues.

There are several studies of weblogs conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life

Project which include gender statistics. They deal mainly with weblog usage and their

relation to internet use in general but they touch on gender as one of the issues involved.

Linhart and Fox note that: “Like the internet population in general, however, bloggers are

evenly divided between men and women,…” with 46 percent of overall bloggers being

women as opposed to 54 percent of whom are men (Linhart, 2006). 

In terms of weblog types there does not seem to be a general consensus in the literature.

Two authors describe weblogs in general. Kirshnamurthy distinguishes four different

types of blogs: Online diaries, Support group(personal), Enhanced Column (Individual)

and Collaborative Content Creation (Kirshnamurthy, 2002). On the other hand, Herring et

al cite four types of weblogs in their 2005 study: Journal, Filter, K-log and Mixed. Two

other authors discuss library related weblogs. Goodfellow describes three weblog types:

“1.The Informational/Promotion of library services and activities type. 2. The personal

comment on professional issues type and 3. The Conference Blogging for general

audience or aimed at participants type” (Goodfellow, 2007). Cohen notes three types of

blogs: Informational, personal and informational/personal (Cohen, 2003).

Although the terminology may differ several of the researchers use different terms to

describe the same types of blogs. While they have different titles the Goodfellow

“personal comment” blog type could be understood as the same as Herring’s “personal

journal” except that Goodfellow’s definition has more of a professional aspect. Cohen’s

types can be seen as the same as Herrings only using different terminology.

The Herring et al. study was based on a sample of 203 blogs. The focus of this study was

on web types. The researcher’s sampling found that the majority of internet blogs were

Personal Journal Types, at 70.4%, with Filter Type second at 12.6% and Mixed Type was

third at 9.5% (Herring, 2004). Herring also discusses the analog antecedents of these

types of blogs: diaries, comments to the editor, etc.( Herring, 2004).

In terms of gender and weblog type research there is one important study to date

conducted by Susan Herring with other researchers. Herring et al. considered whether

there is a relationship between the demographics of blog authors and of the three blog

types discussed above. They demonstrated that in “mainstream media, in scholarly

communication, and in weblogs themselves, tend to disproportionately feature adult male

bloggers”(Herring, 2004). Herring felt that this was because most of the weblogs written

about in popular blog literature are Filter Type, which have tended to be authored by men

(Herring, 2004). The actual findings of that study found that the majority of weblogs on

the internet are authored by teenage girls and are of the personal journal type (Herring, 2004).  

In terms of library blog studies Clyde conducted one in 2003. Her focus was on where the

weblogs were found in terms of countries, what types of libraries created blogs, what

software was used in blog creation, what the aim of creating a weblog was, and what

compromised content of the weblogs. Clyde did not deal with blog type and gender. She

also wrote a book on library blogs, but her aim was more of introduction and compilation

of information for librarians interested in creating a library or personal librarian weblog.

This study fits into the wider subject of weblogs as computer mediated communication.

Weblogs provide a forum for two-way communication with their “comments” feature.

Some weblogs could be compared to a series of email correspondence with readers

posting questions and weblog authors responding back and forth. The “Au Courant”

weblog is an excellent example of this type of two-way weblog dialog on a particular

subject (Courant, 2007). Library director blogs normally contain a comments section, but

only some are more successful than others in creating a dialog.

Unfortunately, few statistics or studies as to library blog types exist. This study remedies this by looking

at the relationship between gender and weblog types authored by library directors. Since

there are so many librarian blogs this study only looks at a sampling of library director

weblog types. This research continues the work of the 2004 Herring study of gender and

weblog types but with an emphasis on gender and library weblog types specifically.

3. Data

This study is based on the analysis of a sample of 24 library director’s weblogs collected

in November of 2007 and culled from the Etches-Johnson “Blogs in Libraries Wiki,”

which contains a listing of library directors’ weblogs. The list can be found on the

“blogwithoutalibrary” webpage (Etches-Johnson, 2007).

To create a consistent group only one category of library weblogs was incorporated in the

study. Among academic libraries law library, medical library, reference or bibliographic

related blogs and among public libraries teen, children or adult related blogs could have

been used. Instead the common denominator among most library related blogs was

chosen in the form of library director weblogs.

After reviewing the different directories that include library and librarian weblogs, such

as Scott’s Libdex , Herzog’s Blogbib, “Libarian Blogs and Sites Internet Directory,” and

DMOZ Open Directory Pages for instance, it was decided to use the Etches-Johnson list.

This particular directory has one page that is devoted entirely to library director weblogs

without any other library related or librarian weblog listings. Since it is confined to one

list the weblogs can be easily located and the research can be easily replicated. The Blog

search engine Technocrati was also tried but it came up with only one entry.

While Etches-Johnson provides 37 international listings the vast majority of library

directors, a total of 28, were found in the United States. For this study only those found in

the United State were used. All of the webpages are in English which facilitated in

determining which type of weblog was being used by the library director. Although the

three Canadian library director weblogs were in English and could have been used it was

felt that the criteria should be that only one country be used for this particular study.   

Only 23 of the 28 library director weblogs found in the United States and listed in the

Etches-Johnson directory were used as samples. Criteria for use in this study included

that the director’s blog be linked to the library webpage, preferably accessible from the

library website front page. Only those that were readily accessible were used. Two had a

broken link and could not be found, one was actually a library wide blog and one was a

blog by one library director at two different libraries. 

Although there are only 23 library director blogs used in the study there are 24 directors.

The reason being that one of the libraries in the sample chose to do a combination “blog”

with the director and assistant director together. Since they both take part in the blog as a

pair and alternately alone both are count here. The director was a female and the assistant

director was a male. There were 9 male and 16 female directors in total.

4. Methodology

Content analysis was used to identify the two variables in the study, namely the library

director’s gender and the weblog type properties of the blogs in the sample set. Criteria

were established for placing each sample blog in an established weblog type as described 

by Herring et al.

First, each weblog in the sample was searched for gender information about the author.

The information was entered into Table 1. Only gender is specifically studied here

without age or other demographic information. These would be other variables that are

valid but go beyond the scope of this particular study.

Second, each weblog in the sample was searched for content type vis a vis the four types

of blog as stipulated by Herring et al. (2005) namely Filter, Personal, K-log and Mixed.

Two other categories were added in case there might be a different type of content not

covered by Herring’s four types. These included the Goodfellow “Conference type” blog

and “other” type blog.

The Filter type blog being defined by Herring as content including external information

such as “world events, online happenings…”(Herring, 2005). The Personal Journal type

blog was defined by Herring as containing the “blogger’s own activities”(Herring, 2005).

Mixed type weblogs, as described by Herring, are those that show characteristics of both

Filter and Personal type weblogs combined. The information gleaned from the weblogs in

the study was inserted into Table 2.

In order to facilitate determining the type of blog used by the directors in this sample,

criteria were established to describe each blog category. Descriptive examples of the

Filter type include: External topics found on the internet, links to external information

and commentary on the culled information. Descriptive examples of the Journal type

include: Personal commentary on local or personal activities, the word I employed.

Descriptive examples of  the K-log type include: knowledge management issues,

internal, organization knowledge sharing issues, discourse with employees rather than

patrons. Descriptive examples of the Mixed type include: a combination of personal

commentary on personal or local subjects and on external issues found on the internet.

Descriptive examples of the Other type include: Any features that are found in the

director’s weblog that do not fit the criteria of the other types mentioned above. This

information is provided in Table 3.

5. Results

Results of the analysis of a sample of library director blogs parallel some of the results of

Herring’s general blog study but not all. Following is a summary of the results of the

analysis of the library director weblogs in the sample. Table 1 details the gender of the

bloggers. Table 2 shows the blog types found in the sample. Table 3 explains the criteria

used to determine what type of blog was represented in each sample and the gender of the

director who authored each corresponding sample. Table 4 compares the library affiliated

blogs used in this study in contrast to nonlibrary affiliated library director weblogs.

5.1 Gender

After analyzing the data it was found that the majority of library director weblogs were

authored by women. The percentage of women to men in this study was 70% women to

30% men.

Table 1. Gender of Library Director Weblogs

Gender was determined by the name of the weblog author. Each weblog had a short

description of the author and his or her background under the title “about”. In a majority

of sample examples the name was obviously male or female. Two names, Terry and

Jamie, proved to be problematic and more investigation had to be made to determine

whether the author was a male or a female. Terry turned out to be male and Jamie turned

out to be female. A Google search of the given and surname summoned websites that

elucidated the results.

5.2 Weblog Types in the Sample

Upon analyzing the 23 library director weblogs in the sample, the largest group to surface

would fall under the category of “Other”, with a total of 18. There were also a small

number of “Filter” and “Mixed” blog types, two and three respectively.  However, no

“Personal Journal”, “Conference” or “K-log” type blogs were found in the sample from

the Etches-Johnson library weblog directory page. Results are found in Table 2. below.

Table 2. Weblog Content Types

The vast majority, or 78%, of weblogs in the sample were determined to be “Other”. That

is they did not fall neatly into the Herring categories as determined in her 2004 study per

se. There were two specific characteristics that made these weblogs fall under this

category: exclusive discussion of the author’s library and some commentary of personal

life. The “Other” type weblog contained mainly reference to the library of which the blog

author was director. Four from the sample contained only this characteristic. Nine others

had one other characteristic, namely that they also contained personal information as in a

“Personal Journal” type blog. One sample blog also contained “Filter” type features. The

majority, or 57%, of this type of weblog were authored by women, while only 22% were

authored by men..

There were two “Filter” weblog type examples in the sample. One was created by a

female and one was by a male. Interestingly, one was an university affiliated blog and the

other was a public library affiliated blog. These made up 9% of the total number of blogs

in the sample. Topics included general library, library science or technology issues. There

were links to internet postings, webpages and other blogs.

The “mixed” type blog was only slightly better represented in the sample than the “Filter”

type. There were 3 in total, one male director created and two female director created,

and they made up 18% of the entire sample. The mixed type employed a combination of

“Filter” and “Personal Journal” type characteristics. For the most part postings contained

information from the internet with appropriate links but they also had a large number of

“Personal Journal” type postings, as well, detailing the author’s own professional

experiences and  sometime even mention of family life or family members.

5.3 Weblog Type Criteria

In order to determine which type of blog each sample was, it was necessary to check each

sample against specific characteristics that are endemic to each blog type. If the weblog

met the criteria of a weblog type it was put under the appropriate category in Table 3 and

counted as that type particular type of blog. 

Table 3. Weblog Type Criteria

Criteria for determining whether a weblog sample from this corpus is a “Mixed” or a

“Filter” or any other type was taken from the descriptions Herring provided in her study

(Herring, 2004). Two extra categories of weblog types were included in case there were

any weblogs in the sample that fell beyond the Herring examples. Therefore Goodfellow

“Conference” type and a designation of “Other” for blogs that do not fall into any

Herring or Goodfellow categories were included.

The criteria and other data relevant to this investigation is included in Table 3. The

numbers one to twenty-three on the left side of the Table represent each library director

sample analyzed  for this study. On the far right were also included the library director’s

gender of each corresponding blog sample and the dates when the blog was active.

Criteria for “Filter” type weblogs included reference to external information on the

internet, links to this information and to other blogs and commentary on the information

presented (Herring, 2004). The letter “F” is used in the table to satnd for “Filter”. Criteria

for the “Personal Journal” blog type included musings on subjects of personal interest

and descriptions of personal activites (Herring, 2004). The letter “P” is used to represent

the “Personal Journal” type blog. Criteria for the “K-Log” included knowledge

management information shared by colleagues or staff (Herring, 2004). Criteria for a

“Mixed” blog type included a combination of both “Filter” and “Personal Journal”

characteristics (Herring, 2004). Criteria for the “Conference” type blog contained

conference information to share with colleagues (Herring, 2004). Criteria for the “Other”

category would contain characteristics not found in the other categories.

5.4 Comparison of library affiliated and nonlibrary affiliated director weblogs

For this study only the library affiliated director weblogs were used as a sample. This

type of weblog is the largest group represented in the Etches-Johnson library weblog

directory. There were a few nonlibrary affiliated weblogs, as well, and to prevent any

misconceptions they are included as a comparison in this section.

Table 4 Library affiliated versus nonlibrary affiliated director weblogs

Five male library director weblogs and one female library director weblog belong in the

non library affiliated section. These were all of the “Filter” and “Mixed” types, as

described in Herring’s research (Herring, 2004). This changes the ratio considerably. In

this scenario there are 12 male directors, or 41% of the total, to 17 female directors, or

59% of the total. Here then the ratio is only 2 fifths to 3 fifths. Also, the number of male

“Filter” type weblogs rises and surpasses the female director “Filter” type number,

whereas in the library affiliated weblogs they were equal. This result is closer to the

Herring research, where more general weblogs  of the “Filter” type are authored by

5.5 General Observations

Several interesting results surfaced during the analysis process of the library director

sample. There were no blogs in the sample that were older than four years old. The

majority, or 57%, were a year old. Four were two years old, one was three years old, one

was four years old and four more had been started in 2007. This would place these library

director blogs as a rather new phenomenon in the field of librarian blogs that have been

around since 1995.

The majority, or 65%, of libraries represented in the sample were public libraries.

Academic were the next largest group at 26%. State libraries were the smallest sample at

9% only. The majority of women, or 81%, were public library directors. Male directors

were almost evenly split, at 4 to 3, with the majority public library directors as well.

In terms of weblog type, one “Filter” blog was from an academic library and one was

from a public library, so that they were evenly split. All three “Mixed” type weblogs

were from public libraries. The majority, or 61%, of “Other” type weblogs were from

public libraries. The next largest group which were described as “Other” were Academic

libraries at 28%. State libraries accounted for 11% of the “Other” weblog type. 

It is interesting to note that of the two new library director weblogs created in the last six

months only one was added to the Etches-Johnson directory. In August, 2007 the Yale

University Library director created a weblog on the library website frontpage. It has not

been included in the Etches-Johnson directory. Conversely, the director of the University

of Michigan Library began his non library affiliated weblog in November, 2007 and it

was posted on the Etches-Johnson directory within in month This could be the because of

readership. The “Au Courant” weblog is very active with many external comments and a

robust dialog between Courant and his readers. Yale library director Prochaska has

received fewer comments to her postings. Also, Courant’s is a typical “Filter” type blog

whereas Prochaska’s is more a “Mixed” type. This is a good example of Herring’s point

that men’s “Filter” type blogs receive more attention than do women’s blogs (Herring,

2004). This seems to be true even among library related weblogs, if this example can be

taken as representative.

6. Discussion

We turn our attention back to the question of whether weblog type is determined or influenced by 

gender in terms of library director weblogs. In her research, Herring determined that

In Herring’s study the percentage of general bloggers was 52% men to 48% women. Conversely, in 

this study of library director weblog authors the opposite is true with many more women authoring the 

library blogs. This may be a consequence of the profession having more women than men.

The results for weblog type differed from those of Herring’s study as well. Where Herring found mostly 

“Journal” type blogs in her research this study found mainly “Other” type blogs.

In the Herring study there was a large discrepancy between the male and female authored examples 

of 20 male to 2 female weblogs. However, in her study there were very few “Filter” type blogs in general 

as in this study.  Herring also recorded a minute difference between the number of “Mixed” and “Filter” 

blog types. However in her findings there were manymore men as authors of the “Mixed” blog type. In 

this study the opposite was true with a majority of women authors to men, or two-thirds to one-third.

7. Limitations

The library director weblog list from Amanda Etches-Johnson’s’s “blogwithoutalibrary”

site chosen for this study is not comprehensive in any way. None of the library weblog

directories examined in preparation for the study were found to be comprehensive. When

searching the World Wide Web one comes across director weblogs that are not on any

list and yet exist.

There are two types of library director webblogs and although both are professional in

scope their placement on the internet and their content is slightly different. The first is the

library sanctioned type which supports the director’s weblog directly off of the library

frontpage. The second type is the non-library sanctioned variety found on commercial

weblog sites. Another study could look into only the none library linked director blogs

alone. There could be a comprehensive study of all library director weblogs, regardless of

worldwide location or library affiliation. More studies will need to be conducted as the

weblog medium develops and grows.

8. Further Investigation

Many aspects of librarian and library weblogs have not yet been investigated. The gender

blog type issue could be investigated in law librarian, medical librarian, science librarian

and other subject oriented weblogs.  A general study of all librarian weblogs could be

studied with gender and blog type as well. Age seems to be a factor in blogs and could

be studied in library related blogs.  Research could be done into the effectiveness of

librarian blogs to elicite responses and which blog types elicite the most responses: Do

public library blogs have a larger audience than academic libraries? Do library patrons in

certain regions of the country read and contribute to blogs more than in others? Do staff

or library patrons contribute more responses to library director’s blogs?.

Many blogs are begun and forsaken, due to a change in jobs, lack of time, lack of interest

and a multitude of other reasons. Research could be conducted to see how many library

related blogs were begun and abandoned, and compared and contrasted to the general

blogs that were begun and abandoned. More questions to be explored could be: Are more

academic or public library blogs forsaken? Is gender a factor? Is region a factor? Is blog

content type a factor?

References

Books

Clyde, L. (2004) Weblogs and Libraries. Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing.

Cohen, S. (2003) Keeping Current: Advanced Internet  Strategies to Meet Librarian and  

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Popular Literature

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Cornfield, M, Carson, J., Kalis, A. and Simon, E. (2004) BUZZ, BLOGS, AND BEYOND:

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     http://www.pewinternet.org/ppt/BUZZ_BLOGS__BEYOND_Final05-16-05.pdf

Websites

Blood, R. (2000) “Weblogs: a history and perspective”. Available at:    

     www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Etches-Johnson’s (2007) “Blogs in Libraries Wiki”. Retrieved November 18, 2007 from:

     http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=Library_director

Edublogawards (2007) The Edublog Awards. Retrieved November 24, 2007, from:

     http://www.edublogawards.com/

Herzog, S. (2007) BlogBib: An Annotated Bibliography on Weblogs and Blogging, with

     a Focus on Library/Librarian Blogs.... Eastern Connecticut State University. Retrieved   

     November 17, 2007, from: http://blog-bib.blogspot.com/

Walker, J. (2005) Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (2005). Retrieved

     November 17, 2007 from:

     http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising/finalversionofweblog

     definition.html

Winer, D. (2001) The History of Weblogs. Userland Software. Retrieved November 24,

     2007, from: http://www.userland.com/theHistoryOfWeblogs

Weblogs

Courant, R.(2007)

Prohaska, A. (2007)

Appendix

A.  Listing of Individual Library Director Weblogs as found in “Blogs in Libraries Wiki”.

Retrieved November 18, 2007 from: http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=Library_director

California

Connecticut

Florida

Illinois

Kansas

Iowa

Michigan

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

Pennsylvania

Virginia

Wisconsin