Librarians love blogs!

Blogs are a great way to stay informed and get opinions and insights from other librarians. They're easy and free, too. Walt Crawford has released his list of library-related blogs, titled "The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008: A Lateral Look."

There are more than 600 blogs listed here, and I'm happy to see that Daveman's Tech Tips made the cut. I subscribe to 85 blogs, but not all are about libraries. Some are techology feeds from Wired, CNN, and CNet News. Others are columns from techies like David Pogue of the New York Times or Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic. (He rarely talks about the strip, but covers a wide range of topics including politics, vegetarianism, the economy, science and much more.) I subscribe to feeds from the library that contain lists of new books that I might be interested in. I also read blogs about my favorite football teams, the Penn State Nittany Lions and the New York Giants (but not on work time, of course!). These feeds save me the trouble of going to websites of the Centre Daily Times and the New York City newspapers to find the stories.

I don't read all of these blogs each day. I have a list of "must reads" that I check out first. My blog reader displays the headlines of each post and I scan them. If there's a story that interests me, I'll read it or mark it for later. I also try to limit myself to 30 minutes of blog perusal each day. I'll bet there are some good blogs on time management that could help me even more!