The LISNews Blogs To Read in 2011

If you’re like me (and you know you want to be) you’ll find this year’s list surprisingly unterrible when compared to the vast majority of librarian blogs. I started the “10 Blogs To Read This Year” way back in 2006 to help highlight the wide range of people writing in the many different areas of librarianship. Each year we’ve attempted to point out a group of librarians whose writing helps increase our understanding of the profession and its place in our rapidly changing world. Again this year we tried to choose 10 writers who cover very different aspects of our profession, 10 sites that inform, educate and maybe amuse. By following these blogs I think you’ll frequently find something new and interesting to read, and a place to gain better understanding of parts of librarianship that are outside of your area. We all have much to learn from each other, and these bloggers are working hard to share their knowledge and experiences with you. The lists from 2006, 2007, 2008,2009 and 2010. See also: How The List Is Made and Why This List Matters.

1. All These Birds With Teeth [Feed]
2. Forgotten Bookmarks [Feed]
3. Hack Library School. [Feed]
4. InkDroid [Feed]
5. The LSW Friendfeed Room [Feed]
6. Musings about librarianship [Feed]
7. Pegasus Librarian [Feed]
8. SearchReSearch [Feed]
9. Screwy Decimal [Feed]
10. The Undergraduate Science Librarian [Feed]

All These Birds With Teeth [Feed] is by Joe Grobelny, a reference librarian who does a great job spicing up his general interest posts with snazzy images. His posts are smart and engaging with interesting articles from a wide variety of places.

Hack Library School: by, for and about library school students. This is their challenge to you; participate or come up with a better idea. How would you hack library school? Originally inspired by an article over on In The Library With The Leadpipe Hack Library School is a group blog with a great style and interesting ideas. [Feed]

Every year we do our best to make the list interesting and fun. Not every blog on the list needs to be full of world changing expertly written essays. This year’s fun site is Forgotten Bookmarks [Feed], something I hadn’t seen until the last minute. The author works at a used and rare bookstore. These are what is found in all the books. It’s not as much bacon as you might think!

The Library Society Of The World may just be the most subversive bunch of librarians you know. The LSW describes themselves as “world-spanning group of library professionals and library advocates, dedicated to furthering the role of librarians, archivists, information professionals, and information educators through communication and collaboration.” They have a Web Site but the real action happens over in the LSW Friendfeed Room [Feed]

InkDroid [Feed]. Ed Summers is an Information Technology Specialist at the Library of Congress. Ed writes heavy on the geek side of things… XML, hardware, software, code, you name it, if technology is your thing, this is a great blog to follow.

Musings about librarianship [Feed]. The in depth posts keep track of interesting and cool ideas that might be used by libraries for benefit of users. Aaron Tay is a librarian at the National University of Singapore and his posts cover a wide range of issues in librarianship.

Pegasus Librarian: Learning in Libraries and Loving It. [Feed] Iris is a Reference and Instruction Librarian and writes about life in an academic library, teaching, and classroom ideas. Here you’ll find smart writing from the academic side of the profession.

SearchReSearch [Feed] is a blog about search, search skills, teaching search, learning how to search, learning how to use Google effectively, learning how to do research. It also covers a good deal of sensemaking and information foraging. The author, Daniel M. Russell, works at Google. His “Search Challenges” will help you refine your search skills.

Screwy Decimal [Feed] Tales from an Urban Librarian. (Absolutely also worth following on Twitter!) You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wish you worked with kids all day! Rita Meade is a public childrens librarian in Brooklyn. As she says she experiences “strange and wonderful things in my line of work. I like to share them.” Kids say the darndest things!

If you’re like me (and you really should be), you just love science librarians. Bonnie Swoger is a Science and Technology Librarian. She says she is interested in science communication and teaching undergraduate students about how scientists share information. She blogs at undergraduatesciencelibrarian.wordpress.com as the Undergraduate Science Librarian. She covers an interesting range of science topics. [Feed]