Blogs & Journals

A Survey for Interested Librarians

Survey Ended

The survey has finished. Thank you for your responses! The Amazon Gift Card winner, survey respondent #232, has been notified by e-mail. If you did not get the e-mail, it was not you. Stay tuned to my blog for further developments.

Please answer the following questions. If you want more information about the purpose of this survey, please read the "Blogs and Journals" survey description

The survey is split into several sections, with some fill-in-the-blank questions and some on a scale of 1-5.

Section I: Demographics

The answers in this part of the survey will help make sense of the data.

Please select the library type which best fits your institution.:
Public Library (e.g. City, County)
Academic Library (4 year / University)
Academic Library (Community / Technical College)
School Library (K-12, primary/secondary)
Corporate
Currently Unemployed
Library Science Student
Special / Other

How many staff are employed at your library in terms of FTE (Full Time Equivalent) employees?

What is your age?

Which sentence best describes your relationship with computers and the Internet?
I avoid computers whenever possible
I don’t like to use computers a lot, and sometimes have problems
I use computers on a regular basis without any problems
I use computers often, even when I don’t need to, and can troubleshoot routine problems
I am currently working on an interactive parallelizing technology embedded in an interactive distributed interface (i.e. "I am a computer nerd." See here for a full explanation)

Where did you hear about this survey?

Do actively maintain a blog of your own? (at least 2 updates per week)
Yes No

Section II: General Questions about Blogs/Journals

These questions concern the reading habits of librarians. Please use Arabic numerals (e.g. 0, 1, 42) in your answers.

How many "traditionally published" peer-reviewed publications in the library field do you follow on an issue-by-issue basis? (e.g. scholarly journals, proceedings)

How many "non-traditionally published" peer-reviewed publications in the library field do you follow on an issue-by-issue basis? (e.g. journals that are published via the web, peer-reviewed wikis, and similar projects)

How many blogs by librarians or about library issues do you follow on an update-by-update basis

[optional question]
If you follow library blogs, which do you think are the most well-written or well known? (you can name up to 2)
Blog 1:
Blog 2:

Section III: Leikert Scale Questions about Blogs/Journals

Please rate the following statements about blogs and journals on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being "strongly disagree" and 5 being "strongly agree."

BLOGS

Statement	5	4	3	2	1
Library-related blogs stay abreast of the very latest developments
Library-related blogs generally contain accurate information
Library-related blogs are important in fostering discussion
Keeping a library-related blog requires a lot of hard work
In general, I would rely on the information I find in a blog without seeking to back it up from another source

JOURNALS

Statement	5	4	3	2	1
Scholarly journals stay abreast of the very latest developments
Scholarly journals generally contain accurate information
Scholarly journals are important in fostering discussion
Submitting an article to a scholarly journal requires a lot of hard work
In general, I would rely on the information I find in a scholarly journal without seeking to back it up from another source

Section IV: Comparing Blogs and Journals

For the following chart, please fill in the bubble on the scale from “Journals” to “Blogs” depending on which you feel better meets the listed criteria.

Statement	Definitely Blogs	Blogs	Equally Effective	Journals	Definitely Journals
Visibility
Reliability as a Source
Ease of Access
Usefulness to Researchers
Effectiveness in Raising Questions
Effectiveness in Creating Solutions

The End

If you have additional comments, please submit them below. Otherwise, click the "Submit Answers" button at the bottom of the page to complete the survey.