Non Library Blogs

From The Liminal Librarian (Rachel Singer Gordon): a list of five non-library blogs that I read regularly. This idea came up when people mentioned that they felt library blogs were suffering from nepotism (they should check out the science fiction world!).

While I'm no Steven Cohen, I have somewhere around 230 feeds in my reader. There are some 60 library feeds, around 80 feeds from science fiction & fantasy writers, some 30 or so publishing blogs (editors, publishers, etc.), about 10 feeds that are searches on different formats for my zine and feeds from my zine, and the rest are a bunch of misc things...five of which will be highlighted below:

BoingBoing - I met Cory Doctorow many years ago when he was an aspiring (and already talented) science fiction author. I worked for his publisher, Tor Books, for a number of years. When I found BoingBoing online through Cory, I knew I had found a place that would collect all sorts of things of interest to me: from science fiction to copyright to movies & television to weird weird weird stuff, BoingBoing has it all. Plus it updates all the time, so there's always something new to read.

Lifehacker - One of the most useful website I have ever encountered. This gives me tips on software and organization and shopping and everything else. There are a ton of great things I've learned from here. This website is indispensable to me. Plus, I'm an approved commenter!

Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch - My daily (who am I kidding, multiple times a daily) fix of Entertainment Weekly Magazine. Updates on movies, music, television, and all things pop culture (not so mcuh books...sniff). I love getting their instant reviews on last night's television. It's like they're inside my head watching what I watch.

Best Week Ever - Covering much of the same types of material as Popwatch, but with attitude. They don't pretend to be nice to the stars and what the stars are doing. If you've seen the TV show, you know what I mean. Often rude, often caustic, but again, often what I'm thinking anyway. They have a great feature called 'Listen Up' where they post links to mp3s of new music, both from established bands and up-and-coming artists. A great way to hear some stuff before it comes out. This makes you sound like you're in the know. :)

I read a dozen or so marketing blogs (what's good for small business is good for the library) but Creating Passionate Users is my favorite. Librarians are already passionate users of the library, and Kathy Sierra (even though she's talking about software) gives great insight to make your users (patrons) passionate users, too. She's creates these great (kind of ugly) charts and graphs to illustrate her points. They show that you don't need to have the perfect design and art to get your point across. Definitely worth checking out. Don't tell Kathy, but I print out her posts so I can refer to them later!