Event: Guest lecture in Ross Harvey's LIS 531W: Digital Stewardship, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, February 24, 2011.

1. SCHOLARS IN THE
BLOGOSPHERE
BLOGS, THE SCHOLARLY RECORD & IMPLICATIONS FOR PRESERVATION
Dr. Carolyn Hank
carolyn.hank@mcgill.ca
Asst. Professor
School of Information Studies
McGill University
Simmons – GSLIS
LIS 531W: Digital Stewardship
24 February 2011

2. 03 Motivations
04 Research Questions
07 Methods
11 Findings
35 Discussion
02 | 35 agenda

3. MOTIVATIONS
30 September 2005
03 | 35

4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
How do scholars who
blog perceive their blog
in relation to their
cumulative scholarly
record?
04 | 35

5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
How do scholars who
blog perceive their blog
in relation to long-term
stewardship?
Who do they perceive
as responsible as well
as capable for blog
preservation?
05 | 35

6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What blog characteristics
impact preservation?
What blogger behaviours
impact preservation?
06 | 35

7. UNITS & DATA SOURCES
Questionnaires
BLOGS
Interviews
BLOGGERS Blog Analysis
07 | 35

8. QUESTIONNAIRES
RR 1: QI: 63% | QII: 46% | QI/II: 52%
Completed sample:
153 respondents
Outcome rates derived from Internet surveys of specifically named persons from
the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR, 2009)
08 | 35

9. INTERVIEWS
24 semi-structured
phone interviews
72 (47%) of QI & QII respondents expressed interest
09 | 35

10. BLOG ANALYSIS
Coded 93 blogs
Authorship
Blog Elements & Features
57 to 63 Indicators Rights & Disclaimers
Authority & Audience
(on/off blog) Blog Publishing Activity
Post Features
Archiving
10 | 35

11. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Hold a
doctorate
(63%)
11 | 35

12. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Male
(78%)
12 | 35

13. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Post-
secondary
faculty
(74%)
13 | 35

14. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Tenured
(78%)
14 | 35

15. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Avg. age
is 45
(Range 25 to 70)
15 | 35

16. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Avg.
professional
age is 15
(Range 0 to 39)
16 | 35

17. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Established
publication
& service
history
17 | 35

18. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Publish to
just 1 blog
(58%)
18 | 35

19. BLOG PROFILE
Avg. blog age
is 4.5 years old
(range 1 to 8)
19 | 35

20. QUESTION ONE
Public 100%
Allows use and
exchange 94%
Part of the
scholarly
record 80% Subject to
critical
review 68%
Association of Research Braxton, J.M., Luckey, W.,
Libraries (1986). & Helland, P. (2002).
20 | 35

21. QUESTION TWO Preservation
Preferences
Personal access/use 16%
Short-term future
Public access/use 19%
Short-term future
Personal access/use 76%
Indefinite future
Public access/use 80%
Indefinite future
0% 100%
21 | 35

22. QUESTION TWO Preservation
Perceptions
22 | 35

23. QUESTION (2) Preservation
Perceptions
23 | 35

24. QUESTION TWO Doomsday
SADNESS Scenario
“Pretty bad;” “Very bad;” “Sad;” “Pretty sad;” “Panicked;”
“Devastated, both emotionally and professionally.”
ANGER
“Mad as hell;” “Pretty peeved;” “Pretty angry;” “Angry and upset;” “Frustrated;”
I’d do something drastic [in response] (i.e., legal action).
RELIEF
“I don’t have to do it anymore;” “I get half an hour of my life back.”
C’EST LA VIE
“Pour another cup of coffee and get back to work;” “Probably have a drink and
forget about it;” “Not welcomed but not tragic … I’d get over it;” “Drop out of the
blogosphere until something else comes along.”
DOUBT
“How would that happen?;” “It would take an extreme catastrophe;”
“Hard to believe lost and unrecoverable.”
24 | 35

25. QUESTION TWO Preservation
Priorities
Works-in-
progress
Scientific & Book
Scholarly Reviews
Research Books Books
Traditional Books Peer-
Publications Books Reviewed
Dissertations
Publications
Law review Published & Theses Self-
articles Papers Peer- Class
Reviewed Lab Publications
Published Select Blogs
Papers Publications Notebooks
Monographs Blog Posts
Journal Pedagogical Filter
articles Books Informal Blogs Blogs
Research & Tools
Journal Teaching Journal Publications Blogs Filter
articles materials Teaching articles Blogs
Blogs Blogs
Journal materials Blogs Email Blogs
Blogs
articles Journal Blogs Blogs
articles Journal Journal Personnel
Blogs
articles articles Communications Blogs
HIGHER LOWER
25 | 35

26. QUESTION THREE
Dynamic, Changing
Co-producer Dependencies
Understandability
Versioning
Rights and Use
Some “Archiving” Activity
26 | 35

27. QUESTION THREE
BLOGS BLOGGERS
55
of most
% 55 %
update their
recent posts blog
published several
≤ 3 days times a week
27 | 35

28. QUESTION THREE
95% edit posts after publication
Spelling & grammatical errors
Rephrasing
Remove incorrect info
Published before ready
29% delete posts after
publication Duplicate post
“Post regret”
Too sensitive or revealing
28 | 35

29. QUESTION THREE Most
Recent
Post
Text 99% Links 82% (avg. 5)
Photos 16%
544 total words
79 quoted words Other image elements 16%
465 original words Comments 57%
29 | 35

30. QUESTION THREE
50% check for permissions
before publishing content at least
half the time.
30 | 35

31. QUESTION THREE
Rights
51 % 37 % 14 %
none text Creative
statement Commons
Other
Policies
31 | 35

32. QUESTION THREE
80% of blogs in the blog analysis
sample archived to the Internet
Archive Wayback Machine
32 | 35

33. QUESTION THREE
50% of law cluster blogs (n=12)
archived at Library of Congress’
Legal Blawgs Web Archive
33 | 35

34. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to ... Dr. Helen R. Tibbo
Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway
Dr. Jeffrey Pomerantz
Paul Jones
Dr. Richard Marciano
Dr. Songphan Choemprayong
Laura Sheble
Thanks for ... Beta Phi Mu 2010 Eugene Garfield
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
34 | 35

35. And thank you.
CAROLYN HANK
Email: carolyn.hank@mcgill.ca
Phone: 514.398.4684
Web: http://ils.unc.edu/~hcarolyn
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-
No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
The end nd/3.0/us/