What is a “Core Blogger?”
March 18th, 2005“I would never have known about CIL if it hadn’t been for reading blogs. Even if it had crossed my radar, it wouldn’t have registered because I had no personal connection to it. Granted, I have no personal connections to any of the bloggers I read, but at least they have individual personalities and after a few months of slogging through my feedreader, I have some idea of who these people are and how they are connected to each other. The fact that they are going to CIL is enough for me. CIL and their official blog have absolutely no street credibility to me otherwise.”
Disclaimer: I am paid to blog by ITI.
Information Today (ITI) has more credibility than any of the blogs in their “core group” or otherwise (CIL is the name of a conference put on by Information Today - not the company name) . They have built a company based on competencies that have transcended through the 21st century and will move beyond that because they are blogging. ITI’s credibility has already been established. The fact that they had the brains to have a blog at CIL only enhances this credibility. They have also been blogging at conferences (this is the first time that they have blogged one of their conferences) for 3 years; again, already building up credibility.
Cminor continues:
“My second problem with CIL’s attitude towards blogs is their selection of a group of “core bloggers” that are officially linked to the ITI blog. Who chose those words anyways and I really would like to know (not pulling a Gorman) why any self-respecting blogger would want to be identified as part of an exclusive group of “core bloggers”. Perhaps I am being naive/idealistic and any officially sponsored focus on blogs should be seen as a good thing, or maybe anyone in that position would take the opportunity of big time exposure as too good to pass up.”
The word “exclusive” here is a misnomer, IMO. I think that the correct word here is “selective.” ITI has selected bloggers that they felt would add to the conference blogging experience. They had the right to do this at their conference. Period. Historically, librarians have a terrible time marketing their talents and be proud of themselves. I can’t speak for the other librarians in the core group (They may or may not respond to CMinor’s post), but I feel that I am there because I have worked my butt off over the past 4 years on my weblog and it is being validated. I’m in the position to market my blog and I’m going to do it. There is nothing wrong with that.
So, where do we go from here? Should there be a Blogdigger group in the future? Should ITI continue to select bloggers as core bloggers? I think that there is room for improvement and I’m sure ITI will look back as CIL as a learning experience with blogging. We’ll see. IMO, this is just librarians marketing themselves well. Maybe they missed the boat on a few things here, but they will fix it. If they can’t improve on the blogging experience at their conferences, it will stagnate. I would hate if that happened.