Library Networking:
Journals, Blogs, Associations, Conferences
In Libraryland, there are many ways of keeping up and keeping connected with your fellow librarians.
This page does not necessarily indicate every site that
has an RSS feed. Since most of these people are librarians, it's always
worth checking for an RSS feed for their journals, blogs, etc.
(What's RSS?)
This page:
Library Networking, generally |
Journals and Indexes |
Blogs |
Newsgroup |
Associations |
Conferences
Library Networking, generally
- Steven Bell's Keeping Up Web Site - Links to sites to help librarians keep up with their own field and related fields
- Marylaine Block:
- Stop the World, I Want to Catch Up, Ex Libris 137
- Part II, Ex Libris 148
- Keeping Up with New Developments in Librarianship and the Internet
- Her Bookmarks
- Current Awareness and Professional Aids for Science Librarians (Lorrie Pellack, Iowa State U.)
- See also Web Current Awareness
- See also Networking for Water Librarians
Library Journals and Indexes
- American Libraries Online
- Ariadne - Though targeted at UK academic librarians, this quarterly is useful for anyone working on digital library projects.
- Cites & Insights: Crawford at
Large - Walt Crawford's journal on libraries and information (monthly)

- D-Lib - For the digital librarian (monthly)
- Ex Libris - "An E-Zine for Librarians and Information Junkies," by Marylaine Block
- First Monday - Published the first Monday of every month, this peer-reviewed journal covers social aspects of the Internet, often with a library emphasis.
- Free Pint - Regularly publishes tips ("tipples") on Internet searching in a given subject area (search for back issues when looking for a particular subject). Emphasis on business information, but there's a lot more here.
- Information for Social Change
- Library Journal - Library news.
- SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN) - Peter Suber's newsletter, blog, and discussion forum in support of scholarly works being available freely (i.e., uncensored and without charge) (formerly Free Online Scholarship)
- See also Book Reviews
- Directory of Open Access Journals: Library and Information Science
- Journals: Library and Information Science - Tables of contents and abstracts for 120 journals (BUBL)
- Resources for Librarians (Steven Bell's Keeping Up)
- Library Journals, Newsletters & Zines (LibDex)
- Thomas Parry Library: Electronic Journals in Librarianship and Information Science (University of Wales, Aberystwyth)
- Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) - Index to hundreds of library periodicals (no full text, however) (EBSCO) [libraryresearch.com]
- Current Cites - Monthly abstract service of information technology articles selected by librarians
- Documents in Information Science (DoIS)
- Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) - Databases of reports, etc. on education, including some library publications (U.S. Dept. of Education)
- Index Morganagus - Index to the full-text of library-related e-journals.
- Informed Librarian Online - Subscription service with tables of contents from 180 library journals
- Digital Library of Information Science and Technology (dList)
- E-LIS: E-Prints in Library and Information Science
- MetaLIS - Harvester of metadata about full-text papers in library and information science
- CalTech Library System Papers and Publications
- OCLC Research Publications Repository
Including online-only journals.
Web Directories of Library Journals:
Library Periodical Indexes:
Digital Libraries and E-Print Servers:
Library and Librarian Blogs
- LIS News - A collective blog run by Blake Carver, updated and commented upon by its readers
- Carnival of the Infosciences - Best of the library blogs in the past week
- See also Library Wikis
- Librarian.net - "By a librarian for rarin' librarians, info junkies, freedom lovers and other weirdos" (Jessamyn West)
- Shifted Librarian - Blog on the theme of the shift from searching for information to having it come to you. (Jenny Levine)
- Blog Driver's Waltz by Geoff Harder - "Blogging the life of one Canadian librarian since 2002"
- Catalogablog - A Blog on cataloging issues (David Bigwood)
- The Constant Reader by Carol Van Houten
- etc. by Amanda Etches-Johnson
- See also Meta Blog below
- Every Moment's a Little Bit Later - Nacowafer writes about cataloging and other aspects of life
- Exploded Library
- Free Range Librarian - Karen Schneider writes about libraries and life
- The Goblin in the Library by Joshua M. Neff of Johnson County Library (Kans.)
- Holmgrrl - Sarah Holm Norton
- In the Library with the Lead
Pipe - In-depth essays on library issues every two weeks

- Information Wants to be Free - By Meredith Farkas, creator of some cool wikis
- It's All Good - By 3 OCLC staff members (unofficial, though)
- Librarians are Corrupting Kids (L.A.C.K.) Now, with a newsblog
- Library Dust - By Michael McGrorty - Thoughtful essays every day
- Library Juice - Progressive librarians' blog from Rory Litwin Archives of the weekly Library Juice are available at http://libr.org/Juice/
- Library Link of the Day
- Library Planet
- Library Stuff - Updated daily (Stephen Cohen)
- New Pages Weblog - "News & Views from the Net of Interest to Booksellers, Publishers, Librarians, Writers & Readers"
- Open Stacks by Greg Schwartz
- ResearchBuzz - Updated daily, a good site for keeping up with the latest in Internet researching
- ResourceShelf - Blog where librarian Gary Price lists his latest discoveries
- Retrofitted Librarian - "News and information for San Francisco Bay Area library workers" by Susan Rosenblatt
- Rogue Librarian - By NYPL Web maven Carrie Bickner
- Peter Scott's Library Blog (formerly Library News Daily)
- T. Scott - Blog of a medical librarian
- TangognaT - It's a palindrome, get it?
- Tinfoil + Raccoon - Rochelle Hartman is "looking for the new and shiny in libraryland and beyond"
- Walt at Random - Walt Crawford's blog. His more considered insights are in Cites & Insights (see Journals, above)
- Wandering Eyre - "A bibliophile's musings about books, libraries, the world, life, and anything else that comes to mind" by Michelle Boule (a.k.a. Jane)
- World's Strongest Librarian - Inpiration from a librarian whose motto is "Get stronger, get smarter, live better ... every day"
- Library of Congress Blog
- New York Public Library Blog - Highlights from the digital collection
- As a Matter of Fact - Blog of the NPR librarians
- Chi Lib Rocks - Chicago Library System
- H2O boro lib log - Waterboro Public Library (Maine) Blog
- Icarus, Santa Fe (N.M.) Public Library
- Leddy Library Weblog - University of Windsor (Canada)
- Liblog - Redwood City (Calif.) Public Library
- Wilton Library Weblog, Wilton, Conn.
- Blogging Libraries Wiki - "Libraries doing good things with blogs" (blogwithoutalibrary.net)
- Library Weblogs (LibDex)
- Library Zen Wiki - List of blogs indexed by LISZen (see below)
- LISWiki: Blogs
- LibWorm - Indexes over 1,000 library-related RSS feeds. Search the whole index; search within categories; track keywords with your own RSS feeds.
- LISZen: Library and Information Science Search Engine - Searches over 500 blogs
- LIS Blogsource - It had to happen: a blog about librarian blogs
- Blog Without a Library - Another blog on library blogs (Amanda Etches-Johnson)
- Blogs for Libraries - An essay by Greg Schwartz
- See also Blogs (in general)
There are too many library blogs for me to keep track of. Listed below are some I have found interesting. For more-or-less complete lists, see the directories of library blogs below. For new blogs by librarians and libraries, see LIS Blogsource. See also librarians of specific types; some of them have blogs on their sites.
Library Blogs, Collaborative Efforts:
Blogs by and for Librarians:
As is to be expected of library blogs, most of these deal with technology to some extent. For blogs that deal almost exclusively with tech, see Library Technology Blogs. See also Political Librarians.
Official Blogs of Libraries:
Library Blog Directories:
Library Blog Search Engines:
Meta Blog:
Library Newsgroup
Library Associations
- American Library Association
- Association of Research Libraries
- Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) - Formed from the merger of the Library Association (U.K.) and the Institute of Information Scientists
- Library Society of the World - A virtual
association and sponsors of the Shovers
and Makers award

- SLA home page
- Annual Conference
- SLA Chapters, Divisions, other units
- SLA Discussion Lists
- SLA San Andreas Chapter
Special Libraries Association:
- Library Associations Around the World (American Library Association)
- Professional Organizations in the Information Sciences (Karen Stone, San Jose State University)
Subject-Matter Library Associations:
The Special Libraries Association has subject-matter divisions for librarians who deal with those subjects. The following are some other subject-matter library associations.
Web Directories:
Library Conferences
- D-Lib Meetings, Conferences, and Workshops
- Douglas Hasty's Library Conference Planner
- Information Today Calendar - Includes other organizations' events, as well as those sponsored by Information Today
- International Calendar of Information Science Conferences
- Librarian's Datebook - Calendar of conferences and training for librarians
- Library-Related Conferences - Compiled by Marian Dworaczek, U. of Saskatchewan
- Special Libraries Association Industry Events Calendar - Includes non-SLA conferences