To be quite honest, I don't spend much time on the internet. I go through phases where "wasting" a couple hours here or there looking at, well, whatever, is completely appealing and fulfilling...in some ways (for many people, anyway), it's the modern-day version of channel clicking while lazing about on the couch. Most of my internet time is spent looking for, listening to, and reading about new music. I never have been much of a blog follower, either, but for this assignment (checking out blog search tools), I decided to search for music blogs using Technorati.
In the past, I've had habit to visit Carrie Brownstein's Monitor Mix on NPR.org, and Ted Leo's blog on his website, as they are musicians (intermittent, and current, respectively) whose music I am a fan of, and whose opinions and insights I mostly enjoy (and agree with). But, honestly, that's about it (besides Muzzle of Bees, a local Madison music promoter/blogger that I no longer follow due to my having left the area a few months back). Most other blogs I have ever looked at have actually been linked to from those pages, or have been emailed to me from my wife or friends who happened to come across something they think I would be interested in.
At least part of my lack of interest in searching for music blogs, I believe, is the simple fact of music being such a popular pursuit (particularly in the digital world, with the promise of free mp3s and torrent sites abound) -- there's just so much information out there, it's too much to bear to try and filter through it all. Congruous to my thoughts, I ran a test search on Technorati for "music blogs" which found over 53 thousand results! Out of curiosity, I ran another search for "library blogs," which unsurprisingly returned much fewer (2,834, to be exact). The obvious reason for this is, though libraries are quite ubiquitous, blogging about them is quite the niche market -- one that is growing, I'm sure; but one that can't even compare number-wise to a topic such as music. And -- drum roll, please -- this is a big reason why (along with the fact of librarianship being my impending career!) searching library blogs is infinitely more appealing to me than looking at those dedicated to music will ever be.
With my brief exploration of using a blog search engine, I've found a few library-inspired blogs that I may just decide to keep up with: Free Range Librarian and The Unquiet Librarian, to name two. From this experience alone, I'm already realizing the usefulness of blog search tools, and am sure to continue sifting. As with any topic these days, there is much information to sift through to locate what is really pertinent to one's interests. If I discover any that prove to be the glue that draws me to my computer more often than usual, I will be sure to comment further on them, and even place them on my blog roll!
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