Thing 7: Blog Searching

Today I explored Technorati, a search tool for blogs. I first used the key word search bar to explore blogs on 'school libraries', but the results did not reveal blogs of libraries or librarians. Rather they primarily led to human interest stories included on major news blogs. Interestingly, Little Free Library, a blog we viewed and discussed in my media/tech class was listed. Next, I searched in the tags section. Libraries was not listed but 'education' was, so I linked to that. Again, somewhat disappointing. Although there were some articles of interest to educators (primarily technology related), there were numerous human interest stories that dealt peripherally with education. Finally, I looked at the top 100 blogs in Technorati. Huffington Post was listed first, followed by a succession of news, entertainment, political and technology-oriented professional blogs connected to major print/web sources. As a blogger looking for others personally blogging about their experiences as an educator or a librarian, I didn't find that Technorati offered that. Tagging is a useful tool if the person seeking information or trying to get their information out there has specific and maybe more obscure information in mind. Otherwise, a browser or EBSCO database search might be just as efficient and productive for the educator/school librarian.