BusinessWeek: Blogs will change your business (of libraries)

I'm about to logout of Bloglines when this post (or the magazine cover, rather) from Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion* hits me in the face -- BusinessWeek's May 2005 issue has a cover story on blogs.
[* I like how he included an info page on "My Employer" on his blog.]

Yet another example of the power of blogs. Or maybe a "threat" to libraries, depending on how you look at it. Here I am, a librarian, supposedly at the forefront of the information wave. I used to be the first to know what magazine arrives in the library. Not anymore.

Readers with the know-how can bypass libraries. They might even be the first to ask librarians, "How come the issue hasn't arrived yet?"

But I see opportunities for libraries rather than threats. By subscribing to the right blogs, the librarian can get alerts faster (or just as fast) as the readers we serve. Today is 23 Apr 2005. I am blogging about a BusinessWeek issue coming out a week later. Anticipating that blogs are hot-topics, I have a week's notice to plan for related book displays, tracking of statistics, preparing simple readers' survey...

I should really title this post "Blogs will change the business of libraries -- in positive ways".

Related:
>>BusinessWeek - highlights of 2 May 2005 issue (Asia Edition)
>>Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers
>>Why you can't ignore blogs any longer - Frank Barnako (MarketWatch, 22 Apr 2005)

[Tag: businessweek]