Blogs for Scholarly Research?

Two weeks ago, I attended the session “Citizens, Pundits and Scholars: In Defence of Blogs” at the Ontario Library Association’s annual conference. Presented by Mark Robertson and Kalina Grewal, both Reference Librarians at York University, it wasn’t a “how-to” session on creating a blog. Instead, it examined the content of certain blogs, and highlighted their value as sources for academic research. Based on a workshop they gave to York faculty, the speakers discussed how blogs’ interactions with global social/political issues have important implications on scholarly work. Specifically, they looked at the value of blogs for academic researchers via three contexts:
-citizen journalism
-creation of communities, and
-as primary sources.

For more details on this presentation, check out my notes on the conference blog as well as the speakers’ resources.