#3: Blog Search Tools

Usually I discover new blogs by links off of blogs I already read. Thus, if Blog A references something in Blog B, I might take a look at other posts on Blog B. If they seem interesting, I'll add it to my feed reader. This can then lead to Blogs C, D, E, etc., This method means that I don't usually have to go actively searching for new blogs, and I find blogs that are similar to ones I already enjoy reading.

However, I have decided that I'd like to explore some good book or collection development blogs, similar to Early Word's blog for CD and RA librarians. I'm specifically interested in books written in or about Romance languages, although I would welcome some good general blogs.

To this end, I decided to try searching both Technorati and Google Blog Search for new blogs.

I ended up being quite disappointed with Technorati. Results didn't seem to fit at all with my search terms (an OB/GYN website came up when searching for library collection development blogs). I also didn't like the format of the search results--it reminded me too much of ads, and was hard to read. When I took the default search off "posts" and changed it to "blogs" I received three results (though the page said there were four). None of these fit what I was looking for.

I was much more impressed with Google Blog Search. While (like all things Google) there were too many results to contemplate (100,000+), a lot of interesting ones rose to the top. I was also able to get much more specific with my search, since there was more to comb through. There were also more ways to limit my search, and I could apply specific syntax that I know works with Google. The only thing that annoyed me were the continous job vacancy postings. I still wasn't able to find what I am looking for, but I think with some patience in tweaking my search topics and the time to wade through the results, I should be able to find something.