Marcus Banks is working on a paper for a NCNMLG / MLGSCA meeting in Las Vegas next month, called, "Delving into the Health Sciences Biblioblogosphere: How Has it Changed our Professional Practice?"

He plans to include in his paper, the results of a survey of librarians who read blogs that are written by health sciences librarians and targeted to other professionals.

So if you if you read blogs by and for health sciences librarians, you might want to take 5-10 minutes to complete the survey. The survey is open until January 21

Delving into the Health Sciences Biblioblogosphere: How Has it Changed our Professional Practice?
Abstract:
What seemed strange a few years ago has now become mainstream. Today several health sciences librarians maintain prominent blogs as a way to exchange information about new resources and services; and to stimulate discussion and debate among colleagues. As a means of gauging the impact of this development, this paper will report the results of two surveys: one of a targeted sample of high-profile health sciences librarian bloggers; and another of the larger base of regular blog readers.

To some extent the blogs serve the same function as an old-fashioned email list like MEDLIB-L; for example, most blogs have a threaded comment function. But there are important differences. Blogs usually convey the "personality" of the author, link to other resources, and have a visual branding that is absent on email. Blogs remain a new (if no longer strange) phenomenon, and this paper is an attempt to understand their functions and potential.
The surveys will address these questions: How has maintaining a blog changed the professional interests of the authors? What functions do they hope to serve with their blog? Do readers attempt to incorporate what they learn into everyday practice? Or are the blogs mainly current awareness vehicles? Finally, to what extent has interaction with these blogs (either as an author or reader) displaced the use of email lists? Are the blogs a disruptive technology, or simply an additional means of communication in our field? This paper will provisionally answer these questions, with the hopes of stimulating additional inquiry.