Negotiating Self-presentation, Identity, Ethics, Readership and Privacy in the LIS Blogosphere: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This paper is a review of the literature around the library and information science (LIS) blogosphere, focusing on academic librarian bloggers who maintain their own blog outside of their library workplace. The differences between library and librarian blogs are defined, followed by a brief snapshot of the history, evolution and current landscape of the LIS blogosphere. The review aims to understand what challenges these librarian bloggers face in contentious areas of their blogging practice. Key challenges that emerged were self-presentation and identity, ethical issues, readership and privacy. Through a discussion of these key challenges, issues around anonymity, disclosure, accountability to the profession, the interactivity of blogs and self-censorship come into play. The blurred lines between the personal, public, private and professional in the world of blogs are observed.

Keywords::

• Australian academic librarian bloggers
• privacy
• ethics
• blog readership
• self-presentation
• blogger identity

Blog, blogger, blogosphere…

Blogs, short for weblogs, allow content to be stored and tracked by scrolling through, rather than being deleted or superseded as is the case with websites (Benson and Favini 2006). The blogosphere is the digital space in which blogs operate, and blogging is the active and interactive activity in which blog posts are written, published and commented on (Kuhn 2007). The way the blogosphere hangs together mimics in a sense the way the Internet itself is connected; through links (Chopin 2008).

Blogs vary depending on their context and they are categorised in numerous ways, such as by technical and structural features, purpose, function, topic, authors, format, content and other defining characteristics (Aharony 2009b; Kuhn 2007; Lee and Bates 2007). There is consensus in the literature that blogs are websites containing dated entries in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent entry appears first, and that they are participatory, allowing comment and dialogue (Benson and Favini 2006; Gunter 2009; Kuhn 2007; Lee and Bates 2007).

Blogs are dynamic, versatile and flexible tools that can evolve according to the blogger's needs (Luzón 2008). Links and references to other online articles, blogs and comments integrate a blog into the blogosphere and facilitate discourse in a particular field (Luzón 2008). In one study, Luzόn (2008) analysed the links in 15 blogs by academics to determine their purpose and function. He found that links help to establish communities and provide a platform for bloggers to link back into their own blogs or to work they have previously published elsewhere, serving a promotional purpose for themselves and others (Luzón 2008).

Literature search methodology

The main literature-searching methodology for this review involved identifying peer-reviewed articles through journal databases. The primary database searched was EBSCO Host, followed by Emerald, Taylor and Francis and to a lesser extent Wiley and ScienceDirect. When a highly relevant article was identified, that article's reference list was examined for additional relevant articles; a process called chaining (Ellis 1989). Interestingly, this is similar to a sampling technique described, separately, by Viegas and Gelber in which researchers discover other blogs to examine by looking at the links within a blog (Gelber 2011; Viégas 2006).

A hermeneutic technique involving continual searching, honing of search terms in a more circular, rather than solely linear approach to discovering literature was also used (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2010). Typically, two or more search terms and Boolean operators were used to try and narrow down the results, of which approximately 40 were found. In this review, the following search terms and operators were used:

• Librarian AND blogger AND Australia OR culture

• Librarian AND blogosphere

• Librarian AND blog

• Blogarian AND culture OR community

• Librarian AND blogger AND community

Library blogs, librarian blogs – what's the difference?

Before discussing the main findings of the review, it is important to clearly distinguish between blogging as an individual person around LIS issues (librarian blog) and blogging as a librarian within a workplace (library blog). For this review, the method used to differentiate between librarian blogs and library blogs was to consider the purpose and nature of the blog. The distinguishing characteristic is the purpose of the blog in question. Library blogs are created specifically for and endorsed by a library (Belden 2009). They are usually aimed at current or future library users, and are a useful marketing and communication tool to share library news, resources and information (Belden 2009; McIntyre and Nicolle 2008).

Within the academic library context, blogs are used for purposes such as sharing information with busy academics, researchers and students about new resources, services and material that may be of use to them (McIntyre and Nicolle 2008). These blogs can provide links to other relevant websites, databases and sources in order to locate the blog within a broader context of academic discourse (McIntyre and Nicolle 2008). In this sense, library blogs have an articulated purpose to contribute towards the mission of libraries, often as part of a communication strategy (Belden 2009; McIntyre and Nicolle 2008). While an in-depth discussion of library blogs is out of the scope of this review, there is ample material in the literature on this topic.

Librarian blogs, on the other hand, are produced by individuals working in the LIS profession who blog about their work and other topics. The audience tends to be peers within the LIS profession, rather than library users. The librarian blogs of interest in this review are generally personal and conducted outside of work hours. They are an important communication channel for the profession that allows for the creation of networks and collaborations to emerge between peers (Luzón 2008). Powers (2008) concurs, adding that librarians are able to be “in conversations” without the limitations of distance, time or media through the avid librarian blogger community. Librarian blogs are situated within a community of blogging practices (Kjellberg 2009). Communities form among librarian bloggers on a remarkably diverse range of topics, from fashion to technology, to how much they like or dislike their work (Farkas 2007). This means that librarian bloggers don't just blog about libraries, they blog about their lives, and about being a librarian.

The “blurred line between the personal and the professional in the world of blogs” (Belden 2009, 54) is a fundamental concept that has received insufficient attention in the literature; in particular, the issues and tensions that can arise when librarians blog about their library work outside of their roles as employees. Gunter (2009) weighs in here, suggesting that blogging practices can erode the distinction between the people's public and private lives. He posits that the blogosphere is public and blogging is a public activity, but the fact is that private individuals are blogging in this public space (Gunter 2009). What is public becomes personal, and what is private can also become public when it comes to blogging. A snapshot of the history and evolution of the blogosphere is necessary to understand the context of the LIS blogosphere and to frame this review.

History and evolution of the blogosphere

Web 2.0 is the term used to describe the ability of Internet users to create and share digital content through use of interactive tools such as blogs, wikis, and websites (Benson and Favini 2006). Web 2.0 involves sharing of information, collaboration and open engagement with others. Blogs are considered to be one of the pillars of Web 2.0, which refers to the “social web” or participatory, interactive Internet we have today, while Library 2.0 refers to Web 2.0 applied within the LIS field (Torres-Salinas et al. 2011).

Historically, blogs have been thought of as serving a similar purpose to a personal journal or as a link-based tool (Lee and Bates 2007). Blogs were originally comprised almost completely of links, which still serve to facilitate conversations, but have evolved quickly and dramatically along with the Internet itself, with often quite sophisticated and flexible formats (Chopin 2008; Luzón 2008; Pankl and Ryan 2006).

Lee and Bates (2007) have highlighted the short timeframe between initial blog availability in the late 1990s and global engagement, noting that in 2006, 36% of adult Internet users read blogs, whilst 8% had their own. Gunter (2009) concurs, chronicling the massive popularity of blogs, especially since the early 2000s. Both mainstream and non-mainstream media now accept and recognise blogs as a well-used source of news, entertainment, information and opinion (Kuhn 2007). The ubiquity of no-cost, versatile and easy to use blog software and the ease with which people can create, maintain and comment on blogs has contributed to their popularity (Torres-Salinas et al. 2011).

The development of the LIS blogosphere

Early literature on library blogs focused on defining what blogs were, what they could be used for, and how libraries could create and maintain them (Belden 2009). The literature of this early period, the late 1990s and early 2000s, related to library blogs within the workplace rather than individual blogs by librarians. The first library blog is documented in the literature as having been created in 1998, which is very early in terms of blogs generally. It was only a couple of years later that library and librarian blogs started to become popular, gaining momentum in the LIS sector from 2003 (Lee and Bates 2007; Torres-Salinas et al. 2011).

An early study describes LIS blogs as “personal knowledge publishing”, in which bloggers make observations, discuss and debate ideas and react to those of others on their blogs (Luzón 2008, 76). The early librarian blogs served numerous purposes for bloggers, including being useful for professional development, keeping up with trends, reaching out to readers, forming communities, and sharing and developing ideas (Aharony 2010).

Much of the literature addressing the LIS blogosphere would be considered positivist, quantitative studies, involving analysis of blogs, in particular blog content, but also blog dynamics, activity, nature, organisation, trends and development. The most common methodology in the literature is content analysis, which was applied to determine the functions and purposes of blogs (Chopin 2008).

Clyde (2004a, 2004b) and Bar-Ilan (2004, 2007) undertook content analysis studies on LIS blogs fairly early on that described LIS blog characteristics, whilst Aharony and Belden have carried out more recent content analysis studies in the LIS blogosphere. Aharony carried out an exploratory analysis of blogs produced by LIS professionals, typically subjecting blogs to statistical descriptive and content analysis in an attempt to better understand the LIS blogosphere (Aharony 2009a, 2009b, 2010). Belden's (2009) approach mimics Aharony's, using content and descriptive analysis to attempt to develop an understanding of the use of blogs in archives and by archivists.

Stephens (2008) carried out a major study that sought to test a model of a blogging librarian as a “pragmatic biblioblogger”, or librarian who seeks, gathers and shares information and knowledge; and further, whether this model provides insights into the motivations and experiences of librarian bloggers. Some particularly useful aspects of Stephen's (2008) study are his findings about the behaviour of LIS bloggers. That is, the perception of libraries towards their librarians blogging outside of the workplace, the community of librarian bloggers, and the issues around freedoms and constraints these bloggers feel. Significantly, his findings offer insights about how librarian bloggers feel the LIS profession has been affected by librarian bloggers (Stephens 2008).

A recent study by Gelber (2011) was different, as it focused more on trying to understand who the LIS bloggers are. Gelber (2011) used descriptive statistics and content analysis methodologies to examine librarian blogs addressing cataloguing and metadata topics, deliberately choosing these methodologies to ensure consistency with Aharony, Bar-Ilan and others (Aharony 2009a; Bar-Ilan 2007; Gelber 2011). She then sought to understand the authors, dynamics and topics addressed by the blogs (Gelber 2011).

The academic librarian blogger

In a survey of librarian bloggers, Farkas (2007) found that academic librarians were more likely to blog than their counterparts in other libraries. She postulated that academic libraries, in particular, are highly supportive of their staff becoming published and that blogs are well-documented as being a place in which bloggers can practice their writing skills (Farkas 2007). Academic librarian bloggers in the United States have reported motivations for publishing their blogs as including engaging with a community of librarian colleagues, debating LIS issues and technologies, and discussing and reflecting on the LIS profession (Powers 2008; Stephens 2008). It is for these reasons that academic librarian bloggers were selected as a priority for this review.

Kjellberg (2010) and Powers (2008) are in agreement that people turn to blogging, with its capacity to generate informal networks, as a more efficient way to discuss ideas than traditional publishing modes, which take so much longer. Blogs have opened up publishing opportunities to librarians in a significant way, as bloggers are able to test out ideas with colleagues before taking them further along traditional publishing pathways (Pankl and Ryan 2006). Kjellberg notes the gravitas that is now attached to online publishing through blogs and other means, describing it as a type of “digital scholarship” (Kjellberg 2010).

Lee and Bates (2007) observe that it is the informal, accessible nature of blogs that has led to their success in the LIS field. That is, success measured both in terms of being adopted by librarians and libraries, as well as having an audience of library users and LIS professionals outside of their workplaces. They have become a catalyst for enabling librarians to build online communities around ideas, and they now occupy an important status within the LIS field, especially for academic librarian bloggers (Torres-Salinas et al. 2011). Bloggers are creating online identities that they maintain through their blog, and there is strong evidence in the literature that demonstrates blogging leads to the development of social networks or online communities (Kjellberg 2010; Luzón 2008). Library and librarian blogs are now an accepted part of library work.

Issues facing librarian bloggers

A number of authors have discussed the challenges librarian bloggers (and other bloggers) may face when blogging outside of the workplace (Kirkup 2010; Kjellberg 2009; Viégas 2006; Young 2006). While librarian bloggers create and maintain their personal blogs in their own time, due to the readership and content of their blogs it seems inevitable that issues pertaining to their library workplaces will arise from time to time. Very occasionally, when blog posts or comments about a librarian blogger's workplace become critical, or are perceived to be critical, the LIS profession has seen significant consequences for librarian bloggers (Belden 2009; Farkas 2007; Young 2006). It is the contentious issues facing academic librarian bloggers and their consideration of the potential implications for their blogging practices that have emerged as key discussion points in this paper. In particular, how these bloggers negotiate self-presentation, identity, ethics, readership and privacy are addressed.

Self-presentation and identity

Many authors have documented the existence of a clearly-defined blogger culture that has emerged and developed over the past 15 years (Kjellberg 2010; Kuhn 2007; Luzón 2008). Self-identity is created by the individual blogger, and can be thought of as a narrative about themselves that is sustained and evolves through interactions with others (McCullagh 2008). McCullagh (2008) suggests that self-identity as an evolving narrative is a useful framework for understanding how bloggers negotiate their blogs in terms of being both private and public space. Bloggers negotiate the boundaries between themselves and society and to do this they assess their readership and networks; controlling their disclosure and participation in the blogosphere. In such a way, they manage the public and private aspects of their blog (McCullagh 2008). An example of this is in the context of a blogger and their workplace. Bloggers have reported that how they are perceived at work is important to them and is a factor they take into account when blogging (McCullagh 2008). The way they present themselves online is perceived by these bloggers to have implications for the ways in which they are seen in their workplaces, and this factor informs their blogging practices. Farkas (2007) recognises that libraries tend not to prescribe what their library staff can and cannot blog about outside of the workplace, but there are isolated incidences of librarians being fired because of the content on their blogs or post.

In a published interview British law librarian, Jennie Findlay, who has her own very successful blog, explains that she is “cautious about being too controversial” in her blog posts (Well 2008). She is conscious of possible negative consequences for her or for her library, realising that her posts could be commented on or linked to (Well 2008). As a result, Findlay keeps her posts “light-hearted” rather than “in-depth” (Well 2008).

Ethics

According to Powers (2008), the history of ethics in librarianship is marked by grey areas, and never more so than today in which the fast-moving technological environment gives rise to more and more ethical challenges. Within the LIS sector, though, there exist a number of clearly articulated concepts that are commonly regarded as important tenets for the profession and these can be applied to the LIS blogosphere too. Cenite et al. (2009) define these tenets as: integrity – robustness and reliability of information; attribution – credibility and acknowledgement of sources; minimising harm – etiquette, respect for others and for privacy; transparency – honesty and fairness; accuracy – correct information; and accountability – identifying conflicts of interest, taking responsibility for posts, acceptance of consequences.

Cenite et al. (2009) investigated bloggers' ethical beliefs and practices, surveying over 1200 personal and non-personal bloggers. The survey focused on four key ethical principles: truth, accountability, attribution and minimising harm. The authors were interested in discovering what sense of responsibility bloggers felt about their blogging and to what extent they were informed by ethical beliefs. The bloggers' perceptions of their readership was found to be a key aspect, with half the sample reporting that they knew their readers personally in some way, which informed their thinking around what to post and in what ways (Cenite et al. 2009).

Some prominent US librarian bloggers have posited that librarian bloggers need to be conscious about the content they produce in the blogosphere, as they are perceived to represent librarians generally. This is demonstrated by Randy Reichardt (2005), who considers that he is a librarian blogger who blogs “on behalf of, and thus representing, our profession”; whilst Karen Schneider (2005, 36) feels that “every blog produced by librarians, no matter how casual, represents librarianship to the world”. Stephens (2005) believes that “our blogs represent us”, which is a call for integrity among the librarian blogger community, and also an indication of the ways in which librarian bloggers hold themselves and each other accountable (Stephens 2005, blog post dated April 1, 2005).

A number of librarian bloggers have developed preliminary codes, such as Rebecca Blood's blog standards outlined in her Weblog Handbook (2002) and Karen Schneider's article in the Library Journal (Schneider 2005). Despite these efforts, and the noticeable significance of ethical considerations in the LIS blogosphere, there is no single agreed code of ethics in this space. Bloggers may not conform to a code, but the literature describes a discernable ethical sensibility in the blogosphere.

McCullagh (2008) found that bloggers undertake careful reflection about whether to post personal information about themselves and others. In McCullagh's study, bloggers reported that topics that were too personal for them to post about include: negative posts and especially hurtful comments; emotional responses; text that would identify them (or others) if their blogs were private; anything that could impact on their future employment; and the oft-avoided trio of “sex, religion and politics” (McCullagh 2008). This shows that bloggers take into consideration their readership and issues around disclosure, privacy, readership and respect for others when posting.

Readership

Blog readership comprises a blogger's own social network, friends, family and colleagues, as well as a larger audience that could be anyone coming to the blog through a search engine, link, blogroll or other entry point (McCullagh 2008). Awareness of readership is important as it informs blogger thinking about risk, responsibility and the potential consequences, both positive and negative, of their blogging (McCullagh 2008).

Nardi, Schiano, and Gumbrecht (2004, 225) are in agreement, characterising blogging in general as a “studied minuet between blogger and audience”. The authors feel that the interaction between blogger and audience is at the crux of blogging and describe the influence of the blog and the audience as “blogs create the audience but the audience also creates the blog” (Nardi, Schiano, and Gumbrecht 2004, 224). In their study, Nardi, Schiano, and Gumbrecht (2004) found that an academic staff member at a US college self-censored, deciding never to post anything political due to a concern about his blog readership. Further, the academic had considered starting another blog under a pseudonym in order to feel free to post controversial and political opinions. Others in the study employed self-censorship strategies such as using euphemisms and private entries when being critical.

These strategies are understandable, as disclosing has resulted, in some cases, in serious consequences on bloggers' lives and especially on their careers (McCullagh 2008). Once information has been blogged, bloggers do not have full control over who accesses their posts and at what point they do so. Information taken out of context can be significantly misjudged and can have negative impacts on the blogger or those around them (McCullagh 2008). The literature indicates that negotiating privacy boundaries can be problematic for bloggers and that privacy boundaries in the workplace are sometimes difficult to manage, but the impacts of this are not clearly understood (McCullagh 2008). McCullagh (2008) explains how a blog's readership has serious implications for privacy and for what type and tone of content a blogger posts. Readership, self-presentation and identity intersect here, and questions emerge from this nexus around how bloggers perceive and negotiate privacy in this space.

Privacy

Blogs are easy and straightforward to produce and maintain, disseminating a range of information, sometimes quite personal, and opinions across the Internet (McCullagh 2008). Blogging provides a forum for librarians to deliberate and to debate, and anyone wishing to contribute can do so. Yet information shared on blogs is tied to self-presentation and identity (McCullagh 2008). There can be risks to individual bloggers in terms of privacy, especially when the permanency of cached blog content is considered (McCullagh 2008).

There is no single agreed definition of privacy in the literature, and a range of conceptions of privacy is valuable because it encompasses several issues. Privacy refers to notions such as an individual's right to be respected, personal space, dignity and autonomy, as well as those aspects of a person's life they wish to restrict access to or keep control of (McCullagh 2008). McCullagh's (2008) conception of privacy as it pertains to this paper incorporates, firstly, information privacy, which refers to control over one's information, and secondly, expressive privacy, which involves freedom and autonomy to choose, act and interact, as well as self-identity.

Understanding the accessibility and public nature of the blogosphere is important in a discussion about privacy for bloggers. Some bloggers in McCullagh's (2008) study were quite aware of the public nature of their blogs and took action to preserve their privacy, sometimes restricting the access and visibility of their blogs to their families or employers. These actions helped them negotiate that boundary between themselves and society to achieve their desired level of private-ness and public-ness.

In Powers' (2008) opinion, blogs are public and bloggers, as authors of their entries, are accountable for those entries, regardless of whether they choose to remain anonymous through use of a pseudonym or use their own name. Powers (2008) maintains that blog readers hold blogs accountable; this includes the references and links in a blog post, as well as comments made by others. However, Kuhn (2007, 24) posits that accountability can only occur when the identify of a blogger is transparent, going so far as to say that accountability and transparency “make blog discourse more authentic”. According to Farkas' (2007, 42) survey, around a quarter of librarian bloggers blog anonymously, either because they personally prefer to be “under the radar”, or because their library workplace does not support staff having their own blog.

Conclusion

The academic librarian blogger is a member of a dynamic, diverse and ever-growing online community that confronts and discusses issues facing the profession (Powers 2008). This paper has provided background and context about the development of the blogosphere and LIS blogging. The review identified several key issues, raising questions about how librarian bloggers negotiate self-presentation and identity, ethics, readership and privacy in terms of their blogging. Future research is needed to investigate these challenges in order to gain a deeper understanding of the implications for the blogging practices and library work of academic librarian bloggers.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments made by Dr Mary Anne Kennan, one of her lecturers at CSU, on earlier drafts of this manuscript.