Without further ado:

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	135753	Jesus Creed (Fix your counter! :-) )	134872	881
2	78494	Debunking Christianity	78037	457
3	41909	TILL HE COMES	41688	221
4	39546	Unsettled Christianity	38613	933
5	25398	Near Emmaus	24877	521
6	20964	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	20879	85
7	17600	Scotteriology	16266	1334
8	15544	Better Bibles Blog	15454	90
9	11030	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	10725	305
10	10847	Remnant of Giants	10663	184
11	10409	NT Blog	10302	107
12	10326	Reading Acts	10156	170
13	9202	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	9087	115
14	7270	Gentle Wisdom	7098	172
15	6824	Political Jesus	5566	1258
16	6217	Observatório Bíblico	6018	199
17	5828	Alin Suciu	5776	52
18	5490	Participatory Bible Study Blog	5436	54
19	5477	καὶ τὰ λοιπά	5406	71
20	5437	Targuman	5350	87
21	5411	Textuality	5287	124
22	4399	The Aramaic Blog	4116	283
23	4387	BibleX	4123	264
24	4076	Zwinglius Redivivus	0	4076
25	4028	Pisteuomen	3949	79
26	3978	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	3847	131
27	3789	BLT	3662	127
28	3734	A ‘Goula Blogger	3637	97
29	3708	Professor Obvious	3678	30
30	3437	Exploring Our Matrix	2529	908
31	3314	Diglotting	3193	121
32	3010	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	2844	166
33	2910	NT Pod	2878	32
34	2423	Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr.	2385	38
35	2178	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	1468	710
36	2086	Grace Commentary	2067	19
37	1987	5 Minute Bible	1762	225
38	1984	The Biblioblog Top 50	1905	79
39	1492	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	1492
40	1480	Abnormal Interests	1302	178
41	1453	Polumeros kai Polutropos	1407	46
42	1403	Sansblogue	1334	69
43	1107	AD CUMMULUS	1049	58
44	869	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	869
45	863	Bible Films Blog	0	863
46	845	Dust	718	127
47	789	The Forbidden Gospels	0	789
48	685	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	685
49	426	PaleoJudaica.com	0	426
50	381	Daniel O. McClellan	0	381

This Month’s Biblical Studies Carnival

Over on Remnant of Giants, Deane has hosted the Biblical Studies Carnival 69 (November 2011). Check it out!

New Carnival Cycle and Organizer

Jim Linville of Dr. Jim’s Thinking Shop is organizing the 2012 Biblical Studies Carnivals. If you wish to host a Carnival in the upcoming year, be sure to get in contact with him!

More Anouncements After The Move! — Hopefully by Christmas– hopefully…

Peace,
-Steve

Jesus Creed has taken a very firm lead with nearly 200,000 article reads!

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	196562	Jesus Creed	195358	1204
2	97829	TILL HE COMES	97536	293
3	88106	Debunking Christianity	87551	555
4	50534	Exploring Our Matrix	49086	1448
5	35482	Unsettled Christianity	34022	1460
6	23267	Near Emmaus	22576	691
7	19216	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	19042	174
8	18776	Scotteriology	16737	2039
9	14578	Better Bibles Blog	14410	168
10	10434	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	10009	425
11	10171	NT Blog	10002	169
12	9179	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	8963	216
13	8353	Political Jesus	6050	2303
14	8213	Reading Acts	7982	231
15	8122	Remnant of Giants	7822	300
16	7760	Gentle Wisdom	7486	274
17	6749	Observatório Bíblico	6457	292
18	6595	Alin Suciu	6449	146
19	6471	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	6175	296
20	5630	Zwinglius Redivivus	0	5630
21	5026	Participatory Bible Study Blog	4910	116
22	4632	καὶ τὰ λοιπά	4513	119
23	4625	Targuman	4460	165
24	4393	Textuality	4157	236
25	4324	The Aramaic Blog	3861	463
26	3938	BibleX	3580	358
27	3817	Diglotting	3567	250
28	3656	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	3341	315
29	3642	NT Pod	3513	129
30	3225	A ‘Goula Blogger	3063	162
31	3176	Professor Obvious	3106	70
32	2980	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	2980
33	2821	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	1521	1300
34	2362	Grace Commentary	2334	28
35	2328	5 Minute Bible	1944	384
36	2306	Pisteuomen	2212	94
37	1861	Abnormal Interests	1604	257
38	1788	Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr.	1729	59
39	1762	The Biblioblog Top 50	1622	140
40	1641	Sansblogue	1515	126
41	1622	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	1622
42	1573	Bible Films Blog	0	1573
43	1372	The Forbidden Gospels	0	1372
44	1208	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	1208
45	1117	Polumeros kai Polutropos	1002	115
46	1104	Dust	889	215
47	676	PaleoJudaica.com	0	676
48	630	AD CUMMULUS	546	84
49	589	Daniel O. McClellan	0	589
50	542	James’ Thoughts and Musings	0	542

Announcements

1) If You Have a Biblioblogging Announcement

As the title says — a sort of announcement-announcement — if you have a Biblioblogging-related announcement and would like it to go out on the month’s Biblioblog Rankings, please email in and (provided it isn’t anything that would make all of us blush) I will include it.

2) More Statistics — As you watch!

The stats system is now completely moved over to the new database and it’s much speedier than before. You can check out the stats in real time (i.e. watch the hits happen) by visiting the following pages:

• Article reads by the hour.
• Article reads by the day.

In the past month, nearly 850 thousand article reads have been recorded. Next month I would not be surprised if this broke 1 million.

3) Call For Submissions: The Biblioblog Reference Library Press

A goal has been set for 10 publications to start the Press off with. So far it looks like we have about 2 or 3 lined up. If you have an idea for a book related to Biblical Studies and have a blog on the List that demonstrates strong knowledge in that area, email in with a prospectus for consideration.

The main focus of the Press is in cross-disciplinary studies and teaching materials, but all ideas (with the exception at this time of fiction, inspirational works, devotionals, or commentaries) are currently being considered.

4) User Accounts on the Library

I know that a large number of you are waiting for the new user accounts to open to the public… but we still have a few more bugs to squash. The test team (about 30 users) is still encountering a few odd errors, but with luck they will be solved by next month, and we can open up user accounts before Christmas.

5) Library-Related Inquiries: A Bit Behind

I am — for lack of a better way to put it — behind with email correspondence. The past month has been very challenging due to some major family transitions, and now to top things off: We’re moving!  Hopefully by Christmas the Caruso clan will be moved in to a bigger, nicer apartment just down the street. So please be assured that yes, I am getting your emails; however, responding to them is a bit slow with all of the planning and packing arrangements. :-)

With all of that said: Until next month!

Peace,
-Steve

Tom Verenna’s first shot at compiling a Biblical Studies Carnival is now up for all to see a bit early:

Biblical Studies Carnival LXVIII (Tom Verenna, The Musings of Thomas Verenna – October 2011)

Lots of good articles in this one. :-)

This month’s rankings will be posted some time on Tuesday.

Peace,
-Steve

This month we have a new #1! Congratulations to Jesus Creed with a whopping ~110k+ views!

Biblioblogs

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	109647	Jesus Creed	108523	1124
2	76027	Debunking Christianity	75416	611
3	44264	Exploring Our Matrix	42873	1391
4	32274	Unsettled Christianity	30420	1854
5	29259	Zwinglius Redivivus	23009	6250
6	21523	Near Emmaus	20704	819
7	21422	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	21211	211
8	18382	Scotteriology	16546	1836
9	15856	Better Bibles Blog	15729	127
10	10097	Gentle Wisdom	9835	262
11	9784	NT Blog	9626	158
12	9640	Observatório Bíblico	9237	403
13	8620	Political Jesus	6431	2189
14	8553	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	8120	433
15	8495	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	8311	184
16	7897	Remnant of Giants	7613	284
17	7346	Alin Suciu	7233	113
18	7312	Reading Acts	7068	244
19	5858	The Aramaic Blog	5427	431
20	5835	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	5542	293
21	5408	Textuality	5229	179
22	5122	Participatory Bible Study Blog	4987	135
23	5089	Targuman	4918	171
24	4093	BibleX	3663	430
25	3995	Diglotting	3752	243
26	3663	NT Pod	3541	122
27	3316	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	2149	1167
28	3312	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	3071	241
29	3286	A ‘Goula Blogger	3076	210
30	3251	Professor Obvious	3197	54
31	2846	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	2846
32	2616	Pisteuomen	2534	82
33	2334	The Biblioblog Top 50	2229	105
34	1938	Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr.	1850	88
35	1799	Abnormal Interests	1549	250
36	1750	Sansblogue	1624	126
37	1603	Dust	1348	255
38	1492	5 Minute Bible	1105	387
39	1359	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	1359
40	1328	Bible Films Blog	0	1328
41	1201	Polumeros kai Polutropos	1116	85
42	1122	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	1122
43	1052	The Forbidden Gospels	0	1052
44	737	PaleoJudaica.com	0	737
45	602	Daniel O. McClellan	0	602
46	570	James’ Thoughts and Musings	0	570
47	444	Euangelion	0	444
48	440	The Biblioblog Reference Librarian’s Desk	299	141
49	407	The Poetry of Christ	268	139
50	353	WIT	0	353

I’m glad to see that Biblioblogs are getting such a wide readership.

This Month’s Biblioblog Carnival

The first part (looks like James has started a trend) of the September 2011 Biblioblog Carnival is up over on Scotteriology, so be sure to check it out.

The Biblioblog Reference Library Announcements

This month there are four announcements about the Library:

1) Beta 3 is up – If you haven’t seen the new look yet, I recommend that you check it out. I’ve been told it’s a lot more “gawker-like” which I think is a compliment. :-)

2) A new section about the Jordan Codices has been released – They hit the press back near Easter time and since then, an informal group of Bibliobloggers has shown what distributed review is capable of.

3) In the next week (fingers crossed) user accounts on the Library will be out of testing and open to the public. – What does this mean? Lots of neat things. With a user account, you’ll be able to add new blogs to the list, “claim” blog that are already on it and have some control about how they display, save “portals” or dedicated search feeds which you can share with others, as well as build a public academic profile that you can attach to your blog, your posts, and your comments.

4) The hit counter will go down some time in the next few days and all hits reset to zero as I implement a new hit counting database. – There is so much data (nearly 1 GB dedicated to hits alone) that the old database method is no longer feasible. I’m migrating it to a more robust system that will also (hopefully) fix some problems people have been having with blogs that have multiple URLs.

Until next month!

Peace,
-Steve

Everyone who is in the Top 50 and doesn’t have their trackers installed, get them on! :-)

Biblioblogs

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	75241	Debunking Christianity	74705	536
2	49858	Exploring Our Matrix	48134	1724
3	39918	Unsettled Christianity	37527	2391
4	21528	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	21286	242
5	16931	Near Emmaus	15813	1118
6	15767	Scotteriology	14667	1100
7	15056	Better Bibles Blog	14928	128
8	12477	Gentle Wisdom	12246	231
9	8793	Political Jesus	7108	1685
10	8076	Observatório Bíblico	7702	374
11	7898	NT Blog	7800	98
12	6987	Zwinglius Redivivus	0	6987
13	6523	The Aramaic Blog	6316	207
14	6009	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	5487	522
15	5771	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	5699	72
16	5559	Diglotting	5343	216
17	5000	Remnant of Giants	4676	324
18	4887	Reading Acts	4647	240
19	4716	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	4405	311
20	4632	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	4239	393
21	4601	Participatory Bible Study Blog	4440	161
22	4293	Targuman	4123	170
23	3844	BibleX	3326	518
24	3551	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	2863	688
25	3220	A ‘Goula Blogger	3073	147
26	2936	Professor Obvious	2884	52
27	2389	Textuality	2223	166
28	2012	NT Pod	1953	59
29	1988	The Biblioblog Top 50	1948	40
30	1500	Abnormal Interests	1228	272
31	1372	Jesus Creed	0	1372
32	1268	Alin Suciu	1187	81
33	1245	Dust	969	276
34	1163	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	1163
35	978	Polumeros kai Polutropos	921	57
36	828	PaleoJudaica.com	0	828
37	747	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	747
38	641	James’ Thoughts and Musings	0	641
39	592	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	592
40	514	Bible Films Blog	0	514
41	513	The Forbidden Gospels	0	513
42	403	Euangelion	0	403
43	396	The Biblioblog Reference Librarian’s Desk	273	123
44	390	Quadrilateral Thoughts	0	390
45	374	The Poetry of Christ	218	156
46	354	Pseudoscienze bibliche e false reliquie di Antonio Lombatti	0	354
47	348	Sects and Violence in the Ancient World	0	348
48	318	Daniel O. McClellan	0	318
49	256	Menachem Mendel	0	256
50	240	BIBBIABLOG	0	240

Top 10 Articles

This month I will not be posting the Top 10 Articles, as this month all of the most popular articles had nothing to do with Biblical Studies. :-)

The Biblioblog Library Beta 3

I’m working feverishly to try and get this up and running tonight! Not sure I’ll make it though. However, when it’s ready there will be a further announcement.

Peace,
-Steve

Using the new tracking system, at The Biblioblog Reference Library to keep count of over 350,000 page views, here are this month’s rankings.

Top 50 Biblioblogs:

If you don’t see a little green check next to your blog’s name, that means you don’t have the tracker installed. If there’s a little red X next to your blog’s name, that means that you *had* the tracker installed, but it is now not working for some reason (so best check up on it!).

The rankings for the Top 50 are based on hits from the tracker widget, as well as the number of Library referrals (i.e. traffic generated from the Library).

On the live rankings page at the Library, these are also broken down by category.

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	75400	Debunking Christianity	75093	307
2	39767	Unsettled Christianity	39132	635
3	25757	Exploring Our Matrix	25317	440
4	18271	Scotteriology	18104	167
5	17141	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	17049	92
6	14526	Gentle Wisdom	14391	135
7	11784	Better Bibles Blog	11746	38
8	9784	Near Emmaus	9592	192
9	8840	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	8753	87
10	6872	Political Jesus	6582	290
11	4770	Observatório Bíblico	4697	73
12	4574	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	4509	65
13	4450	The Aramaic Blog	4400	50
14	4020	Participatory Bible Study Blog	3983	37
15	3991	Reading Acts	3920	71
16	3850	A ‘Goula Blogger	3766	84
17	3239	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	3141	98
18	3135	Professor Obvious	3117	18
19	2688	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	2598	90
20	2525	Zwinglius Redivivus	853	1672
21	2505	The Biblioblog Top 50	2481	24
22	2308	Diglotting	2224	84
23	1776	Dust	1706	70
24	1440	Abnormal Interests	1317	123
25	1003	The Biblioblog Reference Librarian’s Desk	868	135
26	899	Polumeros kai Polutropos	889	10
27	345	Jesus Creed	0	345
28	296	The Poetry of Christ	257	39
29	234	Pseudoscienze bibliche e false reliquie di Antonio Lombatti	0	234
30	200	PaleoJudaica.com	0	200
31	141	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	141
32	126	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	126
33	121	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	0	121
34	116	Euangelion	0	116
35	103	Sects and Violence in the Ancient World	0	103
36	89	Remnant of Giants	0	89
36	89	BibleX	0	89
37	85	James’ Thoughts and Musings	0	85
38	74	Targuman	0	74
39	73	Quadrilateral Thoughts	0	73
40	65	BIBBIABLOG	0	65
41	54	NT Blog	0	54
42	52	Menachem Mendel	0	52
43	50	Daniel O. McClellan	0	50
44	49	Textuality	0	49
45	45	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	45
46	41	Awilum.com	0	41
47	39	Biblische Ausbildung	0	39
48	36	Sansblogue	0	36
49	33	5 Minute Bible	0	33
49	33	The Naked Bible	0	33
50	32	חלק טוב: Helek Tov	0	32

(Jim! Put your tracker back on and give John something to worry about! :-) )

Also, please get the word out to all of those who have blogs on the Top 50 List, but do not have the tracker installed!

Top 10 Articles:

This is a bit of an experiment (and you can see why — in terms of relevance — once you skim the list). These are the Top 10 articles for the past month based upon individual article page views.

On the Library Top 10 Articles page, these are (like the Top 50) also listed by category.

In the next version of the script, I’m going to try and have a relevance filter pull out posts that are over two months old (so we’re dealing with *recent* posts), as well as some which simply don’t belong in “Biblical Studies.”

Top 10 Authors:

Yet another interesting metric is to see which individual authors are the most read amongst the blogs.

Unfortunately, the Top 10 Authors script is buggy at the moment, so once I track down the problem and squash it, I’ll have it posted here.

Additions to the Complete List of Blogs — Soon!

There are about 30 blogs that I have yet to look over and categorize on top of the ~300 Related Blogs from the original lists. They’re all pending while I work on:

Next Version of the Library

I’m getting ready to release the next version of the Library’s interface that is portal-driven and you can check that out here.

The category system and draft of inclusion criteria are going to be replaced by a new self-categorizing questionnaire that will add all sorts of useful metadata to search by as well as allow for new portals like “Women’s Blogs,” “SBL Members,” “Bibliobloggers Who Are Interested in Paleo-Hebrew Who Live On The West Coast” etc. etc.

With the new account system, you’ll also be able to “claim” and manage your blog and author profiles as well as determine which portals you view on your homepage.

There will also be topic tracking, which will assemble a list of “What People Are Talking About” based upon what links they’re sharing in conjunction with what tags they use.

All of these tools will help users find blogs and articles that are interesting to them, that they would otherwise not know existed.

A Plea From The Librarian:

Three words: “Shared hosting stinks.”

The Biblioblog Reference Library is really starting to push the upper limits of the shared hosting plan it’s currently running on, which has revealed itself with some serious slowdowns here and there. I’m currently using every trick in the book I know to boost performance, but when you’re sharing a host with God-knows-how-many other people who are running scripts that hog system resources… Well there is no control.

What’s worse is that at this point in time, I cannot afford to upgrade to something better.

So here’s the thing: I’m looking for either (a) someone at a qualifying institution that would be interested in writing a grant proposal with me that would fund the expansion of the Library and/or (b) individuals who think that the Library is important enough to chip in some funds to get a dedicated server.

To help with this, I’ve drawn up a basic budget for “minimum” and “ideal” configurations for the Library, which can be found here.

I’d love to hear any suggestions as well.

“But There’s One More Thing…”

Two things, actually.

1) I want to get some discussion going about starting an actual, peer-reviewed Biblioblog journal. I know that there has been a lot of talk about this in the past, but nothing has really come of it. Now, given the demonstrated wealth of information that the Biblioblogosphere has shown, I think is the time to seriously consider what’s possible and how we can highlight, showcase and reward genuinely good work.

I’m already putting into place within the Library a means for individuals to submit articles for consideration by simply tagging them with a specific keyword. Once that keyword is in the post’s tags, the system will automatically grab the post and get it ready for a peer review process. What that entails and what interface will be necessary I am still working on. Which brings me to:

2) I want to assemble a battery of experts in the Biblioiblogging community grouped by expertise who are willing to volunteer time to review articles, answer questions, and talk with the press. In the past few months, I’ve been steadily compiling a group of press contacts for major news outlets and putting together a system to distribute press releases on emergent issues within Biblical Studies. My hope is to have a mechanism in place to mitigate the kind of mistaken coverage that happened during the Lead Codices debacle, and point the press towards reliable sources.

Once the new account system to the next version of the Library is finished, any interested individuals can apply to be part of the battery directly from their profiles, but in the meantime, I want everyone’s thoughts.

Peace,
-Steve

• On the main page of The Biblioblog Reference Library at the top there are now the Six Most Popular Items of the Day (which will look a lot prettier once I get around to it).
• On the Rankings Page along with the Top 50 Biblioblogs of the month, there are also the Top 10 Articles of the Day and Top 10 Articles of the Month.

If you haven’t installed the tracking code yet, I strongly suggest you do. :-)

Everyone who was on the original Biblioblogs list is now in the new database and can use the tracker, and once I slog through the Related Blogs I’ll be opening up similar lists and rankings for them as well.

Also, if you have any ideas, toss them in my direction.

Peace,
-Steve

1. Suzanne McCarthy, Suzanne’s Bookshelf
2. James McGrath, Exploring Our Matrix
3. Joel Watts, Unsettled Christianity
4. April DeConick, The Forbidden Gospels
5. Jane Stranz, Of life, laughter and liturgy
6.  J. R. Daniel Kirk, Storied Theology
7. Christian Brady, Targuman
8. Tim Gombis, Faith Improvised
9. Jim West, Zwinglius Redivivus
10. Rachel Held Evans

The tracker.

The archived QR code.

The new Biblioblog ranking tracker is up and available to try out here:

http://bibliobloglibrary.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/biblioblog-tracker-archive-qr-code/

If your blog hasn’t been re-added to the recategorized list yet and you want to try out the tracker, drop me an email and I’ll make sure you get on it quicker.

Peace,
-Steve

Today I have been made aware of a number of concerns pertaining to the Biblioblog Reference Library. Most of them I feel are either simple misunderstandings or things that are changing in the next week when the Library goes into “Beta 2″; however, please allow me to take a moment to address each of the major concerns in turn.

Overview

I started the Biblioblog Reference Library in April of this year as a good faith effort to try and pull together people who publicly share their thoughts and research in Biblical Studies and allow readers to discover new or common interests and take part in the greater Biblioblogging community. It was originally built upon a WordPress install using a combination of plugins (both public and custom), and received a large amount of praise from all over the Biblioblogosphere (and off it) due to the ability to read through Biblical Studies blogs all in one place. This was a project meant to make things easier for people, and link conversations together to tackle emerging issues and encourage dialog, and that has been the entire thrust of the project from its conception to the present.

Legality

That the Library is “hijacking content” or “violating copyright” is a simple misunderstanding.

Under the law, feeds and other public webpages are subject to an Implied License under Fair Use Doctrine that allows for their archival and indexing in good faith. This is how nearly every search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) and archival system (such as Archive.org) can operate freely without having to obtain permissions for each and every file they scan and index. Problems with illegality tend to crop up when issues such as plagiarism (not citing sources), trademark/dress infringement (impersonating another website or company), or unscrupulous commercial interests (such as “site scraping”; tailoring scraped content to influence Google rankings) come into play, all of which I’m trying to staunchly avoid.

One element of keeping the Implied License in Good Faith is to have some means for owners of content to opt out and have their contributions either hidden or removed entirely. This means was explicitly stated on the “Contact the Librarian” page, and since April, I have received a grand total of 3 requests (including Jim’s) to have blogs removed from the system. This is in contrast to nearly 20 requests for additions that are still pending in queue during the transition.

Let me be unambiguously clear: If I thought that this endeavor was a flagrant violation of copyrights or was illegal, I would have never undertaken it in the first place.

The Library “Takes Away Hits”

This is also another partial misunderstanding, partial change that is soon to take place. The net effect on hits for nearly 90% of all blogs listed has been small, but positive. To explain:

Content from blogs on the Library is displayed in three places:

• a) On the main page view (which is identical to the search results view),
• b) In individual page mode with an iframe navigation bar at the bottom that allows readers to move from page to page (thereby enabling one to read the entire feed, or their query, as one large blog) and
• c) The feed (which will mirrors (a) above).

It is correct that any data listed on the Main Page and in the Search Results view will not directly generate a “hit” to its parent site unless a reader clicks through. In Beta 2 the main page view only displays snippets, not full articles and will hi-light search terms in context. The reason this was not the case in the first Beta is that WordPress’ summary function was clunky and tended to slow things down. This is no longer a problem with the new software, which I have complete control over.

There will also be a means for authors to change the size of the snippets to suit their preferences, where the default length (for both posts *and* comments) will be roughly 200 words.

On the individual page view, no content that is displayed (other than the navigation bar) is from the Reference Library servers. The content is loaded directly from the author’s site to the user’s browser via an iframe, which not only generates a “hit”, but also registers with Alexa, Google, and other search services as an incoming link, thereby *boosting* page rankings.

As of late, roughly 75% of all traffic is in Individual Page mode (with the monthly exception of what seems to be a single individual reading through the entire month’s feeds in search view, right before the monthly Carnival is published ;-) ).

In short: No stolen traffic there, and there’s an incoming link benefit.

If you have a system like Google Analytics, you can even track the traffic coming in from the Library, as it is listed as the referring address.

Where Things Go From Here

Now, in Beta 2 the navigation bar has been completely redone so that there is a more obvious means to remove it and go directly to the page in question, as well as direct access to the archived copies stored on the Reference Library server (think: exactly like Archive.org).

The archives and all query pages except the main page are all marked no-index, so the archived copies or snippets displayed on Library search results will not show up on search engines.

In the next week’s time, the old Beta is going to be depreciated and completely taken down and the Library is moving to a new web address with the brand new software. Where I was hoping to unveil it in its completion, I suppose that now might be the time to get everyone’s input and see if any criticisms are inadequately addressed.

The new site is:

Even though this is not “officially” released and is very much incomplete, please (no, seriously *please*) tell me what you think and what can be done to make this something everyone can enjoy.

Biblioblogging is a group effort and I don’t want that to change anytime soon, which is why I formally request anyone who is contemplating removing their blog (or Jim, who already has) to reconsider.

Sincerely,
-Steve Caruso, MLIS
   a.k.a. “The Reference Librarian”