jan07ff.indd


G a r y  P a t t i l l o  

Citizen journalism 
While the concept of citizen journalism is not new, your library can become 
a hub for the activity. Your library community can play an active role in the 
process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and infor­
mation to the world. Ideas include promoting the use of blogs and other social 
software on your library Web site, developing programming to expose your 
local community to the world of participatory journalism, hosting a blog that 
can aggregate different citizen journalist voices from within your local area, and 
helping to build an online community with roots in your library. 
Kenton Good, “The rise of the citizen journalist,” Feliciter 2006, Vol. 52 Issue 2, 69–71 

Academic libraries 
Of the 3,700 academic libraries in the United States, 218 held more than 
1 million volumes each in 2004, the latest year for which aggregate fi gures are 
available. The total holdings of all academic libraries tops 983 million. During 
FY2004, there were more than 155 million circulation transactions and 73 million 
reference transactions. About one half of all library expenditures were spent 
on salaries and wages. 
B. Holton, K. Vaden, and P. O’Shea P (2006). Academic Libraries: 2004. (NCES 2007-301). U.S. Department of Education, 
Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics. nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007301.pdf, Dec 10, 2006. 

Most popular blogs 
According to Technorati, a Web site that claims to track 62.5 million blogs, the 
top five most linked­to blogs are MySinablog (Chinese­language popular cul­
ture), Engadget (gadget news), Boing Boing (geeky culture), Gizmodo (gadget 
guide), and Xu Jinglei (another Chinese­language popular culture blog). Close 
behind is The Huffington Post. Technorati offers a list of the Top 100 blogs as 
measured by unique links in the last six months. 

lib.unc.edu 

C&RL News January 2007  64 

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@refstaff. 

Technorati, Inc., “Popular blogs,” technorati.com/pop/blogs/, Dec 12, 2006. 

MySpace 
For the first time, more than half the visitors to Myspace, a social networking 
Web site, are now over 35 years old. Last year only about 39 percent were older 
than 35. In November 2006, MySpace recorded 38.7 billion page views, surpass­
ing Yahoo (at 38.1 billion) for the first time. Yahoo continues to have the largest 
audience with 130 million unique visitors in November 2006. 
comScore Networks, Inc., “More than half of MySpace visitors are now age 35 or older, as the site’s demographic composi-
tion continues to shift,” www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1019, Oct. 5, 2006, and Anick Jesdanun, “ComScore: 
Myspace tops in November page views, beating Yahoo for fi rst time,” Associated Press, December 13, 2006. 

Swivel 
Swivel.com describes itself as “Youtube for data.” The site allows users to upload 
data and display it to other users visually. Users can then compare their data to 
other data sets on the site, combining and suggesting possible correlations. 
Swivel.com. December 10, 2006 

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