Law Library Blog Survey: Audience

Continuing with the preliminary results from my survey of law library blogs, today findings concern audience. To whom are we targeting our blogs?

This was a significant area of concern for us when creating the UW Law library blog, WisBlawg. Should we target the blog to our own law students, faculty and staff, or should we aim for a wider audience of legal professionals?

Ultimately, we decided to write the blog for an audience of legal professionals state wide. Our reasons were two-fold: First, we were concerned that if we limited the focus internally, we wouldn't reach a large enough audience to make it worth our efforts. Second, the UW has a grand tradition called the "Wisconsin Idea" which values service to the state and its residents.

Interestingly, we found that our audience is wider than anticipated. We've heard from readers nationally and even internationally, as our visitor map shows.

Through this batch of questions concerning audience, I endeavored to learn about the experiences of other law library bloggers.

Blog Availability:

Limited to a specific group of users	19.57%
Publicly available	80.43%

Primary Intended Audience:

Your library staff	4.35%
Your parent organization (firm, school, court, etc.)	34.78%
Your law library association	0.00%
Legal practitioners in your geographic area	8.70%
Legal practitioners from anywhere	10.87%
General Public	10.87%
Other	30.43%

Do groups other than your primary intended audience read your blog also?:

Yes	54.35%
No	15.22%
I don't know	30.43%