After nearly 8 years, 5,000 posts and 500,000 page views, this is the last post at Kept-Up Academic Librarian. It has been a good run but the need for this blog is diminished and even though the time it takes to compose it each day is not great, it is time I could use for other activities. Now with so many others sharing higher education news on social networks, along with other sources such as University Business' daily update, Academic Impressions and daily news items in the Chronicle and IHE, it's clear there is less need - and that is supported by the stagnant usage data.
I'll leave the site up for a few more months, but if your library has a link to KUAL, you will probably want to remove it.
I appreciate all the visits to this blog, and I hope it has been useful over the years. I always tried to find stories that were not reported elsewhere or could be of more interest to academic librarians. I hope you'll continue to follow me at Designing Better Libraries or you can follow me on Twitter - blendedlib (I'm also now on Branch - where I hope to continue some writing on current events in higher education).
Thanks again - and I hope you'll continue to stay" Kept-Up" with the world of higher education. If you have a recommendation for another source or individual to follow for keeping up with higher education, please feel free to add it as a comment.
Best,
Steven
Many thanks, Steven! I have come across many useful articles here over the past few years, and I appreciate your faithful work on it. You have a keen sense of what professionals in our field need to know. Sorry you are going to discontinue it, but I understand. Best wishes on your other projects!!
Posted by: Nan G. | September 04, 2012 at 11:48 AM
I recall reading one of your articles (was it in LLRX?) about RSS, and after getting started using an aggregator, your KUAL was one of the first feeds that I subscribed.
Thanks for your ongoing efforts to the blogosphere.
Pete Weiss,
Penn State
Posted by: Pete Weiss | September 02, 2012 at 03:55 AM
I agree with Carol Perryman's comment. Although retired from public reference librarianship for over a year now, I've continued to read your blog as one of my all-time favorites and have learned much from you over the years. Thank you for helping me to keep up. Warmest wishes on your next endeavors!
RCN, San Francisco Bay Area
Posted by: rcn | September 01, 2012 at 12:31 AM
Steven, I'm truly sorry to read this. I've been following your via RSS for several years - and of the many I cruise through, simply looking at titles to see if any merit closer reading, yours is usually one I follow through to read. I wonder if your usage data counts RSS feeds. In any case, thank you very much for years of informed and well written musings and news. You helped me (and through me, students I teach) stay aware.
Posted by: Carol Perryman | August 31, 2012 at 05:28 PM
Thank you for your time and efforts.
Posted by: Rita Mitchell | August 31, 2012 at 02:01 PM