Earlier this week, the Law Library of Congress released an archive of legal blawgs dating back to 2007. The collection includes more than 100 blogs categorized by topic covering a broad cross section of legal topics. According to Infotoday Blog, the library plans to increase that number to 200 by the end of 2009.
This is an important development. While blogs contain a wealth of information, their transient nature has been troubling to researchers and scholars. In harvesting content from these blogs, the Law Library of Congress has begun to address this concern by preserving the content for future researchers.
According to Infotoday, blogs were selection based on variety, authority (frequenty cited, widely read, awards won, and scholarly nature) and user nomination. Blogs are monitored regularly to ensure that they continue to fit the selection criteria.
Future enhancements include improved searching and browsing of catalog and bibliographic records and better integration with other collections.
Thanks to the Hon. Daniel Anderson for alerting me about the Legal Blawgs archive.