As time goes by and the newspaper business continues to suffer, we see the shrinking and (in some cases) the elimination of book review sections.
In their place, you find a proliferation of blogs. Some of the papers are starting these blogs; many of the bloggers are independent readers or librarians.
This trend was discussed recently on the blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters. Blogging is increasingly becoming a way to send information out to people--whether we're talking about news, book reviews or individuals and businesses marketing their goods or services. But does it serve as an adequate substitute for the book reviewers? Certainly, it creates more content on the subject--but is more better?
As one who blogs about books and reviews them, I'm the last person to say it's the wrong thing to do. But I will pose some questions--how well are bloggers covering the book beat compared with newspaper staff reviewers? Do bloggers provide the same quality writing and depth of insight into books as staff reviewers? Are they better or worse? What's good (or bad) about seeing bloggers take over the role that professional book reviewers have traditionally filled?
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