I Am Now Number One on Feedspot's List of Top 50 Library Blogs!

Here, from the annals of my blog correspondence, is the last of an exchange i had with something called "Feedspot". It started when i sort of, but not really, submitted my blog to it and was notified that clerkmanifesto had been selected as one of the top 50 Library Blogs on the web.

Though this reply to Anuj, the President of Feedspot, is out of context, I feel it should be able to make itself clear. Nevertheless to briefly set the stage Anuj sent me a high five to congratulate me on making the top 50 list at number 36 and that maybe I might like to mention Feedspot in an upcoming blog post or on social media. I suggested perhaps there was some error seeing as clerkmanifesto was mysteriously not Number One on the list, which seemed only natural what with my quality and everything, and I high fived him back. Then he wrote back and talked about his researchers and editorial team and what they based their ranking on, providing a list, and he said if I apply myself in these areas I could move up. Then he suggested I might like to mention Feedspot in a future blog post.

While I might not ordinarily include this sort of apocrypha outside of my "Anything goes" Pandemic Rules phase that I am currently operating under here at clerkmanifesto, I do feel like it is a fair representation of this blog's professional correspondence and could be of use to future historians.



Dear Anuj:


Thank you so much for your response.

Sometimes I get semi-automated (but also slightly personal) kinds of emails like the first one you sent me, and I impulsively write a very cheeky response.

Then the original sender, you, in this case, doesn't really register the cheekiness, and responds pretty thoroughly to the parts of my letter that can be taken seriously.

So then I write an even cheekier letter, but one that's still a little bit serious, and then I never hear from you again.

This is that letter!

Anyway, thank you again for your response. I kind of enjoyed it. I liked the list you included in particular because I like specific lists like that. I don't believe your editorial team "extensively" searched Google and Social Media, but I am willing to go along with your fiction in the spirit of mutual support. I would like for us to be friends united in common purpose. You would get to be an Internet Mogul and I would get to have a lot of visitors to my blog and... well, and nothing else. 

What else do I really need?

And so I would like to respond to each of your points about blog ranking, not so much to convince you to trust your gut feeling and move me up to Number One on the list (I am horrible at convincing people of things like that, and, let's face it, your gut says nothing of the kind), but just because it seems like a fun exercise. I think we could both learn from it and strengthen our friendship.

So here is my response to each of your five determinites for where a library blog should place in the top 50:

1. Blog post quality.

If it were strictly based on this category I would be number one by so much you would have to get rid of numbers 2-50 altogether!

My delirious confidence may or may not be among my best qualities.

2. Post Consistency

Here again I ridiculously outclass the opposition. I have posted EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR MORE THAN SIX YEARS. Unlike point one, this is purely a number's game and not based on my megalomania.

3. Age of the blog

It's old. Old as the hills. Not counting an earlier false start it is more than six years old (as noted in point two). I don't know if this is good or bad, so I'm going to go with it being good.

4. Average number of shares on social sites for your blog posts.

So, here's the thing: I am very unpopular. I'll admit it. I am practically never shared on social sites unless I do it myself, at which point I am asked not to anymore. Curse my honest and confessional nature! I fear this is what drops me so far down your list that I could never recover.

And then I remembered something:

I am the number 36 Library Blog on Feedspot's top 50 Library Blogs!

Hello!!!!

Let that one sink in for awhile. Pretty awesome, no?

5. Traffic of your blog and more..

While I cumulatively have something like three quarters of a million blog views over the six plus years, we both know a lot of those numbers are bullshit. Still, people do come by and look every once in awhile, and I have a small, absolutely wonderful coterie of regular readers as well. So while this particular point is not one to move me up the list, what I am hoping is that my new friendship with you, Anuj, and my placing in the number one spot on the acclaimed list of Feedspot library blogs, will be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, making you a kind of a God. A God of the Internet. 

And me one too.

I'm just saying this could be great for both of us!

As a side note to you, my new friend Anuj, while "Library Blogging" is the meat and potatoes of Clerkmanifesto, Clerkmanifesto is also regularly, in its vast range, the following kind of blog:

Travel blog

Politics blog

Cooking blog

Cat blog

Humor blog

Internet blog

Blogging blog

Nature blog

Art blog

Bob Dylan blog

Gelato blog

Messi blog

And, well, it kind of goes on for awhile. I mean, I have a lot of interests and have written over 2,600 blog posts. This is alot!

But we'll just leave all that for another time. You can add me to other lists some other time.

As to your request that I mention Feedspot and its top 50 Library Blogs in an upcoming post:

Absolutely! We are friends. Of course I will. 

Friends help each other. I am going to talk up feedspot like nobody's business!

Here's my plan:

I will write a post entitled:

"I Am Now Number One on Feedspot's List of Top 50 Library Blogs!"

And then, as long as you don't object, I will include our correspondence. I think it tells our story best.

And don't worry, I'll let everyone know that I am not yet Number One really, and am really Number 36.

And that's about all I have to say to you Anuj, my friend, about business.

How are you holding up? Are you still in lock down there? We have a Stay at Home order here but it's pretty soft. And I still work at the library though we're not really open to the public. We do curbside pickup. You could read about it in my blog, but I don't think you'd like it. Though, who knows?

Good luck with Feedspot. Stay well!

Your good friend,

Feldenstein