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Editor's Notes

• #2: Our study of fashion bloggers operates within librarianship's tradition of studying the information seeking behavior of individual user groups and populations in order to provide specialized and relevant research services.We surveyed fashion bloggers to better understand their information seeking behavior and found:an importance on appearing authenticambivalence toward librariansaffinity with millennials, and widespread information sharing but inconsistent citing.
• #3: Following an accepted methodology for studying information seeking behaviour, we crafted a 20 question survey to query fashion bloggers on how they find and use information to create new blog posts. We also developed an eight question questionnaire to follow up with those bloggers who agreed to be contacted for further input.
• #4: We distributed our survey via various social media outlets (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.), tweaking the survey along the way in order to appeal to the more informal environment of fashion blogging. Style Diaries: World of Fashion From Berlin to Tokyo by Simone Werle became our fashion blogger directory. We emailed every blogger listed and asked them to take the survey. This direct mailing method resulted in an influx of responses. After two months and 31 responses, we decided to close the survey and move forward with analyzing the results. Given the small sample size we understand that the conclusions drawn may not be representative of all fashion bloggers.
• #5: In addition to investigating fashion bloggers¡¯ research methods via a survey, we also conducted a review of existing literature.We honed in on literature from library and fashion publications that specifically discuss how fashion bloggers find and use information. We purposely avoided literature on bloggers in general and the broader fashion industry. We conducted the literature review after receiving responses so we could contextualize the results within a larger framework.Much of the literature about fashion blogging, both scholarly and popular, has focused on consumption. Very little scholarship focuses on the creation of fashion blogs from the bloggers¡¯ point of view--what goes into making a post or an entire blog.Even less exists on fashion blogs in library literature. What does exist focuses on how blogs serve as information sources for library patrons not on the blog creators themselves.
• #6: Several exciting opportunities have come about as a result of our involvement in the myMETRO Researchers Pilot Project. Last October, we presented our research at LIM College's Fashion: Now & Then Symposium. We will also be presenting as part of panel discussion at ARLIS/NA in Pasadena in April.We, along with other myMETRO Researchers groups, are contributing a chapter to the Global Librarianship Project publication which a collaboration between ACRL/NY and METRO.