Once the ungainly stepchild of the Internet's wide-open access philosophy, bloggers now are as much a part of the establishment as George Will, but without his researchers.

Last year, something called BlogPulse claimed there were 126 million blogs online. In some quarters, they're so in, they're on the verge of becoming passe.

In the American book business, their presence seemed to reach a critical mass this year at BookExpo America, the trade show held in New York in May.

In the press room, where, in the past, my fellow ink-stained wretches would fill the place and commiserate over the latest departure from the ranks, were dozens of new faces hogging the Internet connections.

They were the bloggers, busily feeding the online maw with updated bits and pieces about the BEA, writing about the shortest Starbucks line at the convention center or how much they missed their cat while in New York.

Roger Billheimer, in charge of BEA press operations, said he believed there were "about 300 to 400 bloggers out of a total press attendance of about 2,000," although the numbers were not broken down. "That's not a majority but it is certainly significant," he added.

Following the BEA, about 100 attended a bloggers' gathering in New York, reported Carolyn Kellogg, a blogger for the Los Angeles Times book pages in a story last month. Ms. Kellogg argued in the thinly sourced piece that mainstream publishers are paying lots of attention to book bloggers these days. (Only one publisher was quoted.)

I spoke to four publishers who confirmed the LA Times report. Liz Calamari of The Penguin Press said there were 527 bloggers on her mailing list; Kathy Daneman of Farrar, Straus and Giroux said she works regularly with bloggers on book promotion; Nicholas Latimer of Knopf reports that he has been providing 40 to 50 with review copies of new books while Sharyn Rosenblum at Morrow is happy to include them in promotion plans. All had reservations, though, and said they confined their attentions to those with busy Internet pages.

Bloggers, however, are creatures which defy categorization. Some are an arm of established media organizations while others represent libraries or only themselves. Some are carefully edited while most have no gatekeepers. Agendas are all over the map.

In the Wild West of the Internet, bloggers ride the range unchecked in search of "hits" that define success.

They're filling a vacuum vacated by traditional print media, but with what? Another kind of vacuum?

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