Curtin Colloquy

You are reading this on a blog. For someone new to blogs¹ this is not necessarily obvious. A blog is a type of website. What makes blogs different from other websites?

Firstly, where the content of a 'regular' website is in the form of a series of web pages linked to each other, the content of a blog is in the form of 'periodic articles (posts)' that can be added very frequently; even several times a day. The posts are usually organised in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post first.

Secondly, "A blog is a website powered by software that simplifies publishing,organizing, and syndicating Web content." (from the Free Range Librarian's blog.) So while a regular website requires some knowledge of HTML to update (or create), it is not necessary to have such knowledge to create or maintain a blog. The blogging software does a lot of the work for you (instead, what is important is the content)².

I think these are the major differences between blogs and other websites. Another really interesting feature that blogs have is the facility for readers to write comments in response to posts. I haven't listed commenting as a distinguishing feature of blogs in general, because not every blog allows its readers to comment. Sometimes, blogs are written solely for the purpose of keeping their readers informed, and not for inviting discussion. The format and ease of updating a blog means that organisations may choose to use blogs to provide information to their staff, for example. In these cases, commenting may not be available as a feature.

There are many really interesting freely available blogs that have the commenting feature disabled; sadly,there are a lot of trolls (people who deliberately set out to post offensive or inflammatory messages, just to annoy others) and spammers out there - yes, spam also affects blogs. (This blog allows comments. To comment, scroll to the bottom of this article (post), and click on the comments link. You will be taken to a page where you can write what you think of this post. Or even just,"Hi CW, I read this!")

There are many, many, many blogs out there. I'm not sure that anyone can say definitively how many blogs there are, but one estimate says there are at least 20 million blogs out there. Perhaps part of the reason for the huge numbers is the fact that blogs are really easy to create. There are many sites that will host your blog - allow you to create a blog and continue to maintain it - for free. This blog, for example, lives on Blogger (also known as Blogspot), a free blog host that is owned by Google. This extensive list of sites that host blogs at Weblogs Compendium ("everything you need to know about weblogs/blogs") gives a good indication of the huge number.

Blogs can be written by individuals or groups of individuals. You'll note that Kit was my partner in crime on this blog - Curtin people who would like to try blogging are welcome to let me know! Join me!

I haven't said much about the content of blogs. I think they can be about almost anything - any topic the blogger wants to write about, basically. I have seen blogs about

• news/politics/current affairs - this is a huge 'genre'. Some of these blogs are quite widely read, particularly in the US.
  
• technology and the Internet (not surprising!)
• particular professions and occupations- librarians, teachers, artists, lawyers...
  
• hobbies and interests
  
• commercial - to promote a product or a company
  
• personal issues, rather like a journal

William Safire, the NewYork Times columnist, said, of blogs:

"Blog is a shortening of Web log. It is a Web site belonging to some average but opinionated Joe or Josie who keeps what used to be called a ''commonplace book'' -- a collection ofclippings, musings and other things like journal entries that strike one's fancy or titillate one's curiosity. What makes this online daybook different from the commonplace book is that this form of personal noodling or diary-writing is on the Internet, with links that take the reader around theworld in pursuit of more about a topic.

"To set one up (which I have not done because I don't want anyone to know what I think), you log on to a free service like blogger.com or xanga.com, fill out a form and let it create a Web site for you. Then you follow the instructions about how to post your thoughts, photos and clippings, making you an instant publisher. You then persuade or coerce your friends, family or colleagues to log on to you and write in their own loving or snide comments." (28 July 2002)

In many ways this definition is true, because there are many personal blogs that are written by individuals about their daily lives. However I think that's a very narrow, even elitist, view of blogs, because there are so many different types of blogs out there, and it doesn't take into account the contributions blogs are making to the public discourse. (For example, in times of disaster, bloggers are often the first to report and provide information. And discussions on blogs about issues affecting a country can help engage people.) The implication here is that personal musings by some average but opinionated Joe or Josie, being just average are not worth reading.

I think blogs are the next wave of 'desktop publishing', allowing all of us just average folks to express ourselves, share information, and maybe even make connections with each other. (One great example of this 'making connections' is the Operation Eden blog, written by someone whose family was affected by the recent Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. His sharing of his fears and hopes for his family is inspiring and really gives a human face to the suffering for those of us who are far away from the area affected.)

For us as librarians, we can write about our libraries and the issues we face, and share commonalities, differences, solutions, ideas... Sure, we will not all have the skill or the art of a great writer like William Safire or [insert name of any well-regarded writer here], and sure, there are lots of blogs that will not be particularly well-written or interesting to many, but does that matter?

¹This post was written to help inform some of my friends and colleagues. It is the first, I hope, of a series of posts, looking at technology and how it may affect libraries.
²There is more to be said about the capabilities of blogging software - archiving, permanent links, and I didn't mention RSS!! - but I'll leave it for another post.

technorati tags: blogs, weblogs, blogging