Blogging for the record: A study of blogging from an archival point of view

Journal of Archival Organization

Volumn 4, Issue 3-4, 2007, Pages 31-41

  Paulus Jr , Michael J ^a  

^a WHITMAN COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Archives; Blogging; Blogs; Electronic records; Princeton Theological Seminary students

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548301231     PISSN: 15332748     EISSN: 15332756     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J201v04n03_03     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. Gordon Graham, The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry (London; New York: Routledge, 1999), 24.
2. Estimates of the number of blogs have ranged from 10 to more than 30 million. Carl Bialik, "Measuring the Impact of Blogs Requires More Than Counting," WSJ.com, May 26, 2005, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/
3. Catherine O'Sullivan, "Diaries, On-Line Diaries, and the Future Loss to Archives; or, Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them," American Archivist 68 (Spring/Summer 2005): 53-73.
4. See "Blog," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_log; "About Weblogs at Harvard," The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/about.
5. Frank Boles, Selecting & Appraising Archives and Manuscripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2005): 122.
6. Mary Ellen Bates, "Blogs: My New Addiction," Online 27:5 (2003): 64.
7. Personal information about bloggers was taken from their blogs.
8. These responses, along with a few unsolicited comments, may be viewed at http://cloudofwitnesses.blogspot.com/.
9. E-mail from Tony Jones to Michael Paulus, July 26, 2005.
10. See comments for "Question 3," http://cloudofwitnesses.blogspot.com/.
11. E-mail from Katie Lewis to Michael Paulus, July 25, 2005.
12. Ivan Tribble [pseud.], "Bloggers Need Not Apply," Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 2005, http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/07/ 2005070801c.htm.
13. E-mail from Katie Lewis to Michael Paulus, July 25, 2005.
14. See comments for "Question 6" and "Question 7," http://cloudofwitnesses.blogspot.com/.
15. See comments for "Question 8" and "Question 9," ibid.
16. See comments for "Question 11," ibid.
17. See comments for "Question 12," ibid.
18. E-mail from Tony Jones to Michael Paulus, July 26, 2005.
19. For those familiar with the history of the book, this should not come as much of a surprise. As Umberto Eco reminds us, "in the history of culture it has never happened that something has simply killed something else. Something has profoundly changed something else." "Afterword," in The Future of the Book, ed. Geoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996): 304.
20. The seventeen bloggers who were actively blogging when they participated in this survey were still blogging when this paper was being prepared for publication, nearly a year after the period covered by this study. And the two blogs that had been abandoned but not deleted at the beginning of this study were still accessible online.
21. Tara Siegel Bernard, "Colleges Turn to Student Blogs," The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2005: D3.
22. In January 2006, the University of Michigan launched a blogging service, mBlog (http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/), which includes a plan to archive selected blogs.
23. See the University of Michigan press release, "Diaries of the 21st Century: U-M Offers Free Blogs for Students, Employees," http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2006/Feb06/r020906a.
24. See Abby Smith, "Preservation," in A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth (Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004): 576-597.
25. For information on the National Archives and Records Administration's initiative to preserve electronic records, see "National Archives Electronic Records Archives Option Award Announcement," September 8, 2005, http://www.archives.gov/era/acquisition/option-award.html.
26. The Internet Archives and OCLC have launched new subscription services that allow clients to create, manage, and search their own digital archives. Information on the Internet Archives's service, Archive-It, may be found at http://www.archive-it.org/.
27. Information on OCLC's service, Digital Archive, may be found at http://www.oclc.org/digitalarchive/.
28. For example, Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com/)
29. and Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/).
30. See, for example, the Bentley Historical Library's policies for mBlog at http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/bhl/uarphome/mblog/archivepolicy.htm.
31. See Ivan Tribble [pseud.], "Bloggers Need Not Apply";
32. idem, "They Shoot the Messengers, Don't They?" Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2, 2005, http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/09/2005090201c.htm;
33. Henry Farrell, "The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas," Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7, 2005, B14, http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i07/07b0140 htm
34. Rebecca A. Goetz, "Do Not Fear the Blog," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 2005, http://chronicle.com/jobs/2005/11/2005111401c.htm.