Why I Blog
At our recent Libraries Promotion & Tenure workshop, we discussed new forms of scholarly communication, including blogging. It was an interesting discussion on blogging, youtube and more in academia, blogs as publications, and the perceived positives and negatives of blogging your research.
During the session, one person asked the very pertinent question, "Why would you waste your time blogging when you could put that energy into writing articles?" Or something to that effect. Point taken, milady.
That comment in particular made me think about why I blog, what the benefits are, and why I recommend other academic librarians consider blogging more often.
And here, friends, on the almost 11 month anniversary of my blog (now why couldn't I have saved this post until my blog's one year birthday!) are my reasons:
My blog is a notetaking mechanism and idea farm for my research
This is the primary use of my blog-- a place for my notes and ideas. How many times have you read a thought-provoking aritcle (especially one relevant to your research) but neglected to write those ideas down?
Because I can remember essentially, nothing, I use my blog for this purpose. I'm also careful to tag all of my entries intuitively, so that when I begin work on my portion of our Facebook article, for example, I can easily pull up every entry I've made relevant to that topic. Using this in tandem with del.icio.us is invaluable as far as organizing my research ideas, notes and sources.
--My blog is an outlet for publicizing new projects, publications and presentations
We are all very humble and want to only be recognized when others seek us out. But really, it is time for that type of thinking to end. I am always eternally grateful when I come upon someone who has nicely (and recently) organized and made available their newest efforts.
Personally, I believe that a blog can work in tandem with your online portfolio to achieve this. Post the new publication in your portfolio, link to it (and talk a little bit about it) in your blog. And don't forget to publicize your new blog content in Facebook or elsewhere. I'm always grateful to hear about new content and ideas. Don't underestimate your colleagues' interest in learning more about what you've been working on.
--My blog can function as a space for community discussion
In a large academic library, blogs can provide opportune spaces for discussion and idea sharing on specific topics. It's always great to see new posts in local Libraries blogs--consider it a way of virtually catching up on what your colleagues (so close yet so far away) are doing.
I've also learned that my blog can also function as a space for a larger discussion than I possibly anticipated. Did I ever think that vendors would post or email responses to specific blog entries that mention their products? I'm naive, I guess. The positive side of this is that I've been able to establish a collaborative relationship with one vendor in particular to consult on product improvements. This never would have happened without a blog.
--My blog encourages me to write on a regular basis
Not as regularly as I'd like, perhaps, but it's a start. This is also why I use a blog over Twitter. Is there even such a thing as editing and rewriting a Twitter post?
--My blog helps me pull together multiple, disparate views on a specific issue, for later use
Here are a few examples of posts where I've done this. These are always the toughest posts to write, but are the ones I return to most frequently when I'm working on a related presentation/publication, or are even trying to help someone else find multiple sources at once. I've emailed many of my blog posts (the recent Zotero/Endnote/Refworks post is an example) to others looking for a collection of information in a specific area. It's a nice archive to easily pull from for later use.
--My blog is a forum for reflections on teaching, research and service
I took some of my reflective posts on teaching out of this blog and into my new portfolio. Doing this, I re-read some of my posts, and was grateful that I had a view into what I was thinking even six or eight otherwise inaccessible months ago. I've never been a diary keeper, and this is the closest and most useful approximation I've had to this type of content.
And there you have it--my blogging manifesto, if you will.
During the session, one person asked the very pertinent question, "Why would you waste your time blogging when you could put that energy into writing articles?" Or something to that effect. Point taken, milady.
That comment in particular made me think about why I blog, what the benefits are, and why I recommend other academic librarians consider blogging more often.
And here, friends, on the almost 11 month anniversary of my blog (now why couldn't I have saved this post until my blog's one year birthday!) are my reasons:
My blog is a notetaking mechanism and idea farm for my research
This is the primary use of my blog-- a place for my notes and ideas. How many times have you read a thought-provoking aritcle (especially one relevant to your research) but neglected to write those ideas down?
Because I can remember essentially, nothing, I use my blog for this purpose. I'm also careful to tag all of my entries intuitively, so that when I begin work on my portion of our Facebook article, for example, I can easily pull up every entry I've made relevant to that topic. Using this in tandem with del.icio.us is invaluable as far as organizing my research ideas, notes and sources.
--My blog is an outlet for publicizing new projects, publications and presentations
We are all very humble and want to only be recognized when others seek us out. But really, it is time for that type of thinking to end. I am always eternally grateful when I come upon someone who has nicely (and recently) organized and made available their newest efforts.
Personally, I believe that a blog can work in tandem with your online portfolio to achieve this. Post the new publication in your portfolio, link to it (and talk a little bit about it) in your blog. And don't forget to publicize your new blog content in Facebook or elsewhere. I'm always grateful to hear about new content and ideas. Don't underestimate your colleagues' interest in learning more about what you've been working on.
--My blog can function as a space for community discussion
In a large academic library, blogs can provide opportune spaces for discussion and idea sharing on specific topics. It's always great to see new posts in local Libraries blogs--consider it a way of virtually catching up on what your colleagues (so close yet so far away) are doing.
I've also learned that my blog can also function as a space for a larger discussion than I possibly anticipated. Did I ever think that vendors would post or email responses to specific blog entries that mention their products? I'm naive, I guess. The positive side of this is that I've been able to establish a collaborative relationship with one vendor in particular to consult on product improvements. This never would have happened without a blog.
--My blog encourages me to write on a regular basis
Not as regularly as I'd like, perhaps, but it's a start. This is also why I use a blog over Twitter. Is there even such a thing as editing and rewriting a Twitter post?
--My blog helps me pull together multiple, disparate views on a specific issue, for later use
Here are a few examples of posts where I've done this. These are always the toughest posts to write, but are the ones I return to most frequently when I'm working on a related presentation/publication, or are even trying to help someone else find multiple sources at once. I've emailed many of my blog posts (the recent Zotero/Endnote/Refworks post is an example) to others looking for a collection of information in a specific area. It's a nice archive to easily pull from for later use.
--My blog is a forum for reflections on teaching, research and service
I took some of my reflective posts on teaching out of this blog and into my new portfolio. Doing this, I re-read some of my posts, and was grateful that I had a view into what I was thinking even six or eight otherwise inaccessible months ago. I've never been a diary keeper, and this is the closest and most useful approximation I've had to this type of content.
And there you have it--my blogging manifesto, if you will.
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Nicely done. I get asked the same question quite a bit. My answers are similar ... I was thinking of asking my students this question tomorrow -- they have really taken to blogging for all sorts of reasons. If they do answer it, I'll post a wrap up on it all. Again, great post.
Thanks, Cole! I'll look forward to hearing what your students think about this. I've enjoyed seeing their thoughts in the Symposium Twitter stream, too.
Hey Ellysa,
I thought I'd comment because I think so highly of myself. :) Like I said at the P&T Workshop, I don't keep a professional blog, but I do keep a personal one that I started just this year. I basically just write my thoughts on books I've read. I do this, not just for memory's sake, but because I think the more I get in the habit of writing, the easier it is for me and (hopefully) the better I'll get at it. So far, so good for me, but obviously YMMV.
Great post Ellysa! I've come to notice that most people who blog for any length of time seem to come to question why they choose to spend their time blogging. I suppose its only natural that a self reflective activity would inspire self reflection =)
I'm very curious to see where Blogging eventually rests on the spectrum of formal communication in higher ed. Truth be told, I find it interesting and somewhat puzzling that higher education (a field dedicated to the sharing of ideas and the expansion of knowledge) so tightly clings to the power of the press mentality. Peer review is obviously the biggest difference between a blog post and a journal published research article, but if you have an established community willing to engage in a conversation, how big a difference is it really? Undoubtedly less formal, but does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
I am of course, playing devil's advocate a bit. I most certainly understand and appreciate the need for the formal publication process. But I wonder if the mentality will change when a generation of one click publishers hits adulthood - will the paradigm change at all? Will the value of successfully engaging the social web be emphasized? Will running a successful, popular, thought provoking, community forming blog ever come to be considered in the P&T process? What if you create a YouTube video that generates 10 million views? Will formal research journals go the way of the newspaper and the magazine? And is that a good or bad thing for the expansion of knowledge in our world?
It seems crazy to think about, but then again, you never know.