A post by Sharon Howard at Early Modern Notes has had me thinking a lot this week about my goals for this site. More than anything, Sharon has made me realize that I might have more than a few readers, so I somehow need to write about things a little more interesting than “blogtinkery…in rather obsessive detail…”
Looking back on my posts, I agree that most of them are about “blogtinkery” than anything else..well, maybe not blogtinkery but certainly more about technology and design than history. I attribute this (mostly) to the fact that my graduate work this semester has focused solely on my New Media minor. I’m taking two classes for that minor: a minor field readings class on digital history scholarship, and Digital History Documentary. I’ve admittedly read more books, articles, and other publications about digital video editing, weblogging, web semantics, open-access publishing, and internet theory than I have about history.
To be honest, I’m a little nervous about this fact. I’m doing readings course in my Cultural History and Theory minor field in the spring, and I feel I need to prepare a reading list for that. Mike O’Malley is directing the readings course, and we’re going to focus on the history and culture of race in nineteenth and twentieth-century U.S. I’m also taking the Doctoral Research Seminar, in which I’m going to write about the role of emotion, especially fear, in early twentieth-century segregation law and culture. I’m afraid I’m not doing enough research (and thinking) in these other aspects of my academic interests.
In short, I hope I’m not doing my readers a disservice (or losing the few readers I have) by limiting my posts topically. There’s more to me than “blogtinkery”, and I need to show my readers this. I appreciate the fact that Sharon, whose Early Modern Notes is absolutely fantastic, would even consider adding a link on her site to ClioWeb, and I thank her for indirectly getting me to think about my goals for this site.
I should have added that your ‘blogtinkery’ and design work has made your site darned pretty! I only found it a couple of weeks ago, so what I said was based only on what I’d seen in a very short space of time (when, as you pointed out the other day, you’ve been extremely busy with school work…). I did notice that you’d written some interesting history/research-related posts not so long ago; I suppose I was wondering too where Clioweb was likely to go in the near future!
You know, it’s a very strange feeling that other bloggers might take notice of what I say… Ooh! Power! (*evil laugh*)
Thanks, Sharon. For me, it was very strange to realize that other people were actually reading my blog, and now I feel really bad for them because my writing is so boring. I also noticed this week that Cliopatria added a link to my site, so between that and your post I’ve had some serious reasons to reflect on my blog. My original purpose for ClioWeb was to share my research, throw out ideas, review literature, et cetera. So, I do sincerely thank you (and Cliopatria) for waking me up! I blame my increased attention to design on George Mason. I’m currently doing some design work on some CHNM, including a redesign of Mills Kelly’s Western Civilization Webography project, something that fits into your fields of expertise. You can check it out in its current state, and I’d be glad to send you a link to it when I get the redesign finished.
That’s a really cool idea. (I’ll bookmark it and try to keep an eye on how it comes along, but it’d be nice if you could keep me posted anyway!) As it happens, I’m (slowly) writing an online guide aimed particularly at history MA students, and had an idea that it’d be great if one section could consist of pages of themed links chosen, evaluated and annotated by MA students themselves (as assessed projects). Probably won’t happen, but you never know.
Sorry I’ve been moderating comments before they show up on my site. I’ve been hit by the spam bugs this weekend, and it’s getting very annoying!
Dr. Kelly is a sharp guy. His fields of expertise are eastern Europe, history and new media, and pedagogy. His webography project has been used by a number of educators at all levels, and from what I’ve heard its been very beneficial to students. I’d be glad to keep you posted on the site’s progress, though my contribution to it will be more “look and feel” visual design than content.