Why I Blog

As this is my first ever blog posting I cannot write from experience, but I can link you to an excellent article from Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic Online, November 2008, called Why I Blog. In the article Sullivan* shows how this form of instant and global self-publishing differs from traditional journalism in its immediacy, its colloquialism and its accountability.
Sullivan likens the role of a blogger to that of the host of a dinner party, where the host "can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate."
That's what I like about blogging. It's the acknowledgment that each blogger is one person with a limited but unique perspective. Where readers know more about a subject than the blogger does, they can easily, by sending links, stories, and facts, add "context and nuance and complexity to an idea."
As a librarian I like to be able to link to references and sources, while at the same time acknowledging that there's a vast world of information out there. I hope that, in time, others will add to what I post, and the upshot for us all will be a more complete picture of what's around and worth reading in Research.

*If I were a true blogger I might use 'Andrew' instead of the more formal 'Sullivan', seduced by what Sullivan refers to as the 'faux intimacy' of the medium. But I'm not there yet!