New bloggers at Read Around Research

If you've had a look at my profile, you will have seen that I am the Research Support Librarian at the University of Limerick.

In the Irish Universities you'll find my fellow research support librarians in NUIG, TCD and DCU. I've asked those librarians to join me on this blog, and as you will see, Jessica Eustace from TCD has arrived, posting video introductions to blogs, wikis and RSS feeds. The videos were created by a great group called Common Craft.

Way back in pre-blog days I had arranged for some creative (i.e. pen and paper) writing time off this summer, so I've been remiss in posting here. I will remain largely offline and with family (it being summer!) until the end of August while my fellow bloggers settle in here. I look forward to posting on Read Around Research issues when I return.

Welcome:
Jessica Eustace, TCD
Jack Hyland, DCU
Rosarie Coughlan and Gwen Ryan, NUIG

Utube - Easy Explanation for what Blogs are for

Final one, utube video on how to use Blogs and what they are for: A video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal.

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!