On Tuesday I talked to the Archives & Society seminar at the Institute of Historical Research under the title Blogging History: What are the uses of blogs in academic and archival settings?. I’ll talk more about this session in a future post (and talk a bit about the research I undertook in preparation for it) but for now here’s a copy of the slide show that I used. I will also explain the Dalek’s!
Later today I will be talking about academic and archive blogs to the Archives & Society seminar at the Institute of Historical Research. The talk takes as its beginning the work I have been doing for the Blogging for Historians project, but also goes a little deeper by examining how archives around the UK use blogs and social media (or not in some cases).
I have surveyed the websites of 113 archives including local, national, ecclesiastical, and commercial and checked to see who blogs, what they do with the blog, and what other social media outlets they have. I would say that the findings are not that unexpected, but do reveal some interesting trends. I would also say that this is just a preliminary study. The idea would be to take the research further, look even deeper, and find out more.
If you would like to join us the seminar takes place at 5.45pm tonight at Senate House (University of London). We will be meeting at 5.45pm.
In November I will be talking about the use of blogs in both academic and archival settings asking questions about best practise and the pros and cons of the blog as a tool for research, promotion, and discussion.
Blogs are increasingly becoming important to academics who write about History and to the archives-sector who support that research. As a tool it is partly about promotion and advertising of an institution or department, but the form that advertising takes is often of scholarly merit, and is increasingly helping to open up the archives and mysteries of the research process.
In November I will be talking about this subject to the Institute of Historical Research, Archives and Society seminar in November. The talk is a much greater expansion of the presentation I gave in the summer for the Social Media Knowledge Exchange conference and will include much of what I have learnt since. Here’s the brief abstract for more information:
Event Title: Blogging History: What are the uses of blogs in academic and archival settings? Location: Bloomsbury Room G35, Senate House, ground floor Date: 26 November 2013 Time: 5.45pmAbstract: In this paper I will be looking at how blogs have become useful to academics, libraries, and archives as a means to promote, engage, and express interest in the History subject discipline. Based around my Blogging for Historians project funded by the Social Media Knowledge Exchange (www.smke.org) and upon further research into blogs linked through the blog aggregator, Early Modern Commons, I plan to investigate how blogs are being used currently, what purpose they serve, and what role they might have in the future.
The Archives and Society seminar is a free seminar series put on by the Institute of Historical Research. Please feel free to come along and join us.
Blogging For Historians 