Although my main area of research focuses on sixteenth
(and seventeenth) century book history, I do also have an interest in writing
and reading habits in our present day. When
I started work at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) back in 2010 I was
quickly introduced to the world of blogs.
At the time I’m not even sure if I had looked at a blog on a
History-related topic, not alone posted anything. However, I was told that I needed one for the
History SPOT project, and so my first blog was born (The History SPOT blog). It’s proven quite successful in its own modest
way, with between 20 to 150 views per day and with a total (as of 11 December
2012) of 213 posts written and uploaded.
I have since created a blog for the IHR relating to its temporary
relocation while work is undertaken to modernise the north block of Senate
House (IHR Relocation Blog),
another that acted as a ‘virtual conference’ for the IHR’s winter conference Novel Approaches: from academic history to historical fiction, and of course this Sixteenth Century Scholars blog that you are now reading.
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| The History SPOT blog |
I also read blogs on a regular basis. Among my favorites are Medieval Fragments
which looks specifically at twelfth century manuscripts for a project based at
the University of Leiden; The History of Emotions from Queen Mary, looking at the history of feelings (often in the early modern
period); and Cardiff Book History which focuses mainly (but not solely) on research and MSS at the Centre for
Editorial and Intertextual Research at Cardiff University.
For early modernists by far the greatest resource
relating to blogs is the Early Modern Commons website. This site contains an index (kept largely
up-to-date) for academic quality blogs on any subject of the early modern
period. It’s well worth a look!
You are probably wondering why I’m talking about
blogs rather than something related directly to the subject of early modern
scholarship. It’s a fair question and I’m
afraid on this occasion the link is tenuous (at least it is right now). Thanks to a grant from the SMKE Scholarship
(Social Media Knowledge Exchange) I have now begun my own small
project investigating blogging practices by and for historians. The idea of the project is to investigate why
individual historians or institutions (including academic, librarian, and archival)
begin a blog, how it is managed, and what is hoped to be gained from it. The project is also looking at why people
read blogs and what they expect from an academically produced History blog in
particular.
How will this be done? First, I will be conducting interviews with
several owners of blogs which will be podcasted and uploaded online. Second, I will create a small tool-kit
designed especially for postgraduate and early career researchers from what I
learn from the interviews and from a series of online surveys.
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| The Blogging for Historians blog |
Now we come to the part where I ask for your
help. The project has a blog of its own –
Blogging for Historians - and the first survey is now live. If you
could spare a moment to fill in this survey I would be very appreciative. It is designed for anyone who looks at History-related
blogs as well as those that own one or post on a blog. I’m hoping that at some stage I can relate
this study more closely to my research in the early modern period, and as soon
as I do, I will post something more about it here. Here are the main links:
Blogging for Historians Blog: http://bloggingforhistorians.wordpress.com/
History Best Practice Blogging Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MHVXQ2W
Thank you in advance for your help and time.
