My other blog is an ejournal

This seems to be a day for metablogging. So, in the spirit if not the letter…

I’m honored by this post by Kathryn at librariesinteract (a really interesting, fairly new group blog for Australian librarians).

I’m put firmly in my place by this series of comments regarding a silly little post in which I objected to an over-the-top characterization of a certain automobile. Now I’m reliably informed that I’m a 70-year-old unemployed librarian who’s a whiner, semi-literate, possessed of a degree in a major that shouldn’t exist, too poor to buy serious cars and so reduced to driving a car that’s equivalent to a #2 pencil, and writing an “annoying little blog” that signifies nothing. I’m so ashamed…and really have to wonder what those 300+ subscribers and 1,000+ average daily visits are all about, since there’s clearly nothing worthwhile here and it’s from such a disreputable source!

I don’t have the requisite five lesser-known blogs to recommend. I believe I’ve done that, several times over, in the Cites & Insights “Look at Liblogs”–except, of course, that I didn’t specifically recommend five blogs.

And then there’s the blogging meme. OK, I’ll give it a try:

  • Why did you start blogging? Because (a) there were things I wanted to say that weren’t quite right, or not yet ready, for my ejournal, (b) because people had been bugging me to and I finally gave in, (c) because Michael Gorman’s ill-advised rant pushed me over the edge.
  • What do you blog about mainly? There are 18 categories with more than 10 posts each, but the top six (in descending order) are: Writing and blogging, Libraries, Net media, Stuff (my favorite!), Cites & Insights, and Moviest and TV.
  • Do you blog in your first language or in another language, and why? Sigh. Unlike computer languages (where I’ve probably used at least 8), I’m haplessly monolingual for human languages, after several attempts to try (and severe damage to my GPA in high school and college). It may not always sound like it, but English is my first and only language.
  • What motivates you to keep blogging even if (like most bloggers) you’re not paid much for it? “Not paid much”? Bwahahah… I keep doing it because it’s easy, it’s fun, and people comment enough to let me know it’s read.
  • Is your audience mainly inside your own country or around the world? Yes.
  • What do your family and friends think about the fact that you are a blogger? My wife thinks we all have too much time on our hands. My friends who aren’t bloggers probably don’t care. I don’t think of myself as a blogger; I’m a part-time writer who happens to have a blog.
  • Does your boss know you have a blog? Yes.
  • What is the relationship between blogs in your country or region and the mainstream media? My own take: The Hot Political Blogs have less influence than they think they have–and more than mainstream media wants to admit. On the other hand, my impression is that many of the Hot Blogs really are mainstream media, just in another form.
  • When you blog, how would you describe what you write? Is it part of a conversation? Is it ranting? Is it a daily diary? Is it journalism? Is it some or all of these things at different times? Does the definition matter?
    Frequently part of a conversation; certainly not a diary; not particularly journalism; the definition doesn’t matter.
  • Have blogs started to have an impact on politics in your country? Have they started to influence what stories get covered in your country’s media? We’d love to know some examples.
    Same answer as two bullets up.

5 Responses to “My other blog is an ejournal”

  1. Laura says:

    The second link in this post doesn’t seem to be working. I mention this only because I’m curious to know what the “major that shouldn’t exist” is (and, of course, trying to remember if I’ve ever made any broad generalizations about college majors in the course of my time as a blog commenter. . . as someone who studied ancient Greek in college, I really shouldn’t talk).

    Anyway, happy blog day–and happy un-ejournal day (sort of like happy un-birthday, since I don’t believe there is a day devoted to ejournals–though I may be quite wrong).

  2. walt says:

    Thanks, Laura: I’ve fixed it (apparently you can’t link directly to a comment within the same blog…). Rhetoric, if you must know.

  3. Laura says:

    I taught Rhetoric at the University of Iowa for three years. I’m not sure anyone learned much anything, but it’s a fine subject, and it was a good excuse to reread Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” once a semester.

  4. walt says:

    At Berkeley, Rhetoric was an interdisciplinary department, made up of faculty originally from linguistics, anthropology, and English (I think: Psychology may also have been involved). Technically, the department wasn’t renamed “Rhetoric” until the year I graduated (one semester late); until then, it was Speech–but it’s worth noting that Speech majors could not use the various public speaking and debate classes toward either the major or the degree. I was a math minor, albeit informally…

  5. walt says:

    Very belatedly: I just noticed that emoticon in the original post.

    I don’t use emoticons. I didn’t use one here.

    What I did do, apparently, was use a number followed by a right parenthesis. WordPress, in its superior wisdom, turned it into an emoticon. I think the number was “8.” I’m not going to change the post.

    Which also means, no, I didn’t actually fail to close the parenthetical clause, a mistake I make often enough.