Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Macintosh Biblioblog

I'd like to join others in welcoming Joe Weaks's Macintosh Biblioblog to biblioblogdom. The Macintosh gubbins will only be of limited interest to me but, having met Joe in San Antonio, I look forward to seeing here some of his "Rather spurious comment on topics in NT and especially Synoptic Studies". In his introductory post, Joe writes:
I create my own web pages, but I thought I'd experiment with this whole blogging thing as a way to make such a forum available, though I must confess it seems rather egocentric. Does the format necessarily emphasize the personality of the provider? Does the messenger become as important as the message? And, is that really a bad thing? For surely, the real difference in blogging, in contrast to web page development, is the transparency with which we see the one providing the substance. (Emphasis original).
Yes, kind of, no, agreed. The great thing about blogging is that it allows you to get to know the person behind the website and to build your trust in a person and his/her views and editorial selection of what is worth blogging on in the stated field of interest. As you get to know them, you find it more interesting to interact with their views, sometimes to engage critically with them. I would also want to recommend avoiding too much soul-searching on blogging. Just put your stuff out there; if people are interested, they will read it; if not, they won't. It's a pretty democratic medium.

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