Blog Day 2007: Blogs worth knowing about

In keeping with the tradition of Blog Day (August 31), here are several blogs that you may find worth knowing about, including a few that have been mentioned previously in Digitization 101:

Archivalia (German) with some in English -- This blog focuses on topics of interest to archives in Europe and other parts of the world. If you do not read German, you can use Babelfish to give a decent translation of the text. Although already familiar with Archivalia, I want to thank Klaus Graf, a Digitization 101 reader, for recommending it.

Collaborative Manuscript Transcription -- Written by Ben Brumfield, a software developer and Digitization 101 reader, this blog is focused on his family history project. As he says, this is a place for him to organize his "thoughts about software for collaborative manuscript transcription and annotation."

Figoblog (French) -- This is written by Manue, who is a librarian interested in "bibliotheque numerique." The blog touches on topics just as digitization, metadata, information retrieval and much more. If you do not read French, you can use Babelfish to give a decent translation of the text.

Investigations of a Dog -- In talking about this blog, Gavin Robinson wrote:

This blog is for works in progress; reflections on things I've been reading; extracts from and criticism of my PhD thesis; and random thoughts on history, historiography, culture, literature, information technology, and, of course, other people's blogs.

Ben Brumfield, who recommended this blog, said that Investigations of a Dog contains well-thought out posts on digitization and pointed especially to this one.

O'Reilly Radar -- This is a team blog with Tim O'Reilly as the chief blogger. It covers topics such as emerging technology, Web 2.0, open source and more. Because the blog covers a technology broadly, there is always something of interest in it.

Papa's Diary -- This blog is actually the1924 diary of Matt Unger's grandfather (Harry Scheurman) transcribed and annotated. The calendar on the left side of the blog is from 1924 and each blog post is the diary entry for that specific day. He includes the digitized pages of the diary. This is a very interesting use of a blog and interesting reading. Thanks to Ben Brumfield (again) for recommending this blog.

Sivacracy -- This is a team blog headed by Siva Vaidhyanathan (pronunciation), who is a faculty member at the University of Virginia. Now a project of the Institute for the Future of the Book, this blog focuses intellectual property, free culture, globalization and more. Siva and his team tackle serious topics, but have fun too, especially since they make good use of media in the blog.

Last year I highlighted five blogs, which were (with updated info):

• Confessions of a Mad Librarian -- When Eli Edwards talks about copyright and intellectual property issues, many people listen. Her posts are well-written and thought producing, even though they are infrequent. Hopefully she will write more frequently once she is through with law school.
• hangingtogether.org -- "HangingTogether is a place where some of the staff at RLG Programs, part of the OCLC Programs and Research division, a partnership of libraries, archives, and museums, can talk about the intersections we see happening between these three different types of institutions." Roy Tennant has joined OCLC and is now one of the Hanging Together bloggers. For me, that has made Hanging Together a blog I want in my RSS reader.
• Lifehacker -- The team at Lifehacker write a lot on software, web sites and tips to help us be more productive, so I look at the headlines and read only those that are truly of interest...and there is something of interest every week. I also find that I forward posts to other people. Interesting, relevant, helpful...what else can you ask for?
• Restoration Tips & Notes / Media Formats & Resources -- For those interested in audio tape restoration, repair and mastering, adding Richard Hess' blog to your blog reader may be quite useful. Infrequent posts. Excellent content.
• Presentation Zen -- This blog still delivers good content. Want to do better presentations? Read/skim this blog. It's that simple.

Follow whatever links peak your interest and enjoy the rest of your Blog Day!

Thanks to those who suggested blogs. I appreciated every suggestion, although I did not use all of them.

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