There was a time, not too long ago, when it seemed as if everyone in academe was building a personal Web page. A typical site might not have been much to look at, but it contained a wealth of professionally useful information — a CV, a catalog of published research, maybe some syllabi or course notes.
Now, in the era of blogs and Facebook profiles, the personal Web page appears to be a dying breed. But scholars shouldn’t rush to declare static Web sites obsolete, writes Steven Bell at ACRLog. Library and information-science students, he says, should seriously consider building their own Web pages — so they can hone their Web-design skills and post their academic resumes.
Mr. Bell concedes, however, that blogs seem to give academic librarians “more bang for the buck” than simple Web sites, and Steve Lawson of the blog See Also … agrees. “Build up a blog by writing interesting stuff with some frequency and you find yourself making new friends and professional contacts and carrying on provocative conversations with people from all over the world,” Mr. Lawson comments. “Build up a personal site, and I don’t quite know what you get.”
Mr. Lawson calls his personal Web page “a barren wasteland,” and many other scholars could probably say the same thing about their sites. Should professors and librarians delete seldom-used personal pages, or keep them around for posterity? —Brock Read
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