October 2, 2007
The Late, Lamented Personal Web Page
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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Zzzzzzzzzzz. Blogs have jumped the shark. Actually, they’d jumped it by the 2004 Presidential election.
— Sol Oct 2, 04:48 PM #
A CV on a personal website is free advertising for the articles you’ve published. Since people seem to choose Google as their first scholarly research tool anymore, unfortunate as that may be. A static, search-optimized reference list with your publications could lead to higher impact ratings down the road.
— Erika Oct 2, 05:02 PM #
I think it’s going to take a three-pronged site to be effective in an academic setting. A personal page for the official, mostly static stuff; a blog for developing and more timely information; and a wiki (I think that’s the right term) so that the blogger can construct new knowledge with interested visitors.
— Kathleen H. Oct 2, 05:03 PM #
If all you put on your personal web site is your CV and a list of hobbies – probably no one will care. That’s why it’s important to give something of value – like my own Keeping Up Web Site (http://stevenbell.info/keepup) – then you will get lots of visitors and the effort put in to the page will be worth it. These types of resource pages would be difficult to compile and offer if you just have a basic blogger-type blog site.
— stevenb Oct 3, 08:08 AM #
Steven- your links don’t work at the website you posted above. Am I missing something?
— Isabella Oct 3, 08:56 AM #
If scholars want their work noticed by acquiring editors at university presses, who scour these personal web sites for clues about works in progress, they should think twice about abandoning them.
— Sandy Thatcher Oct 3, 08:59 AM #
@Sol — The phrase “jumped the shark” actually jumped the shark ages ago.
As for the currency of blogs, they’ve only really hit the mainstream within the past year. While the digerati moved on to social networks, twitter, second life, etc. long ago, it generally takes the masses a lot longer to adopt.
— Colin Fast Oct 3, 02:34 PM #