Livejournal, WordPress, and blogging, with a hint of information literacy

I came to WordPress largely because I have been disappointed with Livejournal as of late. I’ve had a long-running LJ account since May of 2001 which I used to write in every day. However in the last couple of years I’ve used it less and less. I still keep up with friends there, but it’s more of a “social space” and less of a place for me to just write about what I want to write about, even though I have a “friends-only” journal. Strangely enough, I feel more free to write here, probably because precisely no one knows about this blog.

Then, of course, there are the multiple fuck ups that LJ has had in the past couple of years that have made me quite dissatisfied and even embarrassed to be a member of the LJ community. First there was the inclusion of ads, despite LJ’s long-running promise that they never would have ads. Then there was a general lack of coordination and knee-jerk reactions by the LJ administration after much of LJ had been restructured a year or so after being bought out by Six Apart. None of this is new, there’s plenty of information about all of these goings-on at Wikipedia’s entry on Livejournal.

Then of course there was the banning of a number of LJ accounts which led to a “voluntary” “adult rating” for LJs. And, even more recently, the discontinuation for new “basic” (non-ad-supported) accounts to be created. Not that any of this effected me in the slightest, but the idea of control over my free speech and intellectual property was a little disturbing, not to mention the sheer ass-hattery that was going on with the people who found themselves in charge of LJ. I’ll still be around there reading friends’ entries and participating in some communities, but I feel that my own content is better hosted elsewhere. So far, I’m really enjoying WordPress.

I hosted a short-lived WordPress blog on my own website (installed via WordPress.org) and found it to be quite usable. But now I’ve found that I don’t really have any need for a full-blown website+hosting, so here I am with a hosted blog and a (soon to be) purchased domain name. Awesome.

One thing that I really like about WordPress is its focus as a forum for generating creative content. Livejournal is mostly centered around the idea of “community” and social networking through blogging and commenting. WordPress is all about getting your content and ideas out there into the public. Where Livejournal has useless “virtual gifts,” WordPress has Pages. Where Livejournal has boatloads of userpics/avatars available, WordPress has tons of linking options through the blogroll and links. Where Livejournal has tons of ways to make your blog look pretty, WordPress is a little more practical- after all, aren’t most blogs worth reading just read through your RSS reader anyway? Focus on ways to get your content and message out there and read, and less on how to make it all shiny. Users will view your content the way they want, anyway, through CSS overrides or their own choice of feed aggregator.

As a librarian, both approaches are interesting. LJ sort of came about at the dawn of the social networking site craze, and making those interpersonal connections was one of the greatest things the site had going for it. It got a lot of people writing, even if it were only in small and informal snippets. It made writing fun again, until it wasn’t. As social networking has become practically ubiquitous and sites such as Facebook have gotten it down to a science, blogging hosts/platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad now host some of the most popular sources of varying types of news and content out there. Blogs aren’t so much about social networking anymore as they are about sharing information and knowledge. Social networking is about facilitating interpersonal connections and communication, blogs are about creative and intellectual communication.

That both are now “cool” is somewhat amazing to me, although as a somewhat misanthropic pessimist, I’m surprised that the apparent intelligence of the species has not increased as a result. I was hoping that all of this information at the touch of a button would make people smarter. In practice it has just created more ways for people to be stupid. I am not, of course, exempt from the stupefying effect of teh intrawebs. However I do have the privilege of training regarding evalutation of information resources and technology that most others do not, and I think that it would be great if some of those very necessary skills were taught to children before they enter college. Hence why I got involved in this profession in the first place. But that is a completely different post.

Needless to say that this is more content than I have bothered to create in some time, and I’m quite excited about seeing where this is going to lead me. Now, all I have to do is tell some people about this thing.

Think critically, with horns raised high! \m/

Cheers,
Ben

A caveat (or three) about the title of this blog

The Blackmetal Librarian is, seemingly, a fairly straightforward title. It incorporates Black metal music, and librarianship.

Now, by taking this title of “Blackmetal Librarian,” some might think that I claim to be the most knowledgeable, most “true”, “nekro”, or “kvlt”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t have long hair anymore. I don’t wear Darkthrone shirts to work every day (some days, though…). I don’t keep up that much about “the scene” and I certainly don’t care about what other metal fans think about anything. That brings up another issue: although black metal is my preferred flavor of metal, due to its rawness, complex simplicity and straightforward aggression, it is not the only type of metal that I enjoy. I also love grindcore, death metal, folk metal, drone doom, and even some of this “metalcore” stuff (although I must say that most of the time I honestly can’t tell the difference between so-called “metalcore” and many death metal bands). I also love a lot of other types of music, including world/roots music, rock, riot grrl, some “indie rock”, bluegrass, neo-folk, darkwave, synthpop, power industrial, etc.

So, basically the “blackmetal” part of this title is due to my love of the genre, and for metal in particular.

Now, on to the “Librarian” part. I’m not trying to be a “librarian of black metal” but rather a librarian who totally loves black metal. Make sense? There’s a caveat there, too, actually: although I do have an MLIS degree, I don’t hold a job that has the word “librarian” in the title. I do consider myself a librarian, however, and I do work in the library industry and work, ultimately, for other librarians. I love my job and my profession. I consider it quasi-sacred.

So, the main focus of this blog isn’t “how to incorporate metal into librarianship” (although there might be some of that), nor is it “how to ‘librarianize’ blackmetal” (although there may be some of that as well), but rather, simply bringing together things that I love, and highlighting two of those: metal and libraries (or information professionalism, if you will).

So, think critically, learn, and horns up! \m/

Cheers,
The Librarian