First of all, thanks to all the respondents to my previous post and appeal. I was looking for a shortcut to figuring out the international dimensions of the Geoblogosphere, and, thanks to the highly valuable community component of blogging, I have been enjoyably shoved up the learning curve.
After following various trails over the last 24 hours (well, with some sleep in between), two things stand out in addition to the pleasure of finding individual blogs. First, the most comprehensive listing that I have found is maintained by Robert Huber and Jens Klump in Germany at http://geoblogs.stratigraphy.net/?action=list, who also run the stratigraphy.net website and blog (http://stratigraphynet.blogspot.com/). Second, Chris Rowan pointed me to the Geoblogosphere survey that Callan Bentley had conducted a few months ago (http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2008/09/rise-of-geoblogosphere.html). Callan’s map of the international distribution of geobloggers is interesting and informative - is there a way (and I ask this as someone for whom the workings of the stuff behind the monitor remain largely mysterious and intimidating) of putting these two sets of data together? In Callan’s survey, the top two reasons given as dislikes about the Geoblogosphere were not enough geologists blogging and that it’s too dispersed - it needs a directory. It also strikes me that, while the virtual and geography-free nature of the community is great, nevertheless there is value to awareness of local as well as global communities.
In a sense, I believe that one value of local communities relates to the more serious part of my previous post: to “broadcast” and stimulate (see the top three reasons for blogging in Callan’s survey - anyone who blogs is, I believe, demonstrating enthusiasm and activity). I would like to think that the Geoblogosphere could actively provoke discussion of the AGI document and the issues it raises. From my own local perspective, for example, I strongly believe that the Geological Society in London has a role in the public and policy-making perception of these issues. But the GeolSoc is a great and venerable institution that still suffers from a degree of conservatism and the difficulties of reaching consensus to stick its institutional head above the parapet (having written that, I’ll find out if anyone else at the GeolSoc is reading this!). Perhaps a concerted campaign through the UK geoblogging community could influence this in the right direction, a geoblog lobby? The GeolSoc might even have a role as providing a listing and aggregation of UK and international geoblogs.
The ability to link geographic geoblogging communities as well as thematic ones would be useful - your thoughts?
Meanwhile, I loved the response that Callan reports to why bloggers blog - “Cogito Ergo Blogo”
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