I know I’ve written about my personal blogging anniversaries before, but I still think it’s worth nothing that September 2017 marks nine years since I started this blog as part of a course requirement for a digital history class I took as part of my MA in Public History. I know some folks have argued that the blog is a dying or irrelevant medium at this point however I still believe of its value within the archival and public history field as a form of scholarship and engagement. Of course, I’ll also admit I love a timely tweet storm and have a soft spot for cat pictures on Instagram.
I have – gulp – written over 600 posts at this point. I’ve also noticed in the past couple of years that this blog has evolved to have a more solid connection to my work in the archives field. I still talk public history and still come at archives from a public historian perspective — but there’s way more archives content then there was nine years ago.
Rather than recounting some of my favourite or most viewed posts I decided that instead this year I would highlight some of my favourite blogs. These blogs are ones that I follow consistently and that inspire me to write my own blog posts.
- Unwritten Histories by Andrea Eidinger. This one’s a bit of an easy mark – Andrea’s blog is a must read for anyone interested in Canadian history and I love her sarcasm.
- Things I’m Fonds Of by Emily Lonie. There’s a pun in the title – thus it has to be great! Seriously, though this is a wonderful blog that consistently highlights innovate archival practices and collaborative projects.
- History@Work, a multi-authored blog on the National Council for Public History website. History@Work covers a great mix of public history topics and has a lot of great discussion based posts around current interpretation of historical events.
- Nursing Clio, another great multi-authored blog. If you’re interested at all in gender or medicine this is the history blog for you. This peer-reviewed blog offers timely historically grounded posts on present-day issues. Their tag line is “the personal is historical” and many of their posts connect to person or community narratives of history.
- Claire Kreuger’s blog pulls directly from her thesis work. I’m in love with her alphabet series. Some of her hard hitting posts tackle reconciliation, settler narratives, and how to be an ally.
- Uncatalogued Museum by Linda Norris. This is a blog I’ve been following for years and that I keep coming back to for it’s insightful takes on museum exhibits and content design.
- Allana Mayer’s tumblr account for her takes on archives, tech and labour. Allana has also posted a number of great summary posts which compile resources on specific topics – her “Resources on Archives and Indigenous issues” post from 2016 is still a great source for information. I’d also suggest following Allana on Twitter.
What are your favourite archives and public history blogs?