Thing #3- More blogging- part 2

Sphere
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- Only 5 blogs with EAD, all searching that as a string of sequential letters in other words (head, lead, read). No results for Encoded Archival Description.

Edo Period history- One result that had *nothing* to do with Japanese history.

Isaac Israels- 0 results.

Blog.Ask.com
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- More green card and military blogs, but also a higher percentage of blogs that talk about the metadata scheme. The first result was extremely relevant: EAD 2002. Encoded Archival Description retrieved over 200 blogs about archival encoding, many of them relevant or informative. These would be blogs I’d check more frequently- lots of interesting articles, job ads, best practices.

Edo Period history- Fairly good results. Lots of blogs that talk about intellectual aspects of Japanese history between 1603-1867. These blogs talk about exhibits, artifacts, articles, etc. I could see some of them leading or contributing to more scholarly research, such as this blog on Japanese Territories.

Isaac Israels- Mostly references to Israels paintings sold at auction, but still interesting.

Altogether, I think Blog.Ask.com was the most appealing search engine for me. The blogs were more interesting and intellectual than those found through the other search engines. I generally don’t read blogs, though- too time-consuming. I maintain a personal one only as a way to keep in touch with a large group of friends all at once, since they live in different time zones and countries. For academic research, I usually use the library’s print and online resources, and follow links from web sites specific to my research inquiries. I do, however, see blogs as helpful tools for gathering information on a project or topic, like our McHenry construction blog.