About this site 14Dec2008

We’re starting in the middle of things (as always). I’ve maintained a research-blogging presence for the past year or so on Phylo Blog, where I recap our latest site development, data finds, and future plans. I recently came across Michael Jasenas’ A History of the Bibliography of Philosophy, and I thought it would be good to read the book online, so to speak, by posting commentary on each chapter. The material is rather obscure (it seems I’m the first person to check the book out of the Queens College library since 1973), but very germane to the documentation and classification efforts involved in Phylo.

This commentary strikes me as something beyond my usual Phylo blogging—much more associated with research on the history of the field than the development of Phylo itself—and I also have the occasional desire to blog about certain ideas or developments in the field. In short, it’s time to start a new blog that frees up space for different content.

Since I think my work with Phylo is of significant research interest, I’ll be cross-posting those entries here as well (thank you WP-o-Matic) and collecting this research blogging together with my other professional materials (e.g., CV, teaching documents, contact info).

This is my first time using WordPress as a CMS (content management system) to run an entire site, including static pages on each of my courses, as well as a teaching statement. I’ve debated using some CMS for my site for a long time, especially given how easily it’s updated. As usual, I was drawn to drupal, but since the research blog will receive the most frequent updates, blogging-oriented software seemed most appropriate. So far, I’m pleased with the results.

The site theme is based on ClockWorkSimple by ClockWorkBlogger. I’ve made several modifications, mainly to accommodate pages vs. blog posts.