Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Blog Rolling

Over in the sidebar I've been collecting links to blogs by or about women in science and engineering. Finally the list got so long Blogger was choking every time I added (or tried to add) a new blog to the list. I figured the solution was to divide the blogs into categories. There were a few different ways they could be divided, but in the end I went with a division by blog topic/background of the blogger. The categories are broad: Life Sciences & Scientists, Physical Sciences & Scientists, Mathematics & Computer Science, and Engineering. In a number of cases the blogs either had a broad range of content or the background of the blogger was unclear, so those blogs ended up in the General & Miscellaneous category.

I'm hoping to get some reader feedback on the list:

  • Are my categories too general or confusing or stupid? Instead of splitting them by field, I could divide them into Academia, Non-academia and Science Writing, for example, or split Physical sciences into physics, chemistry and "other." The blogs that are about personal experiences could be separated from the blogs that focus on the science. I'm open to suggestion.
  • Have I miscategorized any of the blogs? I gave them all the once over as I split them up, but I almost certainly missed something.
  • Do you know of any blogs that should be on the list? I am mostly interested in the life sciences and the blog role is lopsided in that category. The list of mathematics, computer science, and engineering blogs is particularly weak. The criteria I'm using for listing:
    - the blogger is female
    - most of the posts are about science or engineering-related topics, either about the science or about being a scientist
    - the blog is fairly regularly updated
    - I'd like to include a wide range of voices, both inside and outside academia
The next time someone whines "but girls/women/chicks aren't interested in science," I'd like to be able to point to the many female science and engineering bloggers.

3 comments:

Jessica said...

Thanks for collecting and organizing the links along the side. I have a feeling that I'm going to find some of those very helpful!

Anonymous said...

I think your categories are very good! My solution to the blogroll conundrum was to create a 10-blog randomized blogroll. That way, everyone gets a chance to be seen and the list isn't so unwieldy to be overwhelming.

Thank you for adding EyeOnDNA.com to your blogroll! I really really appreciate it.

Peggy K said...

If the blog roll gets much longer I may have to adopt a different format.