Finding the Value in The Old on the Net

There has been a lot of talk lately about who is the oldest blogger, but there is more to being “old” on the web then age.

There is the age of your blogging experience. That “oldest blogger” may have been blogging for less than a year. I’ve been doing this fourteen years, what about you? There is also the amount and length of your experience, which matters to those who blog as experts. Don’t you tend to take a little more seriously someone whose been doing this for 6 years compared to 6 months?

There is also the age of your material. I’ve 14 years of content, some out of date, some still current although old, and some recent. And a lot timeless.

The latter is often what fascinates me.

I believe in timeless content, when possible, and can’t stand it when I get a comment or see someone say “It’s old but still has value.” Of course it does. For a lot of information, time doesn’t matter. For some, it’s critical.

The hardest challenge for an old post to stay up to date is its links. While linking is important, sometimes the information out weights the value of any links within it.

We need to respect our elders, and elderly content, so I set a challenge for myself. I went looking for old but still valuable content on the web in which the links aren’t important to the value of the content.

Over the new few months on the Blog Herald, I’m going to dig into the web’s past and look for articles and references that still have value, even over the years since it was published. If you have any recommendations you’d like me to feature, please let me know.

Search Engine Watch Promotes The Law Library Resource Xchange

On August 28, 2002, Chris Serman of Search Engine Watch reviewed a “New Search Engine Resource Center”, the The Law Library Resource Xchange (LLRX):

The Law Library Resource Xchange (LLRX) offers an excellent collection of articles, links and news that should be on every serious searcher’s short list of must-read resources.

LLRX’s mission is to provide legal and library professionals with the most up-to-date information on a wide range of Internet research and technology-related issues, applications, resources and tools. Though aimed primarily at legal professionals, the site offers tons of first-rate information that’s useful to anybody who spends a lot of time searching the web.

According to the article, the LLRX went online in 1996 and was edited by Sabrina I. Pacifici and Cindy L. Chick, expert law librarians with over 4 decades of experience.

See Also

Old Blogging Sites That We Thought were Gone

Today in 2007, The Law Library Resource Xchange is still going strong and continues to provide invaluable information and resources, and I’d still say it should be on your “short list of must-read resources”, especially on subjects like:

• Cultural Challenges in Cross Border Mediation: With good advice for crossing the cultural border not only in mediation but in blogging as well.
• Persuading Judges in Writing: Tips for Lawyers (And how technology can help): With the age of litigation entering the blogosphere, isn’t this something you may need to know?
• LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips – Nation of Secrets and Presidential Secrecy and the Law: Are you a political blogger? Did you catch these two books? Hmmm?
• Congressional Budget Office Launches Topical Health Website: Blogging on health issues? Did you hear about this one?
• The Government Domain: Click-and-Print State Profiles: Looking for specific state information and statistics on state government activities and efforts?
• Competitive Intelligence – A Selective Resource Guide: The “revised and updated pathfinder” offers information on “leveraging selected reliable, focused, free and low cost sites and sources to effectively profile and monitor companies, markets, countries, people, and issues.” It includes a list of the “best” web and database products, services, tools, and resources that may help you as they are used and produced by governments, academia, NGOs, the media and various publishers.
• The Directorate of Legal Research at the Library of Congress: A Treasure Hidden Under a Bushel Basket explores all the “hidden” treasures in the Library of Congress, and how to navigate through many of them, to find information to support your article research.
• Linking Policies for Public Web Sites covers an issue from 2001 that still applies today. What are the policies for linking to and from public websites and blogs?
• Rule the Web is a review of Rule the Web: How to Do Anything and Everything on the Internet – Better, Faster, Easier by Mark Frauenfelder, which claims this is the “Joy of Cooking” for the web.

The site covers a variety of ways to research US legal issues and papers, and offers a variety of web technology resources, and articles on web technology such as E-Discovery, Gadgets & Gizmos, Intranets, Knowledge Management, and Websites, Blogs, & Wikis.

In the latter, I found a whole subcategory covering Blogs with articles such as:

• LawPro Links – An A to Z Directory of Web Resources
• Faulkner’s Practical Web Strategies for Attorneys: How the Web Will Continue to Change How We Do Business in 2007
• The Blog – Another Tool in Your Arsenal
• Criminal Justice Resources – Criminal Justice Blogs
• Features – The State of the Law Library Blogosphere
• The Tao of Law Librarianship: The Truth About Blogging
• Faulkner’s Practical Web Strategies for Attorneys: New Year’s Resolution: Update Your Website
• Features – Dennis Kennedy’s Legal Technology Predictions for 2006: Small Steps for Most Firms, Giant Leaps for a Few Firms
• Bloggers Beware: Debunking Nine Copyright Myths of the Online World – Updated
• Law Firm Marketing – So your firm’s got a website. Great. But is it stuck in 1997? or 10 Things to help your site not…stink.
• Features – Internal Blogs: So, Are They Different From External Blogs?
• Features – Commentary: A Librarian Blogger at the DNC
• Features – Blogging: One Firm’s Experience

You can add the LLRX to your feed reader to keep up with their articles and resources.

I’ve been carrying around this piece of paper printed out from Search Engine Watch since 2002, and now I finally made the time to check into their recommendation. It’s wonderful that the site is still alive and rocking, continuing to meet their original goals after all this time. After all this time, I’m adding the site to my feed reader.