About

What is ArchivesBlogs?

ArchivesBlogs syndicates content from blogs about archives and by archivists. It reads RSS and Atom feeds from weblogs about archives and archival issues every hour to check these feeds for new content. It then posts the content to this webpage plus a variety of other feeds, including RSS, Atom, and OPML.

About the Feeds

If you use an existing feed reader either on your own computer (NetNewsWire, SharpReader, etc.) or one that is web-based (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.), you can subscribe to the Atom or RSS feed and see the syndicated content in one feed. If you’d like to receive syndicated content in only one language, please refer to the links under the Language section in the right-hand sidebar. Feeds are available for each language as well as the two authorship categories.

If your aggregator supports it – and many do! – you can import the subscriptions from the ArchivesBlog OPML file. Some aggregators will automatically add new feeds to your aggregator as they are added to ArchivesBlogs – in that case, make sure you provide your aggregator the URL to the OPML file. Please note that the OPML file now contains all ArchivesBlogs links, not just those in the old “aggregated” category.

Copyright

ArchivesBlogs uses content from the blogs it syndicates under fair use. We consider ArchivesBlogs to be fair use of their content since it only syndicates content from feeds made available by the authors. The authors of the blogs retain all copyright. However, if you are a blog author and are concerned about the status of your content, please contact us.

Criteria for Syndication

ArchivesBlogs will syndicate any blog by archivists, about archives, about archival issues, or areas of common interest such as digitization. These may include blogs by or about specific collections or repositories, personal blogs by archivists, research blogs on archival material and just about anything else. For more discussion, see this post onthesecretmirror.com. However, ArchivesBlogs may not choose to syndicate blogs for a variety of reasons:

  • No RSS feed is available for the individual blog. This often happens with repositories that have blogs that exist within a larger blog system, e.g., a special collections department within a university library that has a library-wide blog system. In these cases, the entire feed would be unsuitable for syndication. In this case, we will add a link to the blog.
  • The blog appears to be updated very infrequently or has not been updated for at least six months.
  • The blog’s content is only marginally relevant to the other blogs at ArchivesBlogs.
  • The blog exists primarily to promote a product or service.
  • The blog’s feed does not validate against the standard it purports to follow (RSS, Atom, etc.) or has not followed the best practices suggested by the maintainer of ArchivesBlogs.

Adding and Removing Blogs for Syndication

o suggest a blog for addition or to request that your blog be removed, please e-mail changes@archivesblogs.com.

If you are interested in adding a blog, please include the URL of the blog, the URL of the feed, and indicate if you maintain the blog. Please note that your blog must have at least some content relating to archives. ArchivesBlogs also reserves the right not to include your blog if your feed’s XML does not validate.

If you would like a feed removed, please include the URL of the blog, the URL of the feed, and your reason you would like it to be removed. ArchivesBlogs is willing to honor all requests for removal, but we are looking to include as many blogs as possible!

To contact ArchivesBlogs otherwise, please e-mail contact@archivesblogs.com.

Technical Information

  • ArchivesBlogs alpha (”Planet Archives”) originally used Planet and was primarily for testing purposes.
  • Between the August 2006 launch and January 2007, ArchivesBlogs usedPlagger, a Perl program that parses RSS feeds and creates output in just about any form. In October 2006, ArchivesBlogs incorporated code from Dan MacTough’s Optimal OPML Browser to provide a navigable view of the ArchivesBlogs OPML file.
  • In January 2007, ArchivesBlogs switched to the WordPress blog platform, using a modified version of the Cutline theme and the FeedWordpress, Feed List, unAPI Server, and Auto Delete Posts plugins.
  • As of February 2007, ArchivesBlogs is hosted by ibiblio.

About the Maintainer

ArchivesBlogs is maintained by Mark A. Matienzo, who blogs at thesecretmirror.com.