I remember seeing my father seating at his old desk in the basement, surrounded by piles of newspapers. As he was reading them, he would clip articles that would interest him and -- instead of gathering them in scrapbooks -- would classify them in subject-indexed filing cabinets (he was particularly interested in national history, genealogy, or personalities belonging to some family names he was researching).
As a kid I quickly learned to emulate him and gathered my own newspaper clippings in files dedicated to subjects that would fascinate any kids in those days: prehistory, archaeology, dinosaurs, UFOs, paranormal, international politics, and the philosophy of religions. That's an habit that probably made me the news junkie I am today, but I am now just realizing that I am still doing somekind of news scrapbooking -- virtually! When I gather links of the news stories that interest me in my weekly press review I do it to share them with my (quasi-inexistant) readers, but mostly to keep them for my own future reading and research. Therefore I am continuing this old habit of news scrapbooking. It's amazing that I am only realizing this now. That certainly makes sense as it takes less space and is more ecological!
2 comments:
Did you invent the term? It seems really a dead on definition.
By scraplinking on a blog rather than just adding bookmarks in your browser, you allow others to share this information collection.
The only thing one can find sad - not from your blog, but from the blog medium - is the lack of malleability of the blog medium in how little it allows us to play with the information and the consult it in a less linear way. In a word, I find the Labels mechanism a bit archaic and restrictive.
And it sure would be great to be able to share Label links with other blogs of our own chosing... we can sort of do it in a non-friendly user way with Google reader, but one can feel that no energy is put in thios field by developers. Seamless crosssharing of information - i.e. social scraplinking - would be a very social tool... probably even more useful to society than the sharing of Facebook status that allows me to know that one person I went ot school with ate lasagna for supper.
Anyhow, thanks a lot for your scraplinking! (and for coining out the word. Googling the term, it really seems you are the creator of the term. I wish it a long life!)
I am sure there is already a word to describe that but I couldn't find it so I invented my own (I think). Thanks for reading and commenting.
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