#BlogArch – What now, Where next?

Another month, and another question in the blogging carnival being run by Doug’s Archaeology. The carnival allows archaeology-related blogs to participate in answering various questions about why and how the blogs are composed, and what experiences can be gained from running an archaeology blog. Whilst we’re not strictly an ‘archaeology’ blog we’ve been invited to participate thus far. Our earlier responses can be found here, here, and here. 

So, the last question of the festival has been set by Doug, as follows:

The last question is where are you/we going with blogging or would you it like to go? I leave it up to you to choose between reflecting on you and your blog personally or all of archaeology blogging/bloggers or both. Tell us your goals for blogging. Or if you have none why that is? Tell us the direction that you hope blogging takes in archaeology. Short and simple and I hope a good question to finish off #BlogArch with.

Ok, a short and sweet introspective answer:

There is no conscious plan for world domination! The Heritage Journal has grown organically, improving in content and visitors year on year, but we feel it has remained largely true to our original guiding principles. That is, to be a voice for the ordinary person concerned about damage to prehistory. We believe we fill a gap in the market in that respect, and have been quite successful in doing so to date.

Campaigns highlighted by us but largely orchestrated by others (Thornborough Henges and Silbury in the early days, Oswestry and Mynydd y Betws more recently) are what we envisaged early on, alongside our own crusades, and this has worked out well so far. Of course, we always welcome more articles from grass-roots contributors on topics within our remit, and within the current UK climate of budget cuts and more budget cuts to (mainly) line the pockets of the rich at the expense of our heritage, we shall continue to encourage and facilitate locally based campaigns to combat those threats where we feel we can have some measure of influence.

That is all. It’s been a pleasure taking part in the carnival Doug, and thanks for inviting us to participate. To read other blogs participating in the carnival, search Twitter for the hashtag #blogarch, or see Doug’s web site.