To celebrate ten years of the BARS Blog in August 2023, we asked the Blog’s founder, Matthew Sangster, for a few words on the origins of the blog! Matthew created the blog in 2013 when he took over as Website Officer.
The BARS Blog was originally set up in 2013 as a way of solving a problem with the old BARS website. With static news pages, it was necessary every so often to go in and either edit or delete older material to avoid content becoming bloated and confusing. This was time-consuming and meant that part of the archive of Romantic Studies was being erased. A blog seemed like a good solution to this problem. The way that blog posts are dated and arranged means that current news is obvious; older content sinks slowly into the depths of the archive, but remains available if anyone wants to look it up.
BARS also seemed well positioned to maintain an active blog. Many blogs start with good intentions, but end with the gaps between posts growing longer and longer before new posting ceases altogether. Having an associational blog with mixed forms of content submitted by different hands would, we hoped, create an active presence that was worth checking on regularly for interesting updates.
The technical set-up of the Blog has changed very little over the past ten years: it’s still a simple WordPress installation with a few plug-ins and themes added to prevent spam and to customise the appearance.
By contrast, the content of the Blog has developed considerably over the years. In the first days, it was just me posting links of interest and news sent to me by BARS members. However, I wanted to create more substantial posts to showcase new work from engaging perspectives. This led to the commencement of the Five Questions interview series, in which I invited people who had recently completed a major piece of research – typically, although not exclusively, a monograph – to reflect on their processes, assertions and conclusions. The series continues – we’re now approaching the one hundredth interview – and I’ve continued to enjoy working on it even after passing over the editorship of the blog (as always, please just drop me an email if you have a project you’d like to discuss).
The biggest expansion in content on the Blog can be attributed to Anna Mercer, who as Blog Editor and then Communications Officer for BARS brought in a wide range of further contributors and worked tirelessly to connect up Romanticists. Formats Anna introduced include On This Day posts, typically celebrating bicentennials, and the Archive Spotlight series, highlighting overlooked collections of Romantic-period materials. Anna did an amazing job growing and enriching the Blog, as the posts selected by her successor as Communications Officer, Amy Wilcockson, for this 10th anniversary series will demonstrate.
As it turns ten, the BARS Blog is the most popular part of the BARS website. Posting has fluctuated over the years, but has always remained regular, with nearly 900 posts created since I first tested the interface by posting Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem ‘Limbo’. I am very confident that in the hands of Amy and the newly-appointed Communications Assistants, it will continue to flourish.
Matthew Sangster