Tag Archives: blogging

Milestone: 400+ posts at AHP

General

AHP editor Jeremy Burman, January 2009Roughly one year ago, on 23 January 2008, I posted a progress report detailing our efforts leading up to the publication of AHP‘s 200th item.  At that time, I explained why I chose to use the word “advances” in the title of our blog (rather than “vection”).  I also thanked my partners in this endeavour, Jennifer Bazar and Dr. Christopher Green, for their continued enthusiasm and support.  Then I provided some statistics — the number of our subscribers (~100) and the number of inbound links from other sites (~100) — and listed some of our most popular items.

A great deal has happened since then.

Not only have we doubled the amount of our content (410 items with this post), but we have also moved to a new server, been named the best historical psychology blog on the web (as well as one of the best general psychology blogs and top brain-related blogs), and tripled the number of our subscribers to ~300.

In addition, since we upgraded our syndicator service and started tracking page views on 26 June 2008, the AHP servers at York University have served nearly 42,000 items to readers from around the world.  The short list of the most popular among these stories — what might be characterized as our “greatest hits” — provides a snapshot of their interests:

  1. Darwin and early American psychology (abstract, with related readings)
  2. History of sexual propaganda (link to resource)
  3. History of psychology job in Dublin (news)
  4. Presentism in the service of diversity? (moderated discussion)
  5. The history and future of bell-curve thinking (abstract, with links to related podcasts)
  6. Science journalism sucks (mostly) (link to opinion)
  7. Common errors in History of Psychology textbooks (commentary)
    Where has all the History gone? (from SHP listserv)
    Psychedelic Science (link to documentary)
  8. History of neuroscience in autobiography (link to resource)
  9. *Psychiatrist Radio-Host under investigation (continuing coverage, with links to news)
  10. Classics in the Historiography of Psychology: Tilly, 1990 (summary review) Continue reading Milestone: 400+ posts at AHP →

AHP named “best historical psychology blog”

Blogs, News

Jeremy Burman

PsyBlog, an enormously popular general interest psychology blog, recently updated their very helpful “Guide to Psychology Blogs.” I was, needless to say, more than pleasantly surprised to see AHP featured prominently in “Part 5.”

I am grateful its editor, Jeremy Dean, chose to include AHP in the same resource that I used a year ago to build our own blog roll. I also wanted to recognize the efforts of my supervisor, Chris Green, in making it possible. He has been tireless in his efforts to promote both the blog and, more generally, the history of psychology as a discipline. Also deserving of recognition for the achievement are Jenn Bazar (our occasional contributor) and Sarah Chun (from the Faculty Support Centre at York University).

But thank you most of all to you, our loyal readers. If you have suggestions for how we might further improve things, please feel free to comment below.

End-of-Term Upgrades to AHP

General

Jeremy BurmanThis week, for many, will bring with it the last class of the semester. At AHP, that has meant a few spare moments to finish some behind-the-scenes upgrading. Many of these changes won’t affect your experience of the site. But there are some new features that we hope will make it easier to use. (And more much powerful!)

If you get your news via subscription, you will immediately notice some new options at the end of every item: “Digg This!”, “Share on Facebook”, and either “Add a Comment” or “x comments on this item. Continue reading End-of-Term Upgrades to AHP →

Milestone: 200 posts at AHP

General, News, Opinion

Jeremy BurmanLast week, we reached a new milestone at AHP: 200 posts. Since my last note summarizing our continuing efforts, a number of things have changed. Indeed, the site has grown a lot since we launched it in May. But most important among these developments is the addition of our new contributor: Jenn Bazar, a fellow doctoral student who specializes in asylum history.

Several of Jenn’s contributions have been noticed by the larger community of bloggers. For example, her recent posting on the history of syphilis was linked to by the exemplary psychology blog Mind Hacks. And I have no doubt that her recent coverage of the ongoing discussion regarding the CIA’s influence on the history of psychology will garner similar attention.

I would also like to take a moment to thank my supervisor and collaborator, Chris Green, for his tireless efforts on the blog’s behalf. (In fact, Chris posted his 100th story a few days before I did!) Without his dedication to our experiment, I have no doubt that the site would not have become the resource it now is.

Before continuing on to provide the quantitative description of our recent activities, however, I would like to explain my choice of name. Friends, colleagues, and fellow bloggers have noted that the use of the term “Advances” is no longer de rigueur in history: it’s considered Whiggish, suggesting that every additional contribution somehow takes us closer to a “true” understanding of “what really happened.” That’s obviously not what I intended. Continue reading Milestone: 200 posts at AHP →

AHP is growing

Blogs, General, News

When I first raised the idea of developing a news site for historians of psychology, Chris Green (my collaborator at AHP and supervisor at York University) suggested setting a series of objective “go/no go” decision points.  If the site failed to meet any of these goals, we agreed that this would indicate that the work required to support it could not be justified by its impact.

But the site has exceeded our expectations.

We have recently averaged ~90 subscribers, with a general upward trend.  (Subscribe here.)  Non-subscriber traffic has also been both consistent and strong, averaging ~80 visitors per day from countries around the world.  (The most popular non-subscriber page is still the bibliography of recent histories of schizophrenia; the most popular subscriber page is the recent note about the role of history in Kuhn’s philosophy.)  We have been mentioned and linked-to 75 times by interested bloggers.  And, as Chris noted in a recent email to the listservs, we have received over 50 comments from “our hardy band of dedicated readers.”

We are also starting to get noticed within the profession: the Jean Piaget Society, for example, has added a link to the site on their resources page.  And we were recently featured in one of the discipline’s leading journals as a “notable internet resource.”

I am therefore pleased to announce the continued expansion of the site and — particularly — the addition of a new contributor: Jennifer Bazar. Continue reading AHP is growing →