Someone sent me a list of Harvard blogs to prove that there are, in fact, more than two Harvard profs who blog.

Here it is:

Econ prof Greg Mankiw
Jeffrey Nesson’s cyberlaw blog
John Palfrey’s Berkman Center blog
Jonathan Zittrain’s blog (arguably doesn’t count, as it is Oxford-branded)
Toby Stock’s HLS admissions blog
The Kennedy School Library blog (last updated, last November)*

That’s six. Blogs. At Harvard.

Surely there must be more. (And in fact there are.)

Just out of curiosity, I Googled “Stanford university” and “blog” and got a ton of relevant hits—and the blogs there are really interesting.

For example:

The World Association of International Studies economics blog
The Stanford University Libraries Blog
The Stanford Social Innovation Review blog
A whole bunch of blogs at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society
Lawrence Lessig’s blog
The Stanford University Press blog
A whole bunch of blogs at the Stanford School of Medicine

I could go on and on, but you get the point. The institution of the blog seems to have taken deeper root at Harvard’s west coast rival than it has in Cambridge.

Why are so many more people blogging at Stanford than at Harvard? Is it because Stanford appreciates the Net in a way that Harvard does not? Because Harvard’s professors are older than Stanford’s and don’t get this newfangled technology? Is it because Harvard doesn’t foster a climate where the free exchange of opinions and ideas is encouraged, but is instead discouraged and punished? Is it because Harvard’s culture resists change?

Not to pat myself on the back, but why is it that the most topical blog about life at Harvard is written by someone who neither goes there nor works there?
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* A poster informs that the Kennedy School library blog can be found here, and has been recently updated. Thanks for the info.