Dear readers, you might have noticed of late that I’ve been updating this blog a lot less frequenly that usual, and not because there is a lack of news. On the contrary, there is an ever-growing backlog of archaeology stories from Southeast Asia that I have yet to post, but it has been increasingly hard to keep up!
When I started this blog 10 (!) years ago the internet was a different place. Back then, I used this blog to manually index all the news stories about Southeast Asian archaeology. Today, news is much more easily shared through social media. Combined with my day job at SEAMEO SPAFA, which keeps me pretty busy in the work of promoting research, education and capacity building in Southeast Asian archaeology, I have had less time to attend to this site regularly and I find that many of the news stories I have saved to post for later have already been shared.
No, I’m not taking the website down – I believe the site is still a great information resource, and on a personal level it has been an endeavour I am proud of. But the times have changed, and the way I run this site must change too. For a start, I will post news stories through the Facebook page and Twitter account – this will make the news more timely and frequent. So I encourage you to follow me on those channels. For those who prefer not to use those Facebook or Twitter, I will also put up a Facebook window on this site so that you can read the news without having to be a member of Facebook.
The site itself will be updated with posts that are less time-sensitive, what I call slow posts, such as calls for papers and upcoming conference notifications. These kinds of posts often get lost in the unending stream of news but they need some time to digest and respond to. I will also continue to update the resources page on the website, and maybe post the occasional drone video when it relates to something archaeological.
Moving the bulk of the news posts to Facebook and Twitter will keep to the original spirit of the site as an archive of archaeology news from the region. I’m open to other suggestions on how to make this website more useful to you in the future – leave a comment below or email me. Thanks again for following the Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog, and I hope to see and interact with you on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you Dr. Tan for sharing such useful information through your blog. I am a Doctoral Research Scholar from India and I have been following your blog since last three years. It has been of great help to me. I am researching on Khmer temples in Northeast Thailand, Phimai being my primary concern. Through your timely updates I get to know and learn about current trends and activities related to Southeast Asian art and archeology and I am very thankful to you for that.
Dear Noel Tan,
Many thanks for continuing to make available SE Asia info to those of us who staunchly refuse to join social media!
Carol Howland, author