I never thought I’d be particularly attached to social networking sites.

I’ve never had much of a social network, for a start. And moving in my early twenties to a strange city one thousand kilometres away broke most of my established networks. So I was never really in the position where I was keeping in contact with hundreds of people across the globe.

And then I’ve never had much interest in that aspect of the Internet—I say, on my blog. But, then, this blog is really indicative of that shift in my thinking.

Prior to a couple of years ago, I regarded the Internet as a large, unwieldy, badly written and appallingly edited, mostly inaccurate encyclopaedia. That is, I went to it for information, which I then largely mistrusted. I never treated it as something to which I might contribute, or as somewhere I could go to interact with friends.

Of course, I was already reliant on e-mail, as the primary way of keeping in contact with students and colleagues. I know people—Kurt Vonnegut is one who springs to mind—complain about the impersonal nature of e-mail, but I think it’s fabulous: I once contacted a museum in England about possible access to some material—a nineteenth-century theatrical poster—in their collection, and received a reply e-mail with a high-resolution image attached three hours later. You won’t find me complaining about e-mail.

But I think it was really Pownce that changed my general attitude.

I came to Pownce fairly late compared to others in my social group—which, good little geeks that we are, had been using it on an invitational basis before it went public—but it rapidly became a site where I could keep up an intermittent chatter during the workday without actually interrupting my work to any great extent. As one friend said, it’s like sharing a virtual office with people you actually like.

But from Pownce it was a short step to Facebook. And I don’t regret my Facebook account: I keep my privacy settings locked down, don’t add any questionable applications, and limit my Friends list to people I actually know. (Although I don’t thank Facebook for turning “friend” into a verb—but the issue of verbing is a whole separate issue, for another post.) Facebook is the only way I keep in contact with a number of friends, and the primary way (apart from phone calls and reading each other’s blogs) that I keep in contact with my best friend: it’s easy and fun to send short messages through the day.

Plus, Facebook means Packrat, and we all know how I feel about Packrat.

With e-mail, Pownce, and Facebook already becoming part of a daily ritual, it was a short step to actually starting a blog. That’s a simplified explanation of the process, but largely accurate.

So now I have my webmail provider, Pownce, Facebook, and my blog open in my web browser each day. I don’t have to, of course—I could simply keep my browser closed until I need to Google something. But what’s the point of being socially networked if the network isn’t available?

But today—today I was going to be virtuous. And I was, largely; I wrote nearly one thousand words of a putative journal article on manipulation and verisimilitude in adapted plays on the nineteenth-century suburban stage.

But I was also enmeshed in the toils of the social network.

No significant e-mails came in today, but at one point this afternoon I was trying to map out a structure for the first part of the article, chatting to a friend via the instant-messaging function on Facebook (that ended abruptly: I may have offended him when I suggested that it was nonsense to say that a French-English dictionary was boring), taking part in a six-party discussion on Pownce about whether we can get a Dungeons and Dragons group together, and trying to attract Nick’s attention on another Pownce thread so he could buy me two volumes of a rare Victorian periodical that had suddenly popped up for sale on the American Book Exchange.

(Why, yes: I am a woman of varied tastes.)

Of course, if you’re reading this, chances are you were involved in one of those discussions, which is one of the downsides of being closely networked to a relatively small social group.

(Downside for you, I mean: I have no problem saying the same thing four different times, and will, in fact, talk to the furniture if there’s no one else available.)

Don’t get me wrong; I love my social network. A day when I can chat to so many people in so many different ways that I don’t have to hold an animated, if one-sided, discussion with an armchair is a good day.

But it does reinforce the perils of social-networking programmes: sometimes, if your self control is weak and your propensity for conversation strong, you just have to shut your browser down and work, bereft, outside the network for a while.

I’ve seen a couple of instances recently where it looks as though people are attempting to comment, but nothing’s coming through on the site.

Of course, it could be the site doing something funky on its own initiative. But we have had problems with the commenting function in the past and, of course, I’m a little concerned that this makes it look as though I’m failing to moderate comments—the comments are, in fact, one of my favourite aspects of having a blog.

I’m looking to set up a means of contacting me through the site if the commenting function throws another hissy fit, but in the meantime all I can recommend is to make sure that you hit “submit” when you comment, and not just “preview.”

I completely failed to notice my 100th post; it was, for the record, “Insanely Creepy Song Lyrics,” which I don’t really think was worthy of such a signal honour.

Still, at least it wasn’t the last post, about how annoying Nick’s been this evening.

I suppose I shall just have to celebrate the 200th entry, as I did the 200th comment.

My new hobby is repeatedly checking the viewer logs to this blog.

I like to see who’s reading.

And I like to see how people come across the Circulating Library, which means I’m particularly pleased by the Google searches that lead to this site.

A lot of them are searches for “circulating library,” but the readers don’t stay long; I assume they’re slightly disillusioned Victorian scholars.

One search was for “Eliza Winstanley,” which makes me think that I should talk a little more about my research and the fascinating woman who emerged over three years of work.

A number of searchers are Googling “shallow bookshelves”; I wonder if my father-in-law—who made my beautiful, book-swallowing, shallow bookcases—should consider taking on commissions?

Another searcher Googled “Marple: Ordeal By Innocence does not match the book”; I think they were disappointed by “If Only His Body Had Been Entirely Composed of Bees,” because they didn’t stay to read the rest of the site.

But my absolute favourite hit?

“Overcoming clumsiness.”

Now that’s how I want to be remembered on the Internet.

For some reason, I can access the administration pages and the site, but can’t open specific pages or comment.

Nevertheless, loyal readers (mostly Tim and Nick at the moment, bless you both), I am still pondering the role that the Marriage at Cana played in the nineteenth-century Temperance Movement(s) against the time when I can post comments again.

(I am also very tired, and would never otherwise have used the term “loyal readers” in cold blood.)

The other day I received an e-mail from my Visual Bookshelf application on Facebook, with the subject line “You’ve been reading ‘The Devil in the White City. . .’ for more than a week. Still true?”

I was quite content to answer the nosy questions that Facebook poses about my personal relationships, but I draw the line at the website critiquing the speed at which I read.