The diary was strong and complex. It covered two centuries, seven nations and four religions. It was written by a woman, who explored her horizons by expressing the wonder of her daily rhythm. Being private and public at the same time, it covered her world and her person. As it moved through time, it defined time in the process. Describing the world around her, she defined her own identity. Seeking and finding the perfect equilibrium between imagination and reality, the one defining the other, never to be separated. If ever published it could become a beast of a book, an all consuming tripledecker of the human universe. It was about love and death, about thinking and feeling and it was online&[1]

Online Diaries and Websites on Egodocuments.

One autumn day in October 2000, in a train speeding north from Paris, a man was working on his lecture for a conference on Egodocuments in Rotterdam. He had just published a book about diaries, computers and the internet.[2] And now he was wondering: 'Ma communication sur "Cher écran" va détonner. Un phénomè qui n'a pas cinq ans d'âge! Raison de plus pour être solide.'[3] All the other contributions to the conference seemed to have the classic European Culture and its egodocuments as a subject. But he plans to speak about the computer and the internet, drawing comparisons between classic and online diaries. We can read about his feelings on the conference and on his lecture in his own online diary. This diary gives a unique insight into his feeling and thinking that no formal lecture or paper can ever hope to achieve. And as it is online, we do not have to wait until some researchers find it in long forgotten archives. It must be clear by now that it is Philipe Lejeune about whom we are talking. He was the first who extended research on egodocuments and especially diaries from the archives to the internet, discovering the many online diaries.

'Online diaries have come a long way since the beginning of the Internet. They started out with a few individual people writing their diaries online just to have a Web site or just to have a place to keep it where their family

would not be able to get their hands on it and read it. They have now evolved into long stories that are public for all to see. Sometimes even friends and family are invited to come read it. This can cause conflicts at

times but the author of the diary has to determine whether that is something they are willing to put up with. Some of the online diaries are really not any more personal than a site about family. Others, though, are so intimate that they have to have a warning on them. '.

To quote just one observation on one of the more reflective websites on online diaries.[4] There are many such sites, portals to literally thousands of online diaries and journals. I have assembled several of these here (see below), but there are without any doubt many, many more. They point to vast vistas of unknown personal worlds.

To give one example, Sare' expressing the need to be who I am'

'So, how do I go about this, hmm? I've tried, many times over, to write a journal and to stick to it loyally. I can't. This project will probably end in about two weeks - if not two days. If nothing else, I want to teach myself patience enough to sit down and write about what I'm feeling, what I'm doing. Perhaps it'll help me understand why I feel the need to be who I am.[5]

For diaries this is the best of times. At no other time in history have so many diaries been written and read by so many people in such a short time, using the centuries' old formats of writing about oneself in a medium that is younger than most of the authors themselves. Though I did not do any systematical counting yet, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that there are more diaries online now, than can be found in all the archives neatly preserved as the harvest of many centuries. Perhaps, even more diaries are being written today on the internet, than in all the long centuries before man came online put together. Online diaries are only the latest stage in the long and slow process of developing and defining the identity and individuality of a person in contrast to a seemingly ever faster change of the human and non-human environment he or she experienced as a phenomenon apart from himself during the last two dozen decades. And that accelerating change did not stop in the last decade with the appearance of internet, on the contrary!

Online diaries are therefore a booming business and they are, as remarked above, merely the latest expression of the diary, or broader, the egodocumental movement that started some centuries ago. As in earlier egodocuments, there is a dialectical swing between private and public audiences, between classic, intimate and personal diaries and businesslike descriptions of uneventful daily rhythms. Between diaries written for only one reader sometimes locked with lost keys[6] and published diaries with an audience of many thousands. And the former ones are not always the most intimate, nor are the published ones necessarily the more impersonal.

Writing is assuming to be read, assuming an audience, a 'pact' between writer and reader, to paraphrase Phillipe Lejeunes terminology of the 'pacte autobiographique' .[7] It is supposing a community where writer and reader understand each other ("I write about myself, and you, 'reader' know and understand that I, 'writer', am writing from my own personal perspective).

As Steve' says in his online journal:

'Mere, unpolished and uncensored everyday words. Perhaps it's just a diary. Perhaps it's more. Within, I reveal, react, remember and rant. From day to day, it may be a humor column, a soapbox, a confessionary, or a balcony for reflective soliloquy. Though it be madness, there is a method to it. There is a reason, somewhere between self-discovery and shameless vanity, behind all this. I cannot name it, but I humbly invite you to share in the harvest. To be honest, I don't think I'll be putting out a FAQ in the near future, nor will I defame my friends with a who's who roster any time soon. In short, you'll have to pretend you know me well.[8]

This imagined community, virtual or not, can inspire you to express your thoughts, feelings and reflections. On the internet, the idea of that imagined virtual community is very strong. In principle everyone all over the world is connected with everyone else online. And the existing formats of diary, autobiography and other forms of egodocuments are now used in another environment. So it is no wonder that there are so many personal journals or diaries to be found on the internet. Sometimes with an exhibitionist need to express, sometimes hidden behind pseudonyms or nicknames. All possible variations can be found.

Here two characteristics of the internet meet, the first being the information flow and fast communication, bringing people together who share the same interests, and a second, less often mentioned characteristic, the possibility or even the need of expressing oneself.[9] In a virtual imagined community like the internet, the possibilities of communication and expression find each other hand in hand in happy harmony.

Neither of the two characteristics is new in itself, of course. We can compare the 19^th century diary of Abrahamina Clant with that of the cybergirl 'Spryte22' and find the same need for expression:

Thus writes Abrahamina Clant in her diary in The Hague in 1871: And still I cannot resist the need to put it all on paper'[10], and Spryte22' in Minnesota in 2001 . 'I need to express myself. I have so many thoughts flashing through my head at any given moment during the day (or night for that matter) that if I don't start writing them down, I could explode. No one wants to clean up that mess. [11]

The same need, but in a new medium with a potentially much bigger audience. Comparing the diaries and other egodocuments of the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th century, with those that appear (and disappear) in great numbers online, could be very enlightening for both groups. Understanding the differences and the similarities, analyzing the interactions between author and audience, reality and imagination, fact and fiction, private and public, in the different environments of writing diaries in manuscript at a desk or writing personal journals behind a personal computer online.

As a starting point for this kind of analyses, I have assembled a list of portal sites with links to online diaries, and to some diaries themselves. First, however, you can find a list of links to general sites on egodocuments and some primary sources to historical diaries that can now be read online.

[2] Lejeune, Philippe, « Cher Ecran&», Journal personnel, ordinateur, Internet, Paris, 2000.

[6] The diary of Cornelia Theodora Johanna van Assendelft de Coningh. Algemeen RijksArchief. Familie Archief Middelberg (2.21.232) 140. The key is not in the archive, so don't lock the diary or you will never be able to read it without destroying it first. Think of diaries hidden behind lost passwords as a parallel to the lost key.

[7] Lejeune, Philippe, Le pacte autobiographique, Paris, Seuil, 1975.

[9] See: Crystal, David, Language and the Internet, Cambridge, 2001. Crystal argues that the Internet is in fact enabling a dramatic expansion to take place in the range and variety of linguistic forms, and is providing unprecedented opportunities for personal creativity.' As the publisher, Cambridge UP, says.

[10] Abrahamina Clant in her diary. Algemeen Rijksarchief , Familie Archief Vosmaer (2.21.271) 279.