Blogger as Curator: Brainpickings

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is a lot of information waiting to be found on the world wide web.  If only someone would take the time to pick out the most interesting things…
Oh wait, there are people that do that.  Many people.
It’s the curator approach to blogging.  Usually involving a blogger already tapped into a vast array of independent sources.  There are many examples, but rather than overwhelming you and ultimately needing a curator to curate the curations, we’ll stick to one very nice source, Brainpickings.

From the about page:

Brain Pickings is a discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.

I love Brainpickings and while I follow many blogs, I find myself reading, or in many cases experiencing, almost every Brainpickings’ post.
To many, the idea of republishing content created by others often sounds distasteful, if not unethical.  But curation and republication allow ideas to spread online.  With embedable media, like videos and infographics, reposting is often accepted practice.  Attribution is critical, but luckily the online format allows you to directly connect the republished work to the original content producer.  If thinking of curating a collection for your own blog, remember to keep an eye out for any copyright information and always attempt to track down the original source of any work.