Walt at Random

A week ago Friday, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of academic librarians in Southern California, as the lead speaker in a most-of-the-day set of presentations on publishing for librarians. This isn’t about my talk. It’s about what I picked up from some of the other speakers–specifically academic librarians who had significant publication track records.

One of them said flat-out that when people ask her what she does, she says she’s a writer. Then, after that, she’s a librarian (and other things). I believe one of the other speakers said something similar, either in their presentation or in informal discussion. It struck me even at the time that I’ve never identified myself as a writer first or primarily. It’s something I do on my own time; it’s not my life. Which may have something to do with the semi-random writing “career” I’ve had and failure to capitalize on possible opportunities (or, you might opine, failure to become a truly Significant Writer).

I’m also thinking about the “why I blog” comments–those I discussed in Life Trumps Blogging and some I’ve seen since. Some of them are based on the blogger’s sense of always or primarily being a writer. In the context of those statements, I commented that–although I hadn’t thought about it–I’ve always been pretty good at writing and “can’t imagine not writing for an extended period.”

Apparently my imagination is suffering memory loss.

Look at the record (some of it not on the record, to be sure), and combining speaking to audiences with writing as two forms of formal communication:

• Throughout high school, I was active in the National Forensic League (debate, impromptu, extemporaneous speaking–never service-club speeches and never oral interpretation of other people’s words). I graduated from high school in 1962 (part of the American Graffiti class; George Lucas was a classmate). The next time I spoke to a group except on a few minor work occasions and as part of a two-person sketch was 1987, 25 years later. So much for public speaking as something I just do…
• In the junior year of high school, a group of us (I’m not sure how I was involved, since I’ve never been social and was particularly an outcast in high school) were so disgusted with the high school newspaper that we founded an independent, typeset, ad-supported alternative, etc (I think), which lasted a few issues (after the school principal concluded that the school couldn’t shut it down and, since almost everyone involved was an Honors student, would be ill-advised to try).
• The next year, that bunch basically took over the high school newspaper and turned it into a prize-winning publication. I was features editor and wrote a regular column. Through much of college, I edited and mostly wrote in-house papers for the co-op I lived in, probably up until 1966 or so. (Hey, it was a better way to fulfill the five-hours-per-week work requirement of the co-op than cleaning communal bathrooms, which I also did at least one semester.)
• But after that: One article in 1976. A written version of the sketch in 1979. One minor publication each in 1980 and 1981; two publications in 1983 (one article, one minor piece). Then, in 1984, came “Common sense personal computing” (a single article that somehow turned into a 15-year series), MARC for Library Use (an “accidental book” that was the first of 14, to date), and–a year later–starting out as editor of LITA Newsletter

So, realistically, I didn’t write anything for “serious” publication between 1962 and 1976, nothing at all other than internal documents from 1966 to 1976, and no real “track record” between 1962 and 1984–22 years.

Late bloomer? Maybe. Or maybe I’m not really a dedicated, compulsive writer.

In fact, “I can’t imagine not writing for an extended period” is an untruth.

When people stop wanting to read Cites & Insights (i.e., when apparent readership drops below some number, perhaps 100), I’ll stop.

When people stop wanting to read “Walt at Random” (or when I run out of things to say), I’ll shut it down or let it die of disuse.

It’s possible that people have pretty much stopped wanting to hear me speak–and that turns out to be surprisingly OK.

And as for columns, books, and other outlets: They could continue for decades to come–or they could disappear in a year or two.

In other words, I’m a person who frequently writes and sometimes speaks. I’m also a person who loves to read and has about a 30-year backlog of books waiting to be read (at the library, to be sure), who loves music and doesn’t spend enough time with it, who enjoys nature, who occasionally loves to travel, who enjoys TV, and who–first and foremost–loves his wife and the time they spend together. If the writing went away, the rest would fill up the gap.

Shocking, but there it is.

Just a semi-political post, possibly more meaningful to Californians than others.

The bad news: Better than $300 million was wasted on a wholly pointless special election ($50 million of that from the state budget; not $80 million, because lots of cities had elections anyway).

The good news: $7 million of that was the Governator’s money.

The bad news: Prop. 79, the consumer-oriented prescription discount plan, was defeated even worse than Prop. 78, the pharma-oriented stalking horse to undo Prop. 79.

The good news: Both of them were defeated soundly. Maybe prescription drug prices are out of control, but the initiative process is a lousy way to fix that–just as it’s a lousy way to do most things.

The really good news: Eight up, eight down. Every single proposition was defeated. Those that Ahnold was most heavily involved with were among the most soundly defeated–and his idea that the governor should directly control state spending went down big time.

I hear they’re thinking about a sequel to Howard the Duck, with a muscleman (who, after unseating a governor who spent too much time fundraising, managed to spend even more time fundraising) as star: Arnold the Lame Duck.

PS: I’m not entirely against electing actors as politicians. Clint Eastwood was apparently a pretty good mayor of Carmel, and Sheila Kuehl may be doing a great job as a state Senator (Zelda in the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, if you have a long memory).

Update, Thursday, November 10: According to this morning’s paper, Arnold’s “people” now say that the election results don’t show that Californians don’t favor Arnold’s “reform” ideas–just that they didn’t like having a special election.

Right.

First, that raises the question of who shoved a special election down California’s throat. That would be one Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Second, that raises the question of just how much advertising, editorializing, or politicking involved “the election is a bad idea” once it was clear that Arnold wouldn’t back off on blowing $50-$80 million on it. Which basically comes down to Zero: Once the election was a fait accompli, attention turned to the issues.

Know who’s happy about this election? TV stations. They got to charge top price, since these weren’t candidate ads, and there were a lot of them…

Quickies on a Saturday morning after a 48-hour absence from the net. (I was speaking at Cal State Northridge, opening the CARL-SEAL program “Hot off the press: Insider’s tips for successful publishing”–and thoroughly enjoyed it.)

• At some point during the day (probably during my scattershot opening speech), I noted that, in my opinion, a very high percentage of library-related blogs are worthwhile, and aggregation makes it plausible to keep up with lots of them. (I noted Sturgeon’s Law, “90% of everything is crud,” although I used the more common version ending in “rap” instead of “rud” and argued that while it’s probably true for blogs in general, I don’t think it holds for the biblioblogosphere. I also noted that I currently track 216 library blogs and anticipated that, after being away for 48 hours, I’d find 150 to 200 (I hope I said “to 200″) posts waiting for me, which would take half an hour to an hour to scan. The actual number is 238, and it may take a little longer. Still, 238 in two days is manageable.
• Dorothea Salo thought there might be enough Google Print books to make an egosurf worthwhile. So, of course, I did just as she says: “(Oh, shut up. If you haven’t already done it, you’re going to as soon as you finish reading this post. Maybe sooner.)” I was astonished by the result (none of my books are there, but…), even after adding quotes around the name to eliminate all those mentions of people named Crawford who work for Walt Disney, etc. 26 books, most of which I’ve never heard of… No, I haven’t gone back to look at the snippets yet…
• I was encountering a slow but annoying stream of spamments, all of them trapped by WordPress but requiring modification to report as spam. Today I find 44. So, reluctantly, I’ve had to add yet another word to the total blacklist, relating to a game I’ve even discussed in posts…

Hey, I said it was random.

Updates a day later:

It took me 55 minutes to go through the blogs–but that included the time to make comments on two of them and the time to scan LISNews as well. I think I found 15 posts that were “keepers”–ones I’d print out for possible reflection later. But quite a few others were informative, entertaining, or both.

Some clarification on “26″ above. I checked a little more. Most of those–at least two-thirds–really only include me as a co-author; they comment on or include citations for Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness and Reality. Two are books that include chapters or contributions from me. That doesn’t really leave much, and that’s as I’d expect. Note, of course, that (as with Dorothea, I believe), these are all from the publisher-based Google Print program, not the Google Print Library Program.

Here’s a strange one, mixed in among the usual daily crapola of Important Security Messages from PayPal and a bunch of banks that I have no affiliation with…

(The ones that are clearly nonsense I delete before opening. Notes email client is helpful with the PayPal and others where I do have a relationship: When your cursor is over the link they want you to click on, the actual address shows on the bottom of the screen; saves having to show source…)

So here’s one “from PayPal” today, with two links, both supposedly secure links to units of PayPal.

The actual links are identical, and of course aren’t secure. But, instead of being some .kr or .ch or IP number or “pseudo-PayPal” (with “PayPal” coming after the domain name)…both links are to www.yahoo.com. Nothing more.

I wonder just what the phishers hope to accomplish by getting me to look at Yahoo?

(Not that incompetence in computer fraud is anything new: After all, some of the biggest virus/worm problems arose because the crackers didn’t know what they were doing.)

A special Mid-Fall 2005 issue of Cites & Insights (5:13) is now available. (Well, Fall begins September 22 and ends December 20; November 1 is about as “mid” as you can get.)

This 20-page issue consists of two Perspectives:

• Life Trumps Blogging (pp. 1-4), which is most definitely a pro-blogging essay, but recognizes priorities.
• Library Futures, Media Futures (pp. 4-20), which combines my comments on Blake Carver’s LISNews “Libraries and Librarians In A Digital Future: Where Do We Fit?” essay; excerpts and comments from and on “Jeremy, Dan, Luke, and Walt,” a multiway e-conversation about the future (yes, the Perspective includes last names for everyone); and some notes about other voices on media and library futures.

Update November 2:
Jeremy Frumkin correctly points out that I miskeyed the URL for his blog, and would be happier if I pointed out the specific links to the two posts discussed in the second essay above.

The Digital Librarian is at http://digitallibrarian.org (with an “a” in digital; Jeremy can spell, even if I can’t).

The two posts discussed are: 5 years? and Follow-up on 5 years.

Later today, the HTML version of the essay will be modified to add hotlinks for those two posts (and to correct the spelling of the blog’s address), and–although my standard policy is to not make myself look better by fixing errors once publication has occurred–I’ll probably correct the spelling in the PDF version as well.

My apologies for the error and vague citations.

I have a formatting question about this issue, specifically the monster essay. In order to make it fit, I used 9.5-on-11.5 point Berkeley Book for quoted excerpts instead of the 10-on-12 point that I usually use (body text is 11 on 13). Is this too small for comfortable readability? If people generally say it’s OK, I may leave it that way…

[Yes, you can pick up either Perspective as an HTML separate from the home page--but if you plan to print at all, please use the PDF. The second Perspective in HTML form requires more paper all by itself than the whole issue in PDF, and it's nowhere near as readable, in my opinion. Hey, I paid good money for Berkeley Book...]

Predicted arrival date for what should be a slightly more “normal” December issue: No earlier than November 17, no later than December 1. How’s that for precision?

A funny thing happened on the way to the December Cites & Insights.

Finished the November issue in mid-October. Check. Posted it. Check. Took a couple of days to clean up the pieces (updating the volume index, etc.) and look at the burgeoning folders for future issues. Check.

Sort-of figured out what I’d probably write about for December: A piece (most likely a big piece) on the Open Content Alliance and Google Print Library Project, including some ©2 issues–that’s the thickest folder. Maybe a ©3 essay: Second thickest folder. After an interesting multiway email exchange, it seemed likely that I’d do a followup on the Net Media Perspective, probably a “mea culpa” (turns out I’m not in a good position to judge the presence or absence of Established Voices within the biblioblogosphere).

Two perspectives that I knew I wanted to write: A relatively short one on “Life Trumps Blogging” (no, I didn’t originate the term–a bunch of Christian/Bible bloggers were using “Real life trumps blogging” in 2002/2003, but I didn’t know about any of that) and another one about library and media futures, finally offering my comments on Blake Carver’s “Where do we fit?” essay at LISNews.

I started out with the last one. And wound up with around 16,000 words. Typically, a 22-page issue has room for around 16,300 words, and I definitely wanted the last issue of the year to be reasonably well-balanced, with four to seven pieces. Well, that wasn’t going to work.

So I set it aside and wrote the “Life Trumps Blogging” perspective. That went well, and came in at around 2,800 words–a good length.

I set both of them aside and wrote two columns with late November or early December deadlines–the next “PC Monitor” for Online and the next “disContent” for EContent.

Then I tried to cut the “Library Futures, Media Futures” perspective down to size (6,000 words at most). And utterly failed. Even though, reading through it, I can see that it will probably make me even less in demand as a hot speaker and more subject to the kind of dismissive “Luddite” / “curmudgeon” labeling that seems to pass for argumentation in some blogs these days.

So, with a mild amount of trepidation…well, see the next post. Addition: “Next” chronologically, which means you’ve probably already read it.

We live in a neighborhood with lots of kids (all of them pretty well-behaved, possibly because there’s a great local school system, possibly because it’s a real neighborhood, possibly because the working parents care about their kids).

So, of course, even though we don’t do Xmas decorations, we do at least minimal Halloween decor (just a big spider web and a skeleton, but we’ll look for those 5-foot spiders next year…), and we do have an adequate supply of candy to last 6 to 9 p.m. or so. (And we have a stupid “scary sounds and stories” CD, obviously digitized from an old stupid scary sounds LP with no extras–it’s one 57 minute cut, but it was cheap; we play it when kids are at the door.)

And, being sensible folks, we buy candy that we like; in this case, one of Target’s medium-sized bags each of M&Ms, KitKat bars, and Reese’s Cups. (”Medium-sized” equals 28 to 36 snack-size servings.) My wife–who doesn’t much care for candy, really–sometimes likes M&Ms, sometimes Reese’s; I have a fondness for KitKat, but only eat them in early November…

But my wife has also taken to eading Lindt bittersweet chocolate bars, one bar over the course of a week or so, and I’ve found my perfect level of chocolate–Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate (from Belgium, 58% cocoa solids, three 1.75oz. bars for $1.29; I eat one-quarter of a bar each workday, 57 calories worth).

So last night, we do the usual (the wife wears an all-black outfit and has a witch’s hat; I hang around in the background; we put a flashlight-lighted plastic pumpkin in the front window), drawing a pretty good crowd. The kids really go for KitKat, digging through the other two candies in some cases (offered in another plastic pumpkin)… But we wound up with maybe five KitKats, three Reese’s, and six or eight M&Ms. So I figured I’d have one KitKat last night and keep two for later (we take the rest in to work…where they disappear rapidly). She figured she’d have one Reese’s and save two or three for later.

A funny thing happened to both of us. We didn’t enjoy the treats. They were just too sickeningly sweet.

Who woulda thunk it?