Walt at Random

I didn’t attend the ACRL debate on information literacy. Several of those who did have had snarky things to say about it, apparently well deserved. Here’s a follow-up to an earlier post about the session at A Wandering Eyre–not to pick on Jane, but because she writes well and garnered some interesting comments. (The debate’s been debated elsewhere…)

I did go to the LITA debate on the future of search. And left after 15 minutes…

And then recalled that I’ve turned down more than one speaking invitation for a debate format, after accepting one such invitation (one of only three speeches I’ve done that I regard as failures).

I’m less hard-nosed than some. I’ll be on a panel, as long as it’s not a cry-and-response panel, and I’ve been the speaker being responded to by a panel (and don’t much care for it, not because I don’t like disagreement but because I don’t like being required to write a speech in advance and stick with what I wrote…but that requirement is almost essential for responders to work effectively).

The more I think about it, the more I think I just don’t care for debates as content programs. As carnivals/sideshows, sure; bring on the powdered wigs and gongs to cut off the speakers at the 3-minute mark. Cheer, boo, throw vegetables: Just don’t think you’re communicating meaning or changing anyone’s mind.

Actually, for me, this should come as no surprise. I was never a football player (as anyone who’s seen me could guess), but I spent four years in the NFL–the National Forensic League, that is. That’s the high school public speaking association, a good place for geeks like me to spend weekends. I “topped out” point eligibility in debate, impromptu, and extemp, which means I did a lot of debating. And what struck me as the years went on was that NFL debate is a great way to train value-neutral lawyers: That is, you’re required to be equally effective in arguing for and against a set proposition. Crucial to doing that is not believing either side. (One year, I used the same very effective anecdote on both sides of the same issue. That was the year I realized that treating debate as anything other than a stunt was demeaning my personal ethical sense.)

Maybe it’s just me, but maybe not. Disagreement can be good. Serious discussion can, rarely, change minds: I’ve changed my mind thanks to informed discussion. But debates? I think they’re artificial, tend to force extreme positions, and are valuable only as entertainment, not when there’s something serious to be said. At least that’s been my recent experience.

[Not that anyone was planning to in any case, but I guess this serves as a warning that you shouldn't invite me to participate in a debate. I'll turn you down.]

I swapped out a “selective blogroll” quite a while ago, in favor of the “Blogs I read” link in the right-hand column. That link brings up the public portion of my Bloglines subscriptions, which is about 99% of my total Bloglines set.

If you happen upon that link over the next few weeks, the results may seem more bizarre than usual–and more variable than usual. I wouldn’t be surprised if the list swelled to 400 or 500 entries at some point.

No, I haven’t suddenly gone blog-crazy (or more so than usual). If anything, I have less time for blog-reading: As of yesterday, I’m back to full-time work from the 75% time imposed last fall.

What’s happening is the lengthy process of data gathering for “Looking at Liblogs,” this year’s version of “Investigating the Biblioblogosphere.”

Right now–starting Sunday and, I hope, ending today [we don't do road trips on long weekends, and I was at work yesterday anyway] or tomorrow–I’m gathering candidates. This year’s version is going to be very different from last year’s (not hierarchical for one thing, and a few people have opted out, for another), and one major difference is that I’m looking at “the great middle,” excluding not only blogs with the fewest Bloglines subscribers but also those with the most Bloglines subscribers.

I’ve already made the first cut, based on checking total Bloglines subscribers for the 240 candidate blogs already in my Bloglines set, assuming that–at least at the high end–these are representative of the field as a whole. ["The field" is roughly as defined last year: Blogs by individual library people and small groups of library people, excluding "official" blogs from libraries, clearly sponsored blogs, and large group blogs.] The current version of Bloglines makes it much easier to estimate total subscriptions, as the subscription window shows counts for each feed Bloglines can identify. (I exclude comment feeds, and if there are more than half a dozen non-comment feeds, I may give up and just take the highest group.)
After determining the apparent subscription count for those 240 candidates (which may or may not have included some that have opted out; that’s irrelevant to this initial calculation), I looked at a first cut in two different ways: the top and bottom 10% in real terms, and the top and bottom 10% in normalized-subscription terms. (That is: For the second cut, I did a quick pivot table on the Bloglines #, thus collapsing multiple cases of a single number.)

I took the outer limit in both cases–actual blogs for the lower limit, # of subscriptions for the upper limit.

Now I’m doing the second pass, checking blogs that I wasn’t already subscribing to in three different sources, although I don’t anticipate picking up much past the first new source. The sources: The LISWiki Weblogs page; then the Open Directory Libraries page (if there are any new ones there); then the Pubsub libraries list (again, if there’s anything new left).

For any blog that’s had at least one post since February 2006, that meets my other criteria, and that has between 16 and 689 Bloglines subscriptions, I’m subscribing and jotting down the subscription total. Then, I’ll do a second cut, since the first cut will clearly leave more blogs than I can possibly deal with.

So the link will yield an ever-growing list, which will include some blogs that aren’t candidates. Then, the list will shrink somewhat, until I start the second, much more extended portion of the data gathering (looking at other reach measures, then looking at metrics for the blog). I’ll delete blogs (or make them private) little by little during that process. Chances are, I’ll wind up with more subscriptions than I started out with.

Note that this year I’m including non-English blogs, at least initially. I may not be able to describe the blogs as well, but this year’s project may not include much descriptive material anyway.

One wholly unanswered question at this point: How I’ll arrange the blogs for the article itself. It won’t be by apparent reach. Alphabetical also favors certain bloggers (not me, to be sure!). Since the article won’t appear until mid-August or later, I can figure that out a whole lot later.

Meanwhile, happy 4th of July to all readers (except those for whom it’s already the 5th). It may be a holiday in the U.S., but it’s the 4th of July everywhere, right?

Oops: Two things I’d intended to mention:

• Early and maybe unsurprising finding: If given the choice, Bloglines users–at least library types–tend to prefer Atom feeds to other RSS feeds.
• Turns out I have a lot more subscribers here than I realized…336, where I was counting 137.

They Call It Murder, 1971, color, Walter Grauman (dir.), Jim Hutton, Lloyd Bochner, Jo Ann Pflug, Edward Asner, Jessica Walter, Leslie Nielsen, Vic Tayback. 1:35

Based on an Erle Stanley Gardner story, this appears to be a pilot for a show featuring Jim Hutton as a DA—but not Ellery Queen. Apart from the fine cast, it’s a well-done murder mystery with enough red herrings to keep it interesting. Good picture and sound. $1.75.

Firehouse, 1973, color, Alex March (dir.), Richard Roundtree, Michael Lerner, Paul Le Mat, Richard Jaeckel, Andrew Duggan, Vince Edwards. 1:14

Roundtree plays the first black in a New York firehouse—replacing a firefighter who died in a fire set by black arsonists. Roundtree’s character lets a black arsonist get away at one point, which doesn’t help matters. A great cast, but the script doesn’t work nearly as well as it could. $1.25.

James Dean, 1976, color, Robert Butler (dir.), Michael Brandon, Stephen McHattie, Brooke Adams, Katherine Helmond, Meg Foster, Amy Irving, Jayne Meadows, Heather Menzies. 1:34.

Michael Brandon plays William Bast, an actor who was Dean’s roommate; Bast wrote the biopic and Brandon narrates. While lauding Dean’s acting ability, the picture certainly doesn’t whitewash his character issues. The only reason this doesn’t get a full $2 is some sound distortion early in the flick. Well done, worth watching. $1.75.

Moon of the Wolf, 1972, color, Daniel Petrie (dir.), David Janssen, Barbara Rush, Bradford Dillman. 1:15.

David Janssen makes a great upstanding sheriff in a Louisiana bayou town, coping with odd murders and a town that’s distinctly Upper Crust and Everyone Else—and the returned-home daughter of the Upper Crust family has eyes for him, which her patrician brother doesn’t appreciate. Good cast, well acted, a little talky but compelling, good picture and sound. I’m giving it full value despite one slightly implausible running plot issue: The half-crazed dying old man keeps saying something like “lukearuke,” and nobody recognizes what he’s saying until the upper-crust lady visits him and hears “loupe garou,” which is to say “werewolf,” which [SPOILER] is, of course, who’s been doing the murders. Maybe back in the 1970s, you could reasonably assume that Cajuns wouldn’t recognize that word. I picked it up the first time I heard “lukearuke,” and I sure don’t speak French—but then, I had the title of the TV movie as a clue. $2.