Walt at Random

These comments apply only to my own situation. For you, Twitter may be wonderful.

Some of you have already figured out that I’m sort of an introvert, with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances but not too many that I strive to keep up with on a minute-by-minute (or week-by-week) basis. That I enjoy getting together with people at ALA (and occasionally other conferences) but don’t go to great pains to make that happen–and am perfectly comfortable dining by myself.

I’m clearly not the world’s greatest social-network participant, by personality or preference. I probably still have an Orkut account and haven’t been back in more than a year. I probably have a Second Life avatar and have no idea what my name or password are. I dropped out of Ning (Library 2.0 and library bloggers) because it just didn’t work for me–I wasn’t able or willing to spend the time there, and its slowness and confused interface didn’t help a lot.

Or at least I think I dropped out of Ning. I haven’t been back to check; for all I know, I may still have a page there. More about that in a bit.

Twitter? In general, I can’t imagine why anyone would care what I’m doing at any given time. But…well, the use of Twitter to get together during a conference seemed at least plausible. And, breaking with my long tradition of traveling entirely without technology, I’d picked up a cheap text-oriented cell phone (with what may be the world’s smallest QWERTY keyboard) on a Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go basis, with a $10/1,000 text message package…if only so I could contact people I was talking to about future contract or job possibilities. So I thought I’d sign up for Twitter just to see if it would be helpful during ALA. And, after using it (Web-based) a few days prior, cut back “friends” (I’m getting to hate that overused word for people I’ve never met and never really talked to, but who feel some vague connection) to those who I thought would be at ALA.

I didn’t keep the phone on all the time–I just can’t deal with that level of connectedness–but I made a point of checking it at least every hour or two, and did send out Twitters when I was going to be in one place for a while.

My conclusion? For me, for this equipment and service plan, for this type of conference, it’s a flat-out failure. Here’s why:

• One or two of the dozen “friends” was, shall we say, Twitter-happy, with what seemed like an endless flood of little messages. I’m seeing that elsewhere; in one case, where a liblogger is having twitters posted as blog posts, I’m about ready to unsubscribe.
• I don’t know whether it’s Twitter, Virgin Mobile, or the way I was using it, but I got messages in big clumps, sometimes a day or more after they’d been sent. For a while, it appeared that I wouldn’t get any messages until I sent one; I’m still not sure what was actually happening. In any case, this made the tool useless as a “gathering” system: Knowing where someone was yesterday is not real helpful.
• Maybe it’s different at a small or very specialized conference, but there just weren’t any instances in which my “friends” and I had any reason to meet up that Twitter helped with. A lot of that may be because I don’t have that circle of people I want to get together with as often as possible.

The cell phone itself proved useful primarily because of my little 36-hour travel problem (which, after reading Michael Golrick’s ordeal, I realize was only a little problem): It was nice to be able to keep my wife informed without coping with a cell phone, and I even called the airline once or twice to help things along. Naturally, the phone started losing charge halfway through the adventure…

So I came back and immediately set my Twitter account to “web only.” Recharged the phone. Didn’t use it on Thursday. Canceled our Cingular account (which we’d already planned to do). When my wife wanted minimal instructions on the Kyocera/Virgin Mobile phone (we now have two sick cats instead of one, and we’re still not sure what’s going on with the younger one), as soon as I turned it on I started getting a flood of Twitter messages…even though I’d cleared it after resetting the account. I think all the messages were from late Tuesday and the first half of Wednesday; I’m not sure, since I was just deleting them. (For some reason, the phone’s “erase all messages” feature doesn’t actually do anything. I think they’re taking lessons from the social software people.)

Again: for you it may be brilliant. For me it’s the wrong medium, either on the web or on the go–and the last thing I want is various hunks of text that aren’t even real messages from real people!

So here’s the coda, at least for now: I logged on to Twitter, said I wanted to erase my account, went through the “Are you sure?” step, clicked on the appropriate button…

and was taken back to my home page.

Did the process again. Signed out. Was able to sign back in and there’s the same#*!@% home page again.

Sent a help message, basically saying “Is there any way to actually leave Twitter?” We’ll see what response I get.

And this morning, checking email, there’s another new “friend” on Twitter–friending an account that should not even be there.

This seems to be typical of (some) social software applications, and certainly helps them claim very large usage numbers. It’s the Hotel California syndrome–you can check out any time you like, but you can never really leave. I think it stinks; I’m tempted to sue a five-letter word beginning with “f” and ending with “d,” but I won’t for the moment.

If you’re a Twitterer who doesn’t read this blog and you’ve “friended” or “followed” me–well, here’s why you’re not getting any reciprocity. I’m not really there and don’t intend to return. Don’t be insulted. (In any case, why on earth would you be friending me on Twitter if you don’t read my blog?)

If you’re one who does want to follow me both places, I won’t be there; I will be here. (Assuming sick cats, job issues, etc. don’t completely take over my life, which isn’t an entirely safe assumption.)

This post probably makes me sound antisocial. Sorry about that. Fact is, we each have different levels of tolerance for interruption and need for connectedness. I find email, blogs, face-to-face conversations and (for now) Meebo rooms to be connecting at my level. I found Twitter to be enormously distracting and not at all useful, for me, in these circumstances.

It’s an odd milestone, particularly given the circumstances–a reader informing me that I’m writing (at C&I) about matters that are unworthy of my time–but this blog just got its 2,000th comment (excluding spam, to be sure). And I’ll just leave it at that.

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large v.7, issue 8 (July 2007) is now available for downloading.

The 26-page issue (PDF as usual, but essays other than My Back Pages are available in HTML form) includes:

• Perspective: Pew Do You Trust? – “Pew Internet & American Life owes me an apology.”
• ©1: Term and Extent – PermaCopyright and other extremes, including my Modest Proposal for permanent copyright for truly original works
• Making it Work – Commentary on personal balance and library service balance.
• Interesting & Peculiar Products – Six products (and product groups) and another six Editors’ Choices/Best Buy roundups.
• Library Access to Scholarship – more of the “opposition literature” and notes about money.
• My Back Pages – seven snarky little mini-essays, exclusive to whole-issue readers.

Two quick notes: This was all written before ALA Annual (but with some touchup work and copyfitting done this week)–and there’s nary a word about my own future plans.

I discussed the lead essay in the forthcoming July 2007 Cites & Insights with some of you during ALA, noting that the issue was basically written, just needed a little more trimming and editing, and would probably come out the day after I got back from DC–which, presumably, would be today.

I still hope to publish the issue the day after I get back from DC. But that turns out to be tomorrow. After decades of luck in avoiding snowin during Midwinter, my luck ran out (at least a little bit) with a different sort of weather problem. To wit, I got to San Jose International Airport today at about 1 p.m. PDT–roughly 33.5 hours after leaving the Grand Hyatt in Washington to catch a shuttle to Dulles. I expected to get home around 3 p.m. Tuesday; instead, I got home around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

I’m sure some of you have experienced worse–heck, you may even be experiencing worse as I write this. My brief chronology:

• 6:20 a.m. Tuesday 6/26: Shuttle to Dulles, reaching airport at around 7 a.m.
• 9:30 a.m.: American flight to DFW takes off a few minutes early, gets in right on time (11:35 a.m.)
• 12:25 p.m.: I’m at the gate where the American 12:55 p.m. flight to San Jose is supposed to be loading–but it’s now scheduled for departure at something like 1:45 p.m.
• 2 p.m.: The plane (100% full) pulls back from the gate and gets in line for takeoff.
• 3 p.m.: Given rain, progress has been slow, but this flight is now the first in line for westbound takeoff. And westbound takeoffs are shut down. We pull onto a midfield taxiway.
• 6 p.m.: We return to the gate; after four hours of running the plane generators, there’s not enough fuel.
• Everybody on the plane is told to go back out to the ticket counters to rebook. After various attempts at standby or rebooking, I run out of options…along with several hundred others. (The only San Jose flight later than 11:20 a.m. to go out at all is the 3:15 p.m. flight–which departs at around 9:45 p.m., and probably incurred a penalty for violating San Jose’s noise curfew.)
• Even in the first class/Gold/Platinum frequent flyer line–or maybe particularly there–it’s VERY slow going to try to get Wednesday standby or new confirmed seats (everybody’s told that everything’s sold out until Thursday or maybe Friday; this turns out to be either false or intermittently true), and I finally wind up with a baroque confirmed booking (flying to Orange County and from there to San Jose, leaving midafternoon when storms are likely to be troublesome and not getting in until 7:30 p.m.) and a standby boarding pass for the first SJC flight out (7:55 a.m.)
• At this point, getting a hotel room makes very little sense: Everything near the airport is sold out, and the only deals I can find are $200 to $250 plus a $20-$25 30-minute shuttle ride each way. Since it’s now 1 a.m. and I’d obviously need to be back at the airport by 6:30 or so to be there for possible 7:55 a.m. takeoff, that figures to be $300 for about 3 hours of sleep and a shower. Not worth it. So, along with a few hundred others, I head back through security (before it shuts down at 1:30-2 a.m.) to sleep inside the airport (there’s really no place to even sit outside the security area, at least in the American complex). I believe some 600 people couldn’t get standby passes before the ticketing shut down at 1 a.m., and were stuck either going to a hotel or making the best of the outside facilities.
• American did at least one thing right: They invested in a few hundred lightweight foldable cots, so people could do something better than lie on the floor–and they made several hundred blankets available. With such comfort, I probably got an easy 60-90 minutes of something resembling sleep.
• Based on weather forecasts, we were hearing the worst–it might be even worse today and continuing until Sunday. I figured that if the 3:25 flight didn’t get out, I’d give up at that point, get a hotel room, and try for Thursday…
• Fortunately, American’s standby-rollover algorithms are pretty clean (placement is almost entirely based on when your original flight was scheduled to take off). I wind up #15 on standby for the 7:55 a.m. flight–and get real hopeful when they’ve gotten to #11 and I see that 12-14 all have the same last name. Turns out there’s exactly one seat left–but the parents of the teen in the family decide to send him ahead.
• Next flight 10 a.m. This time, I’m #8. Then #9. Then, glory be, #4. The flight’s delayed (but mostly preboarding, then a little because of catering), but I get on, the weather seems to be holding at overcast–and at 11:15 (I think) we pull back. As promised, once we’re past the Sangre de Cristo mountains, it’s a pretty smooth ride (and the $5 turkey/shaved parmesan/turkey ham/lettuce wrap isn’t half bad, actually).

So there it is: My 24 hours (almost precisely) at DFW. Right now, I’m running nearly on empty, with no real deep sleep for a day and a half. This could clearly have been a lot worse. OK, so they didn’t feed us (except first class) or give us free drinks during the four hours, but the lights and air conditioning were on, the johns were functioning, and it was clearly a legitimate weather problem, not an airline issue. (They did provide water or orange juice after a couple of hours.) Four hours isn’t seven; some people spent two days getting through DFW, not just one.

Odd. My wife suggested that maybe I was getting too old for the outbound flights–American Eagle to LAX midafternoon on Thursday, June 22, followed by the red-eye from LAX to Dulles, But even in coach, I did get 2-3 hours reasonably decent sleep on that flight–and Grand Hyatt gave me my room at 6:15 when I got to the hotel, so I could crash for a few more hours. This was my first experience “sleeping” in an airport; I hope it will be my last. Maybe I am getting too old for that sort of nonsense. Maybe not.

So, maybe I’ll have C&I ready tomorrow. Maybe Friday. Maybe not. I think it’s a good issue, with a section on copyright, a Library Access to Scholarship piece, another chunk of Making it Work, a couple of other features–and a lead essay that I’ve already mentioned to a few people. Soon.

I may post later about why Twitter-during-conference really didn’t work for me, for ALA. I might post about other things…

Meanwhile, a little thought experiment (“picture in your mind’s eye”) that may say something about the underwhelming success of a revolutionary mode of transport.

Picture in your mind’s eye half a dozen really cool people. Let’s say Halle Berry, Will Smith, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Bruce Willis–I don’t know. Choose your own.

Line them up. What a spectacle of coolness!

Now put them all on Segways and get them moving.

What do you have? Dorks on Parade.

At least most of the security guards at the DC Convention Center didn’t have the “I love this Segway because it means I don’t use up any of those doughnut calories” look I’ve seen in some other cases of “official Segway” use–but still…

And that’s it for a highly unofficial and inconsequential ALA post that at least says why I’m a little slow with some other things. If the above is a little less coherent than usual, you can guess why.

I was going to post a tentative ALA Annual Conference schedule–but I don’t think so. A lot of that schedule is likely to be fluid, especially if there are other people who would like to talk to me about future possibilities.

If there are such people (and you’re one of them or in contact with one of them), then please get in touch–gmail, waltcrawford–by Thursday morning, preferably by Wednesday afternoon, to set up a meeting. Or, I suppose, sign up for Twitter and “follow waltcrawford1″–but I don’t know whether that will help.

There are more programs than usual that I might attend. Exhibit time is always sort of an unknown. Meanwhile, here’s a non-schedule: When I get there, when I leave, and when I know I won’t be available:

• Arriving Friday morning (Dulles at 5:20 a.m.)
• Friday: Not available 4:45 p.m.-7 p.m.
• Saturday: Lots of possibilities, but no absolutely blocked spots except that I do have plans 6 p.m. and beyond.
• Sunday: Not available 1:15-3:15 p.m. (LITA Top Tech Trends ex-”spotter” cameo) and will certainly be at the OCLC Bloggers Salon a substantial portion of 5:45-8 p.m.
• Monday: Not available 2:45-5:45 p.m.
• Leaving early Tuesday morning (at Dulles by 7:30 a.m.)

I have 10 or 15 optional events within those unblocked areas, but they’re just that: Optional. If it’s important enough, I could miss them. The most open times in general are late morning through early afternoon Friday and any time Monday until 2:45 or so (or possibly Monday dinner).

Update Thursday: As you might guess, I’ll be pretty much off the air from now through next Tuesday–not posting, not responding to comments, not checking Bloglines, not visiting the LSW Meebo room. I will be Twittering, for what it’s worth (checking the new cell phone every hour or two, not leaving it on)…and we’ll see how that goes. See y’all next week, unless I run into you in DC.

As of sometime this afternoon, Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change passed its first milestone.

It has now sold enough copies that I won’t call this self-publishing experiment a failure.

It has a long way to go to reach the second milestone, the one at which I’ll call the experiment an success–but I already figured to allow at least a year for that milestone.

We planned to celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc when (if) the book reached that first milestone. It’s too close to dinner now to chill a bottle of sparkling wine (great stuff, but it’s not Champagne because it isn’t made in the proper region of France–or in France at all, for that matter), and the food I have on weeknights doesn’t deserve high-end sparkling wine–so I’ll have that to look forward to post-ALA.

Speaking of milestones, one’s about to be reached on this here blog, and it’s one I’m fairly proud of in an indirect manner. I’ll let you know when it happens if it’s by Thursday a.m., or afterward if not.

Some time back, I realized that Cites & Insights lacked one element of writer’s satisfaction I used to get from its predecessor, one that I still get from my remaining column. It’s something you don’t get from blogging and do get–in spades–from traditional book publishing.

That is, the shock of seeing your words (possibly with editorial revisions) fresh, some weeks or months (or years) after you wrote them. Once in a while, it’s a pleasant shock: “That was really good!” (Once in a while it’s a less pleasant surprise, but let’s not go there.)

So I decided to read C&I–but not the current or recent issues. I started with the first 2004 issue in late 2005. Once Volume 5 was complete, I kept the print issues along with the bound volume I prepare at the end of the year instead of recycling them immediately, and have done the same since (I recycle each individual issue after I read it). I basically look to read about one issue a month, as though it was one of the many magazines I read (I put them in the backlog of magazines…)

This week I reached the Midwinter 2006 issue, Library 2.0 and “Library 2.0.” Sure, I’d glanced at the issue when preparing Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change to decide how much I should incorporate (answer: almost nothing, but I did pick up a few pages of the July 2006 followup, “Finding a Balance: Libraries and Librarians”). but I certainly didn’t read it start to finish. I remember being nervous when I published the special issue–the longest essay and longest issue in C&I’s history until a couple of weeks ago, and one I expected to be pretty controversial.

Yesterday I finished the issue. You know what? I’m proud of it. Very proud of it. Substitute a four-letter word starting with “D” for “Very,” and you’ll get how I really feel.

I was even looking at the essay and wondering whether it had legs enough to deserve republishing, along with the July 2006 followup but with no editorial changes at all, as a sort of memorial instabook in the easier-to-read trade-paperback format, probably for $20. (Terrible idea? Good idea? Yawn? Comments are open.)

Not that it hasn’t been pretty widely read. When the final reports for C&I at Boise State were run in late May 2007, they show that the PDF version of that issue was downloaded by 12,276 visitors–and the HTML version by another 14,097 visitors (who I hope didn’t print it out, as that’s far more wasteful than printing the PDF). The last time I ran full stats for the current C&I (at the end of May), they show another 1,469 PDF downloads and 619 HTML pageviews. That totals more than 28,000 readers (no doubt inflated)–and for all I know, the issue may be archived elsewhere as well. Actually, strike that: I know it’s archived at least one other place, in the OCLC Digital Archive (you can link there from Worldcat.org), and there may be others for all I know–the CC license explicitly permits them.

That’s about it: Just pointing with pride. The essay was a considerable effort. Looking back, it was worthwhile.

Sarah Houghton-Jan wrote this (see post title), which is Library Technology Reports 43:2 (March/April 2007); ALA Publishing sent me a copy in the hopes that I’d “find an opportunity to review it for a relevant publication or…blog about it.”

This isn’t terribly timely (too much going on), and isn’t terribly deep–and, of course, I’m not in a library, so I’m not an expert reviewer in this case, but

It’s very good. I believe it would serve as a useful guide for establishing a set of desired or required technology competencies for library staff–and for the training required to enable the staff to meet those requirements.

Sarah Houghton-Jan writes as well as she speaks, which is a compliment, and writes in her own voice. That makes the material more interesting and accessible than if she used a purely formal tone, without distracting from the message.

I won’t go through the half-book (an issue of LTR has roughly the same content as a very short book) chapter by chapter; this isn’t a comprehensive review. It’s an easy read; she organizes the material into a dozen relatively brief chapters and keeps momentum going throughout. But it’s also something you’ll want to keep handy as you think about and carry out a competencies process–or, just maybe, decide your library doesn’t need one just yet (yes, Houghton-Jan discusses that possibility without dismissing it entirely).

Houghton-Jan does not set forth The Checklist; she clearly recognizes locality and the need for each library to draw up its own list. Similarly, she does not specify The Way for training; she offers a number of suggestions to consider. She’s done a fair amount of training, but doesn’t say that everybody should do it her way. There’s a refreshing lack of universalisms here; she’s setting forth principles and methods, not a canned recipe.

Well done, and I believe many libraries will find this useful.

I rarely do “link love” posts (which are on the decline anyway), and I’m trying to stick to my new rule of not basing comments on second-hand conference reporting, but…

This is just plain outrageous (specifically the second part–the first is more, well, silly).

Formal language does not grant authority. And it is certainly not the case that proper columns in print publications (in the library field or anywhere else) avoid informal language and personal observations. I’m sure there are publications with such rigid Editorial Standards that all columns are mangled into Proper Lifeless Neutral Prose, but I give up on such publications pretty quickly. Columns should function differently than formal articles, just as scholarly articles should function differently than other kinds of articles and reports even in the same journal.

Let’s go a little further. In the library field, it is my belief that degrees don’t confer authority, that the form of publication doesn’t confer meaningful authority, and that the concept of The Important People and the rest of us has long outworn its shelf life.

Michelle Boule (“Jane”) says useful and important things–some of which I disagree with (this is by no means a bad thing). She also posts casual blog entries that are part of real life. That’s exactly, precisely as it should be; it’s how her blog works and intelligent readers have (I believe) no difficulty distinguishing the off-the-cuff remarks from the serious arguments.

I believe in print publications and the role of refereed articles…as part, but not all, of an increasingly complex set of media and interactions. I also believe that blogs serve increasingly important roles in exposing and discussing real-world issues in librarianship (and other fields, of course).

Think of this as a temporary placeholder for an essay that needs to be written. When John Dupuis wrote his wonderful and thoughtful review* of Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change**, he noted that most of my source material was from blogs. Specifically:

Another really interesting thing about this book was how it advanced the form of scholarship. Here’s a self-published book with very serious intentions, not lightweight at all, which mostly referenced blogs in the bibliography. I find that really interesting. A book that’s about how librarians should engage the most important issues in their professional practice and it’s mostly propelled by bloggers and not by reams of articles in the official scholarly journals. By my quick count, 151/187, or about 80% of the items in the bibliography are blog posts. And he makes us sound pretty good too. And I’m not saying that because my blog appears three times in the bibliography. For the most past, Crawford showcases the best writing and the best thinking out there among the liblogs (except for Chapter 8, mentioned above, but even that showcases some real passion too); we are committed and engaged and thinking about the issues. If you are a liblogger and your colleagues are a bit skeptical about the the worth of what you are doing, show them this book. What we do, if we do it well, is worthy for our tenure files, for our professional CV’s. Our work on our blogs should be counted the same as any one else’s contributions in traditional media based on its intrinsic quality not its format or place of publication. Thanks to Crawford, we have an example of what we are capable of presented in a somewhat more traditional format and written by someone whose contributions to the field cannot be easily dismissed. We appreciate the support.

That was not accidental, and the shift in source material for Cites & Insights has not been (entirely) accidental. I need to write up what I’m thinking and doing in this regard, and that writeup belongs in the ejournal, I think. Soon. Real soon.

Meanwhile, I’m certainly not one of the Young Upstarts, but I’m with “Jane” 100% on this one…

* A review that could not, I believe, have appeared in most print journals, as it’s over 1,600 words long–and, to be sure, it wouldn’t have appeared for another 2-8 months if it did.

** I’m learning that self-publishing requires promotion whenever appropriate. But it’s also true that, if Balanced Libraries is a significant contribution to the literature–which I believe it is–that contribution rests on the work of scores of bloggers.

Suppressing the “bah humbugs” for now…

Since I picked up a text-oriented cell phone in time for ALA (but it will mostly be off, and only people I’ve arranged to meet with will get the number), and

Since I said in COAP2 that “I think Twitter was made for conferences” even if you’re not the kind who would normally be twittering up a storm (see pages 4 & 5), well, then, to follow my own advice…

I have a Twitter account. waltcrawford: What did you expect? I have notifications set to web-only, but I’ll turn them back to phone notifications before I leave for ALA Annual. If you think you’ll want to know where I’m likely to be, or want to set up a meeting, maybe you want to follow me (I barely understand this stuff–heck, I got the reply and all that for phone verification, but the verification screen still shows up). I guess you’re supposed to invite me as a friend if you think I should be tracking your activities there–is that right?

And if you do want to meet (for job offers or whatever), let me know. I do plan to check the phone periodically, even if I’m still too “disconnected” by nature to leave it on all the time. And that teeny little QWERTY keyboard isn’t wonderful, but it works OK with one finger. (Too small for thumbing–I wasn’t about to pay for a Blackberry-equivalent.) Send me email–waltcrawford at gmail.com.

Actually, I think the fastest way to “follow” me involves “waltcrawford1″ as a user ID. Again, I’m not entirely sure…

Update: I believe that if you have a Twitter account, sending the message follow WALTCRAWFORD1 (case may or may not matter) will add you to my list. I will send at least one message in the next few days, if only to make sure that my phone really does send them properly.

Update 2, a day later: This is mysterious stuff, and I’m beginning to think that’s par for free web services. Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), I decided that I really should send one Twitter from my cell phone to make sure that the setup work had all gone properly–even though I had gotten a text reply (well, two of them) that suggested all was well.

Sent the message. Checked Twitter 5 minutes, then half an hour later. No message. Retried the setup confirmation again. Tried a message. No message… Did this a couple of times.

Finally clicked on the “Delete and start over” button. Entered my cell # in slightly different form–even though the responses had been, apparently, correct with the other form. (Prepended”+1″ this time; it’s just not clear whether U.S. users need that.) Texted the (new) authentication string again.

Two things happened differently: The reply from Twitter did not ask me for a nickname/username, and the (new) authentication string disappeared from the setup screen.

Well, that looks promising, sez I. So I text one more Twitter from the cell phone. Ten seconds later, there it is on my home page (and presumably on the pages of seven followers and that person who is apparently a Follower for every Twitter account).

Great! I’m set. Wasted a buck or so worth of messages, but that’s OK. (Actually, I went ahead and signed up for the $10/1000 message “per month” plan for ALA, and will drop back to the nickel-a-piece messaging in July. I can’t imagine getting and receiving anywhere close to 1,000 messages during the conference, but can conceivably imagine hitting 200+. Or 10, as the case may be.)

Here’s where it gets a little bizarre: A few minutes later, checked my archive–and there were all the other messages, including the repeated verification string. And a while later, the “friends” screen showed all those other messages as well.

Conclusions? None, really. My apologies to the seven people getting six or eight odd messages. For now, I’m “add”ing anyone who follows me–but I’ll turn off some of them (temporarily) before I switch from Web-only to Phone for notifications, based on whether I think it likely that they’ll be at ALA.

Enough blather about twitter.

The question’s simple enough, aimed mostly at people outside the U.S. “far west”:

Have you ever heard of tri-tip? Do supermarkets in your area sell it?

Here’s the background. Two Sundays ago, my wife and I attended a biannual get-together of a distantly-related family (she’s doing genealogical research, located these folks, answered some questions from them, got invited). In the Altamont pass wind-farm country (near Livermore). The primary barbecue was tri-tip–marinated and seasoned.

Last Sunday, my wife and I went to my brother’s first-anniversary party, at his house in Livermore. He provided the barbequed meat and drink. The meat was tri-tip, marinated and seasoned.

We were in Santa Maria year before last, and of course I had tri-tip for dinner, since Santa Maria tri-tip is a key local dish.

At the get-together and again at the first anniversary, people familiar with the meat industry said that tri-tip is unknown outside of the West–that it gets used for hamburger or sold as parts of different cuts elsewhere. It’s a tricky cut: It really needs thin-slicing and typically marinade to avoid being too tough to eat. But it’s also a great barbecue meat when it is marinated and thinly sliced. (One of my favorite lunch spots, years ago, used to serve a tri-tip sandwich once in a while: Great.)

So: Is this a Western urban legend? Do you get tri-tip in New York or Texas (well, Texas may count as “the west”) or Illinois or Great Britain or Australia or Toronto or Wisconsin?

(We’re finishing a trifecta today, really unusual for a not-terribly-sociable couple: Going to brunch today with a dear long-time friend…once again, in Livermore, but this time in a restaurant. I suspect tri-tip won’t be on the menu.)

Beyond that: We seem to be well into stone fruit season, and the local farmer’s market is rich with great peaches, superb plums, wonderful apricots, and magnificent cherries. We’re hoping to get a few Blenheim apricots from our own tree, but the birds may beat us to it… I do love stone fruit season, particularly as it ends the several-week near-drought of fresh local fruit!

That’s obvious, though. Some of us find some spaces and tools more natural. Some of us have more time and affinity for “life online.”

When I’m wriitng anything substantial (some posts, all columns, most Cites & Insights pieces, certainly any books), that’s all I do. No minimized email window(s), no music, certainly no chat rooms or anything else.

At work, there’s always at least one minimized mail window (Outlook) and generally two (Gmail)–although we don’t have speakers, and I usually have headphones plugged in but lying there, so there’s no audible announcement of new interruptions. Still, it’s harder to get the kind of concentration at work that I can at home–good writing probably takes at least 50% longer.

The current stuff I’m doing as the transition winds down frequently does not require (or reward) complete concentration, but requires enough attention that you really can’t focus on any other major task. That’s particularly true for the 2nd through 10th working day of the month (more or less).

What does all this rambling lead up to? Well, the relatively unfocused nature of this post may suggest–correctly–that I’m multitasking: Checking in on a Meebo room as I write this. And it turns out that, for me, for now, for times when some attention is available, this particularly library-related Meebo room is a pretty good form of socialization.

It’s certainly not a secret clubhouse. (It is passworded, but only because a pr0n spambot was attacking any Meebo room with more than a couple of participants, which made it useless.) If anything, it’s a little like Cheers–a welcoming place where, once you’ve been there once or twice, everybody knows your name. Or at least your screen name. Some people use transparent screen names (the abbreviation of their blog). Some need asking to relate screen name to real-world name (and, of course, they don’t have to answer). Quite a few–myself included–just use their full names as one word. You can change your nickname any old time, but that’s not a big problem.

In this particular room, I’ve found lots of interesting idle chatter–and a fair amount of useful professional advice (some received a little given). There’s an air of full equality in the room: No leaders, no followers. People drift in and drift out. Sometimes there’s a round of “Hi X” when X shows up on the sidebar. Sometimes there isn’t.

If this particular room is indicative (and I have no reason to believe it is), things work best when there are anywhere from five to ten people in the room. Fewer than five, conversation tends to dwindle away. More than ten, the flood of overlapping conversations can get hard to deal with, although it’s certainly interesting. There are, to be sure, rooms where that’s simply not a problem: I know of two library-related rooms that almost never have anyone in them at all. That’s the way things go sometimes.

I’ve never been much for chat. I got introduced to it by default: Gmail now comes with its own chat client automatically enabled. Used it once in a while (rarely). The Meebo Rooms are a little different, because they’re occupied by several people all of whom see what everyone says. I guess they’re like IRC, but since I’ve never used that…

As for other social networks/social spaces, here’s where I stand now, if you care:

• Ning (specifically Library 2.0): I think you need to spend a lot of time there and/or be enormously patient to get much out of it. It’s the most, um, leisurely online application I’ve dealt with. I’ve been in the Library 2.0 and Library Blogger Ning spaces for some time, mostly passively, accepting “friends” upon request, sending some invitations. For me, it seems not to work very well, My current guess is I’ll remove myself from Ning following ALA. It may be the greatest thing since artisanal bread for others.
• Second Life: Didn’t work for me at all. Oh, I tried it and managed to get around, but felt like it was a complete waste of time for me, for now.
• MySpace: Haven’t tried it. Yet. Might.
• LinkedIn: I’ve had a profile for some time and have a pretty good network built up, largely since a former colleague told me she’d gotten three interviews (and her new job) through LinkedIn contacts. When I was doing an emailing on my future availability, first two people whose addresses I knew from gmail contact, I thought I’d add more names from my LinkedIn network. Turns out there was nobody in that group who I could conceivably send the email to who I hadn’t already sent it to. So, for me, it’s just not clear whether LinkedIn works. (They now operate in much of the rest of the building I work in.)
• Twitter: Not yet. I may set up an account for use during ALA, just as I picked up a text-oriented cell phone for use during ALA. Guess I’d better do that within the next week or so…if it’s going to be of any use at all. In general, though, I don’t think I’m a twitter kind of person.

Of course, there are other social networks that just don’t work the same way. I’d call the loose collection of libloggers a network of sorts, connected through posts, comments, linked posts–and all those background emails that don’t quite work as comments. To some extent, lists can be vague social networks. LISNews has elements of a crude network. I’m probably missing some.

Will I keep up with Meebo Rooms in the future? Hard to say. I have to admit it’s made writing this post slow and clumsy–but that’s partly because I did it wrong (two Firefox tabs instead of two overlapping windows).

No real point here. I think each person needs to figure out their own comfort level and appropriate set of social spaces. Some hardy souls seem able to handle them all and revel in the process; I think that would drive me (even more) nuts. Some people avoid the whole concept, not an unreasonable choice. I just thought I’d say a few words about my current choices.

I know I said I was going to point to reviews and comments on Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change in this post, updating it as required.

I lied.

There is no way I can let John Dupuis’ review at Confessions of a Science Librarian go by without special notice–just as I found a way to highlight Mark Lindner’s review.

John Dupuis disagrees with me on some issues. That’s good. He found himself thinking about things, whether or not he wound up agreeing with me. That’s even better.

I won’t add any more comments. The review stands on its own, and was clearly written with care and thought. Oh, and as to using blogs as my primary source materials in most cases–well, yes, and I expect to write more about that in the future.

First, a quick update on this announcement and this update:

Not really much to say. One more ALA conversation to discuss possible “piecemeal” things. I have, in fact, given in and purchased a cell phone, which will mostly be off, and will provide the number to those who contact me beforehand about getting together at ALA. I may yet set up a Twitter account to serve that purpose as well (the phone is specifically designed for texting, with a QWERTY keyboard too small for thumbing but OK for one-finger typing). Certainly no offers have come “pouring in” that are so wonderful that I’d take them before ALA Annual and give up the discussions…nor was I expecting any.

One reason for a less than stunning flow of offers (besides this being the real world, of course) may be that I’ve been pretty vague about what I’m looking for. There are two reasons for that–both a deliberate attempt to stay open to the widest range of possibilities and being a little uncertain as to The Path I want to follow–including whether that comes down to one path or many.

Still, it might not hurt to flesh out one or two scenarios. So here’s one–one that would not (I believe) lead to a full-time equivalence or anything close to it, but that might represent an interesting part of a whole if some publisher or sponsoring company/agency is interested.

Here’s the scenario:

• Cites & Insights continues, still free to the reader, still slightly less than predictable, still full of the writing I seem to do best (or at least most). Potentially larger sponsorship; potentially an ad or two within the publication; potentially cross-promotion or reuse of C&I material elsewhere.
• C&I appears to have an immediate core readership in the 1,500 to 2,000 range, with overall readership over the course of a year or so slowly ramping up to 3,000 or more–except for special cases, which can and have exceeded 10,000 and even 20,000 readers. (I believe Library 2.0 and “Library 2.0″ is past the 25,000 mark now.) I assert that these are all actual readers, not just recipients, since it’s hard to justify fetching and printing C&I if you don’t plan to read it.
• That audience may be the “natural” readership for C&I. It’s a dense, even demanding publication with lengthy essays that require some serious reading and, once in a while, thinking. I assume a fair amount of background on the part of readers. I suspect C&I is both too long and too dense for most library people–which is a reflection on C&I, not on them.
• At the same time, one newish section of C&I is becoming more important to me and almost unmanageable in terms of source material that I want to discuss and synthesize. It’s also perhaps the most relevant section to a broader range of librarians.
• Possibility 1: Spin off a separate epublication–let’s call it Making it Work: The Balanced Library Journal for now, although that title could change–incorporating what’s now in “Making it Work” and, possibly, “Library Access to Scholarship.” Aim for at least every other month initially, but probably monthly rather quickly (particularly if there’s actual income associated with it). Most desirable: Free to the end user with a CC BY-NC license (like C&I), and with advertising and/or sponsorship. Less desirable but worth considering: Subscription basis, preferably with a slight-delay open availability.
• Possibility 2: A separate publication, possibly print, possibly epub, based on Cites & Insights (and/or Making it Work) but with a substantially different approach: Limited length (say 8 or 12 pages per issue, period); shorter and less convoluted essays (most no more than one page, with perhaps one two-page primary essay in each issue), more background as appropriate, more of a “column style” to the essays. Either sponsored with advertising or by subscription; might cover some new ground, but would mostly recast C&I material; would point to C&I for longer/denser coverage. I have no idea what this might be called, but I believe it could reach several thousand librarians and other library people who really (and legitimately) don’t have the time to spend on C&I.
• C&I Books could also be part of this package, either in its current form or in a more traditional state. I have two projects on the back burner now, and a series of other possibilities for the future.

Possibility 1 might happen anyway, if I wind up in a part-time position (or set of activities) that allows enough time and focus to do this. Possibility 2 cannot happen without someone else’s involvement. I’m not about to start handling subscriptions or fulfillment (or advertising) for several reasons.

I believe this package (in whole or in part) could be attractive to a number of parties–but I’m not sure. I am sure that I want Cites & Insights to stick around. I am sure that I want to write more about “making it work.” I am reasonably certain that I’ve put together a combination of scanning, synthesis, commentary, writing and overall stance that’s unique within the field, even if only by accident. I’d like to build on that, even if only as a piece of a complex whole.

So there’s a scenario. If you’re interested, get in touch. You know the mail system (gmail) and the username (waltcrawford). You know I’d prefer to set up meetings during the ALA Annual Conference and that the more ambitious parts of this concept can’t happen until October 2007 at the earliest.

Otherwise, well, I’m still open to all sorts of possibilities, even as I do background work related to one or two discussions.

Shortly after we moved to Mountain View nine years ago, we started walking to dinner every Saturday night–either some place really close (0.7 miles each way), some or one of many further away (about 1.2 miles to Los Altos, about 1.5 miles to downtown Mountain View).

For a while, there was really only one “nearby” restaurant: a local pizza parlor that also happened to produce really good food–calzones with no grease on the plate, pizzas with vibrant flavors, a small assortment of very well made Italian dishes. Local (not part of a chain), and a “neighborhood pizza place” to the extent of sponsoring youth soccer teams and having a banquet room where various kids-league teams would hold end-of-season dinners.

We went there anywhere from once every two weeks to once a month–more often in the winter (when the longer walks are less desirable), a little less often once we discovered that the Chinese restaurant in the same neighborhood center was really quite good.

The last year or so, we started encountering situations where we really couldn’t enjoy our meal: In addition to the big group in the banquet room, there would be another big group in the main dining room, with parents making no efforts to keep their kids from shouting. So, for a while, we’d call before going, ask if there were going to be multiple parties coming in during the time we were planning, and plan accordingly.

That started breaking down a couple of months ago and finally broke down entirely last Saturday. First we’d call and the person answering the phone either didn’t understand my question (being only marginally English-speaking) or just said “No problem.” We’d arrive, the place would be intolerably loud with parties that had made reservations, and we’d go eat Chinese food.

Last Saturday, we called. The person wouldn’t or couldn’t answer the question. We went over. Walking in, we asked; the hostess said “Just one party, and it’s in the banquet room.” Good enough. We ordered.

And the kids started trooping in. By and large, the kids moved along to the banquet room, but some of the parents wanted to stand around with their kids, and one of the kids was literally whooping every few seconds. (Eventually, that parent took the kid outside…and then came back a couple of minutes later, and the whooping resumed.) But as it turned out, this time the kids weren’t the main problem–or at least not the underage kids.

This time, apparently many of the parents didn’t want to be with their kids. So they stood three-deep around the “bar” (beer and wine, but they weren’t ordering anything), talking loudly and MORE LOUDLY and EVEN MORE LOUDLY as more of them gathered. (There was about 3 feet between the bar and the booths; we retreated to the most distant booth, 6 feet away, but that made no difference.)

We could not and did not enjoy the meal. We finished it, paid (yes, with a good tip), and left. And my wife said “We’re not going back. Ever.” I can’t disagree.

The owner has obviously chosen to give precedence to big groups–and not to make any effort to remind them that it’s also a restaurant and that others may not be as excited as they are. I think that used to be different. As my wife said, it’s probably the right decision–for the 12 weekends/24 days a year when there are team banquets. But if enough regular customers feel the way we do, it may not be such a hot decision for the other 288 days. Used to be, we’d see half a dozen or more couples and family groups there when we were there. This time? One other couple, and they didn’t look real happy either. (This is actually passing strange, since the owner also recently switched from one-sheet paper menus to nice multipage menus with an expanded menu–seemingly trying to attract the same diners he’s driving away.)

I noted that, the previous Saturday when I’d planned to have lunch at the Chinese place, there was a sign on the door: “Banquet in progress. Takeout only.” Those owners decided that they really couldn’t handle both at the same time, and didn’t attempt to. Unquestionably, they would have answered a phoned question correctly…and we would have come back another day.

Library implications? Maybe. Meredith Farkas posted about her husband’s experience seeing a favorite magazine go bad because it shifted its attention and resources to the web. (An excellent post, by the way, which you should go read if you haven’t already.) Part way through, Farkas adds this note:

(Aside: As I’m writing this, I realize this offers another lesson that librarians need to heed. While it’s important that we provide better services for teens and those in their early 20s, we shouldn’t do it at the expense of services to the rest of our patrons. We do not want to lose that core audience any more than we want to lose the Gen Y folks.)

Yep. Don’t look for a denunciation of gaming in libraries here because such a mass denunciation would be as absurd as saying that every library needs a gaming librarian (which I’m sure nobody would actually say). But I do wonder: Are those wonderful at-the-library gaming tournaments, particularly ones with such quiet pursuits as DDR, driving out older patrons who have loyally supported the library? If so, will they come back or will they just give up–and vote against the next tax override?

I don’t know the answer. Well, that’s not true: I do know that there is no single answer. I’m sure some libraries, maybe even every single one that does these gaming nights/tournaments, have set things up so that the noise and disruption from one activity doesn’t upset the browsers and readers in the rest of the library.

But I also know that it would not be an answer to say “We need the gamers, so we’ll just have to let the old folks go.” And, just to clarify, I haven’t heard anyone say that either.

Oh, and Meredith? That magazine isn’t the only one. PC Magazine has dropped almost all specs and details from its printed reviews, substituting glossy columns and big pictures; effectively, the print magazine is now sort of a sideshow to the web version. Except, of course, that I’m not interested in the web version…and will think long and hard before renewing the print version. (After all, I get the web version free anyway…)