Walt at Random

Just a quick multifunction post for no particular reason:

• I reached a milestone yesterday, completing Phase 1 of my 2012 book project–that is, checking public libraries/library agencies in half of the U.S. states for presence on Twitter or Facebook. More than 2,500 libraries checked in all, starting near the end of July. (There will be a followup, intended to be precisely three months after the initial scans.)
• I have not yet started on any of the data analysis or real work on the project, and probably won’t even add the key columns to the spreadsheet(s) until I’ve taken a day or two away from the project. Conclusions will, of course, be part of the book. On the other hand…
• The process involved looking at more library websites than I’d ever expected to, and that did generate some thoughts that have very little to do with the book. I may turn those thoughts into a casual essay (or part of an essay) for Cites & Insights. (No, I’m not planning any grand set of guidelines or critiques–others who are closer to the issues have done those or will do them. These will be casual thoughts.)
• Also completed the first half of a closer milestone: Making changes in my current book project (The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing) based on the editorial pass. Starting, oh, as soon as I finish this post, I’ll be doing the second half of that milestone: Detailed copyfitting to deal with awkward line-break hyphens and the like. (For very good reasons, I’m doing the actual layout on this book.)
• Once that’s well under way, I’ll do some C&I writing…and maybe get back to watching old movies.
• I am firmly resolved not to deal with a silly list issued by some college that gets lots of attention for the list. I looked at part of it, broke down laughing, and decided that it wasn’t worth the time or attention. Silliness is always with us; the Onion and Cronk do it better.
• Speaking of old movies, which I wasn’t, our Saturday movie last weekend was a reminder of why I don’t plan to give up on physical discs any time soon–the Blu-ray version of Forbidden Planet, magnificently restored–and with loads of extras, running to more than four hours altogether, I think (including some we won’t bother with, such as the full-length 1957 film that also “starred” Robby, the Robot). Yes, we’ve seen the classic movie (perhaps the first A-level SF movie?) before; no, we’ve never seen it like this–and even if we had high-speed broadband, you can’t get this level of picture quality via streaming.
• And to close this randomness: Perhaps worth noting that, of all the Blu-ray discs we’ve watched from Netflix–probably 80% of the discs over the last couple years, certainly more than 100 discs–only one has had any problems. (That one looked as though someone had deliberately tried to damage it, and succeeded.) That tough coating on Blu-rays apparently works: Most of them look as though they’d never been played.

Now there’s a potentially endless series…

I suspect my posts have even been less regular than usual, if such a thing is possible. (There’s a retired library person who lives in Livermore who posts every. single. weekday, if regularity is your thing…)

Last weekend, I considered doing a series of daily posts this week and next about progress on the two book projects that are currently overlapping, and where doing semi-overlapping work (a couple of hours each day on each one) turns out to be the best way to proceed.

That didn’t happen and won’t happen. The book projects, and my own overriding laziness (well, and some real-life situations), are the reasons for so few posts.

Briefly:

• One project came back from line editing on Tuesday. It’s an odd hybrid project where I’m doing the layout as a fundamental part of the book. I’m waiting for some responses on a few layout issues, but meanwhile I’ll start this morning on some needed additional text (probably 500-1000 words). I have until a week from Sunday to finish the textual and layout changes, so in practice working a couple of hours a day is a good way to proceed.
• The other project is nearing the end of Phase 1 of the research stage, after which I’ll start on the actual writing–at a very preliminary level. The research has gone far beyond what I originally anticipated (I first planned to look at libraries in two states, then in six; now it looks like 25), and it’s straightforward enough that I plan to do a three-month follow-up, which should be revealing.

Somehow, once I’ve done some work on each project (I’d been doing more on the second one while awaiting the editorial notes & queries), I’m all written out: Writing a post is rarely of much interest. Sorry about that. Then again, do you really care that I’m halfway through scanning Kentucky libraries (that’s what I would have said yesterday early afternoon–I’m done, with Oregon up next)?

[LSW FFeeps probably recognize I was doing Kentucky yesterday, as I found Madisonville's URL for their public library website so remarkable as to be worth noting--namely publiclibrary.org. And yes, there's a thelibrary.org in Missouri. Did you know there are more than 700 LSW folks on FriendFeed?]

My habitual pattern of public library use is to check out three books: One “genre” fiction (alternating between Science Fiction and occasional Fantasy on one hand, mystery on the other), one mainstream fiction (whatever that means–basically “fiction books that Livermore Public hasn’t segregated into genre shelves), and one nonfiction. LPL has a 4-week circulation period. Most often, I finish the three books in three weeks. Most often, I enjoy them all.

The last two cycles, though, I really haven’t enjoyed the nonfiction books. In one case, I finished the book (it was a struggle) and wondered why I’d wasted so much time. In the other, the writing was facile enough and the book short enough that I could breeze right through–but I was annoyed by the whole thing.

Thinking back on it, the two books have something in common.

What they have in common: They’re variants of Hunter Thompson’s gonzo journalism, but without Hunter Thompson’s sheer manic flair. That is, in both cases, the book seems to be a lot more about the writer than it is about the subject.

In one case, the supposed subject is the situation in Florida after the 2000 presidential election. In the other case, it’s the New Yorker (the supposed decline thereof, although the writer who denounces the post-Wallace Shawn magazine somehow managed to keep working there for another fifteen years).

I originally included the authors and titles here, but that’s hardly the point. I know that I never want to read another book by either of them (even though one has an excellent reputation in some circles).

No big significant message here. I was surprised to find that these two disappointments did have as much in common as they did. I don’t feel that nonfiction writers should minimize their personal appearance within a book–I like getting to know the writer as well as the subject–but there are limits.

If so, and particularly if your library has assisted patrons in using Lulu or CreateSpace for self-publishing, I’d love to hear from you–within the next three days, if possible.

Let me know who you are, what the library is, and whatever you have to say about the experience–noting which portions, if any, are NOT suitable for direct quotation in the book I’m currently finishing up. You can add a comment to this post or email me comments at waltcrawford@gmail.com

Thanks!

…if I ever said “No public library should consider this” to any suggested new service or tool.

…if I ever said “What a stupid idea for a book” to anybody considering writing one.

…if I ever said “Nobody would want to…” to any legal and moral suggestion.

Why so apologetic?

Well, in the last week I’ve had:

• One person respond to a request for comments on how libraries are using social networks, as research toward a book on the subject, by at least indirectly attacking the notion of publishing a book on the topic.
• Another person–and, unlike the first case, I’m acquainted with and respect this other person–respond to a request for examples of a new service public libraries could offer (I don’t know that any do, but my next book will be making such a service easy and desirable, I believe) with an initial response (until the concept was explained a little more) that this is not something public libraries, except possibly the very largest, should be considering.

In neither case was I asking for a critique of the idea; in both cases, I was asking for specific assistance or information.

So, if I’ve done the same thing or similar, I apologize.

Now:

I do not apologize for…

…criticizing claims that Every Library or Every Librarian should do, or know, X (with very rare exceptions).

…criticizing assertions that we’ll all be doing X (again, with very rare exceptions, breathing, eating and dieing being chief among them).

…criticizing books or blog posts or comments for being simplistic or badly argued.

Nor do I expect to be free of such criticisms.

True story

When I wrote my first book in the library field, MARC for Library Use, the first publisher to which it was submitted basically didn’t think it was of any use unless I turned it into a cataloging workbook.

I took it to another publisher–who also wasn’t certain, but took a chance. The result? Certainly the most important book I wrote for a very long time, and also the best-selling book I wrote prior to co-writing Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality. And I’ll assert that the book was directly useful to thousands of people.

So, y’know, I’m not abandoning either project. In one case, I continue to believe it’s a book that will help nearly every public library strengthen its community ties. In the other, I believe it will be a revealing, helpful and timely book when it’s published.

If you have yet to read the first portion of this essay (in Cites & Insights 11:4, April 2011), you should read that first—it’s less snarky and probably a lot more useful than most of this segment, which descends more deeply into universalist nonsense.

How Ebooks Will Change Reading and Writing

Some of the items discussed here may not really belong, and some may be admirable—but you’re going to see a higher percentage of what I might charitably call meretricious nonsense. In any case, here’s a whole bunch of determinism for your reading pleasure—if you still read, that is. (An audiobook version is not yet available, but I have never disabled the text-to-speech functions of PDF or, for that matter, your PC’s operating system. Would this all seem more amusing if “read” to you by, for example, a young Scottish woman? Make it so.)

For the rest of the story...

I’ve completed the first pass for use of Facebook and Twitter by public libraries in six states–which was, originally, all I planned to do (as part of a book project that’s not primarily about numbers as such).

Those six states make up roughly one-fifth of U.S. population (they include a very large state, a large state, a medium-sized state, a medium-small state, a small state and a very small state in terms of population). They include a total of 802 public library agencies (libraries and library systems).

Based on just those states, I can offer two “contradictory” comments, both true:

• Most libraries in the six states studied don’t use either social network: Roughly two-thirds don’t use either one.
• Most people in the six states are served by libraries that do use at least one of the two social networks (although “most” in this case is around 54%).

Think about it. There’s no contradiction between the two numbers. And that’s all the numbers I’ll note at the moment.

I will say this: I’m doing more than 6 states. I’ll almost certainly do another ten (two large, two fairly large, two medium, two fairly small, two small) states…and I might even do another eight beyond that. (The set of ten states includes a total of just over 800 libraries/library agencies. The set of eight includes just over 640. We’ll see how it goes.)

It’s possible that you can already, or will soon be able to, buy an ePub version of Balanced Libraries on the iTunes or iBooks site (since I don’t use iTunes, I’m not quite sure what’s what).

If you do so, I’d love to hear about it–and whether the ePub rendition is good.

The skinny

Lulu has been doing conversions of some number of Lulu-published books to ePub for submission to iBooks–always with email to the authors and the possibility of opting out or changing the $9.99 price Lulu sets.

I’m guessing Lulu’s going by sales (Balanced Libraries is currently the 3,082nd best selling book on Lulu) but don’t really know that.

I didn’t opt out. I think it’s a great idea. Since Lulu is, of necessity, converting from PDF (which is all Lulu has), I’m mildly interested in the success of the conversion.

The oddity

This is also interesting because I’d intended to provide the first C&I Reader in ePub and Kindle formats (in all cases, with the price set so my yield would be $4, as it is for the paperback and PDF versions)–and found that, at least for ePub, the freely-available tool to do the conversion just didn’t yield a standard ePub, one that Lulu would allow for submission to iTunes/iBooks. Converting from HTML (Word HTML with headers and footers stripped) should be much easier than converting from PDF, but Calibre–while doing a great-looking conversion–doesn’t yield “standard” output.

So I’m interested in how Lulu’s own conversion actually went. Not interested enough to open an iTunes account and pay for it, to be sure, especially since I don’t have an ereader.

Just curious.

Here’s a crowdsource request for knowledgeable academic librarians:

Do you know of an academic library that’s using micropublishing techniques by itself or in conjunction with the parent institution or one or more academic departments?

Micropublishing?

In this case, what I mean by “micropublishing” is using Lulu or CreateSpace to do the actual print (and, for Lulu, PDF) copies on order (as print-on-demand), handling the fulfillment side of book publishing.

One known example

I know of one example: the RIT Cary Graphics Arts Press at the Rochester Institute of Technology, run by the Cary Graphics Art Collection (part of the RIT libraries). So far, it’s done 14 publications available via Lulu, including some downloadable/PDF books, an ebook and a calendar–and one issue (so far) of a gold OA journal.

If you know of another example of a “virtual university press” using Lulu or CreateSpace, I’d love to know.

Why?

The book I’m working on for Information Today Inc., currently titled “The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing: Helping Patrons and Communities Use Free and Low-Cost Publishing Tools to Tell Their Stories,” is both a why-to and how-to book, aimed primarily at public libraries, with their hundreds of thousands (more likely millions) of patrons who have family histories, genealogies, reminiscences, local histories, and a wild variety of other would-be books that aren’t expected to sell more than five to 50 copies.

One chapter is aimed specifically at academic libraries, dealing mostly with the “provide an issue or annual print version of your e-only OA journal for the handful of libraries and scholars who want it that way” possibilities–I’d guess there are at least dozens if not hundreds of journals doing this–but also with the other case. Having one real example is wonderful; having two or three would be even better.

Let me know

If you know of one–or of a library that’s considering this–I’d love to know about it, preferably by July 1, 2001 2011 (since I’ll be doing the final editorial pass during July). The name of the press or a URL (e.g., the Lulu store URL) would be enough…

Thanks!

John Dupuis has a terrific new post at Confessions of a Science Librarian:

Reading Diary: Open Access: What You Need to Know Now by Walt Crawford

Tempted as I am to quote the whole thing, I won’t–after all, you really should click on the link above and read it on Dupuis’ blog.

I will quote part of it (oh, c’mon, you thought I could resist?):

Virtually every page had ah “Aha!” moment for me, a moment of recognition, of joy to see a point well made, a starting point for further reflection, a provocation, a point to remember next time I’m talking to faculty.

There were also some quibbles about this or that, maybe the order things could have been presented or minor things like that. But really, nothing substantial or anything that would affect the validity of the argument that Crawford makes.

Because, yes, this book is essentially an argument. The argument being that libraries and librarians should be at the forefront of promoting Open Access in the scholarly community and beyond. And, thanks to Crawford, we have the arguments for, “Here’s why!” gathered together in a convenient librarian-friendly package.

Crawford’s done the library world a huge service with this book and we are all in his debt.

So, how would I recommend this book. First of all, every single academic library should have this book in their collection. It will be a valuable primer for librarians for years to come, a great resources to get up to speed. Other libraries that support scholarship and research should also have a copy. Large public library systems could also use a copy.

He goes on to say “there is probably not a lot of reason for most librarians to buy a copy for themselves although I’m sure that many who see themselves as strongly tied to the movement might want a copy” and I honestly don’t see every librarian buying one (although I’d like to think hundreds or thousands would find it worthwhile).

Anyway, go read the review. Then, for you or your library (or both), go buy the book: Open Access: What You Need to Know Now. (ALA Store)

Recently on FriendFeed, I noted my tendency to avoid memes–in this case, two of them:

1. An “ask me anything” meme happening on FriendFeed. I said that, if I wrote that, I would immediately disable comments on the note (which someone else had already done).
2. The “blog every day in June” meme, which is apparently specific to Australia and New Zealand.

I didn’t buy into #1 because I’m a fairly private person.

I didn’t buy into #2 not because I couldn’t make it happen–heck, I write every day and, since I’m currently not working on Cites & Insights at all, it wouldn’t be difficult. I could just harvest my Diigo account and comment on one item a day: Easy.

Do I think #2 is a bad thing? Actually, I don’t. As a general rule, I think bloggers should post when they have something to say, not out of a sense of obligation–but in this specific case, at least, I’m seeing a number of blogs that had pretty much gone dormant and where it looks as though the writers do have something to say. If signing up for the post-each-day meme gets them back in the habit of posting now and then, that’s a good thing. Of course, if the blog has 30 posts in June and then 3 posts between July 1 and next May 31…well, what the heck, things happen.

Which is another way of saying…

That it’s been longer than I’d intended since the last substantive post here–that is, the last post that says something as a blog post. Just over a week, actually, since May 24–and May had fewer posts than any previous month in 2011.

I’m following a number of interesting library-related conversation, but haven’t felt the urge to contribute more than a sentence or two on FriendFeed to them. I’m thinking about ALA (but have not, in fact, prepared a draft schedule yet–and if anyone wants to get together during the limited time I’ll be there, from Friday morning through Sunday night, this would be a good time to let me know: waltcrawford at gmail dot com, as always).

And I’m engrossed in the book project. My wife and I had dinner last night with one of our best friends (an odd dinner: the place we’d decided to meet was closed for an enormous bocce-related fundraiser, so we wound up driving across town to another favorite restaurant we’d been neglecting because it was so noisy–and it was not at all noisy this time). We were talking about various things going on. I got into where this book stood and the topic as a whole (low-cost/no-cost micropublishing and library involvement in it). The friend noted that I seemed fairly passionate about the concept and that it seemed like a concept most libraries could/should use. I agreed, and thought that I need to make sure that passion is reflected in the second draft of the book–that I add enough “why” to balance out the “how” that’s central to the book.

Second draft?

Yep. That’s where much of my time has been going. The first draft is complete, as of finishing the draft glossary on Tuesday. “First draft,” the way I work, really means heavily-revised formatted book that will go through at least one major editing round before I submit it as a manuscript. I think this one’s important and something literally every public library and probably quite a few academic libraries will find worthwhile.

Later today or tomorrow, I’ll start in on the primary revision process. With gusto.

And, maybe, I’ll have something to post about–not this project, probably, but something else–next week, or at least something before ALA.

As for C&I? Not thinking about it for now. I’m not sure where yesterday’s spike in sessions came from (it seems to relate mostly to volume 9, issue 9, which is a bit mysterious).

The comma placement is deliberate. May’s been a somewhat slow month for posts here (although still ahead of my original two-a-week estimate), certainly much slower than April. And some posts might leave readers thinking that I’m sitting here brooding, waiting for comments, and essentially doing nothing but fretting over C&I.

Gone missing or worse, in other words.

Fortunately, that’s not true. Oh, I’d still love to see some sponsorship, and I still invite comments, and I’m still not quite sure how C&I is going to look in the future…

But, in fact, I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been active–making much faster (and, I think, better) progress on my next “real” book than I anticipated.

Part of that progress, oddly enough, will yield a self-pub. book in the very near future, one that might herald one aspect of C&I’s future. More about that when it happens. It’s something I thought about doing a long time ago, but at this point the self-pub. becomes part of the professional book preparation (in an odd way), which makes it well worth the effort.

Otherwise…well, I really should use the ALA conference scheduler, I suppose, and draw up a skeleton schedule for the time I’ll be in New Orleans–that’s just a month away! I know I’m looking forward to it (and, oddly enough, to the red-eye and the several hours I’ll be at SFO before the red-eye: I’m leaving from the brand-new Terminal Two, and that alone should be worth a couple hours of exploration); I don’t know what I’ll be doing. Yet.

I don’t believe we’ll have a 10th anniversary C&I gathering, since–other than one local offering to find a location–there has been precisely no indications of interest in such a gathering. I assume the Bloggers Salon is defunct, which is a shame, so I’m not sure where I’ll run into people (maybe the LITA Happy Hour, if I go–but I’m no longer a LITA member either), but I’ll certainly be spending a fair amount of time in the exhibits. (And, should vendors be so inclined, which they usually aren’t, I’d certainly look at reception invitations favorably.)

Anyway: Onward, upward, sideways–this project is going very well.

Big title, little post–and if that makes you think of a moderately recent Randy Newman song, so be it.

This is a minor thought or three on two things encountered while reading a bunch of books on self-publishing and skimming one on ebook design, as part of the work I’m doing on a future book…

Thought the First

Writing a book on a topic does not make you The Expert on that topic. And “reading everything ever written on a topic” doesn’t make you The Expert on that topic either–although making such a claim suggests a weak link with reality, since for all but the narrowest topics it’s an impossible goal.

Maybe that’s all that need be said here.

Thought the second

Maybe it’s reasonable to question your expertise about X when you pretty clearly loathe X, and your expertise on book design in a book I regard as horribly designed.

I won’t name names here, and I know book design is very much a matter of personal taste. However, when a writer sets out to tell me how to use Word to do something, and it becomes abundantly clear that the writer (a) doesn’t like Word, (b) REALLY doesn’t like Word, (c) hasn’t really used it for more than a decade, (d) doesn’t understand Word…well, maybe it’s not surprising that the author then spends twice as much space on using InDesign (which every real writer should, of course, use) as a Great HTML Editor.

And when loads of supposed expertise on how books (ebooks in this case) really should work and all the detailed XHTML-level editing you should do to make them right appears in a book that (a) uses Bradley Hand for headings, (b) uses a body typeface that is not only sans, but a sans that apparently doesn’t have a proper italic version (namely, italic text within the book always has slanted-normal “a”s–with the lower bowl and upper left curve–rather than the simpler a without the upper curve that’s part of every proper italic typeface I’ve ever seen)…could be Verdana, could be Arial, both of which seem to have this defect…

Well, maybe I shouldn’t take your work seriously at all. Oh, and while it’s supposedly about designing for all ereaders, it’s…interesting…that, in a relatively short book, the author finds it necessary to go through the coding and examples for every. single. typeface. that’s. installed. on. the. iPad. Including Zapfino… (Geez. If it wasn’t set in 12 point type with a full 4 points extra leading, the book would really be short.)

Minor (or not so minor) unrelated items:

• Dear Academic Journals: Sending me emails (from specific journal “editors”) asking me to review specific scholarly papers within a week’s turnaround, after zero advance vetting, with no prior agreement on my part to serve as a referee–and on topics consistently well outside even the broadest scope of my possible expertise–serve mostly to remove any question about the nature of your operation. “Refereed by random email recipients” is not the mark of a quality OA journal, and I hasten to add that there are many quality OA journals that do adhere to proper standards.
• Speaking of which, have I mentioned recently that everybody really should buy my terrific, world-changing, concise overview from ALA Editions, Open Access: What You Need to Know Now? 30,000 words of my best work–with the advantage of professional editing, copyediting and indexing–in a neat little package. You can buy an “eEditions” ebook bundle–a .zip file containg ePDF, ePub, Kindle and MobiPocket versions–or, if you’re so inclined, buy a Kindle edition as a direct Amazon Kindle download.
• I was reminded again this week of that important internet truth: “Don’t feed the trolls.” And two corollaries: “Learn to recognize a troll” and “Don’t become a troll–at least not too often.”
• An interesting week, beginning under the weather (some odd combo of upper respiratory virus/flu and something like food poisoning–I’m mostly better now) and continuing with crucial next steps in two Real Book projects. To wit, the first half of the advance for my 2012 project was deposited to my account (and the countersigned contract is in the mail), while the signed contract for my 2011 project (which might not actually appear until 2012) arrived yesterday (and the countersigned copy will go out in today’s mail). I continue to be excited about both projects…and am more than 1/3 of the way through the rough draft for the 2011 project, one I truly believe will be worth having for nearly every public library.
• And there’s a new Cites & Insights issue…a two-month combo to leave some room to think about C&I and work on other stuff.
• An odd little Slate article about rules for punctuation and quotation marks that asserts that British style is “logical” and U.S. style isn’t. The writer seems to be saying that stuff on the web represents better editorial practice than copyedited material. To me, the U.S. rule is the “flyspeck rule.” To wit: Too often, a period or comma following a closing quotation mark–especially when using proportional type, which today means “almost all the time”–looks like a flyspeck on the page, an accident rather than a purposeful mark. Yes, that’s an aesthetic argument; I also believe it’s a reasonable one. It’s fair to say that I plan to continue following U.S. rules here, and that I find the British practice no more logical than the U.S. practice. Oh, and as for the Oxford comma (properly the “serial comma,” what I think of as the penultimate comma, as it follows the penultimate item in a list)? Call me an AP man in this case–I prefer not to use the serial comma unless it’s needed to reduce ambiguity. (Note that: I do use serial commas when required to reduce ambiguity.) As it happens, I’m being inconsistent, since the serial comma is less commonly used in Britain and in other languages.

Hmm. Maybe not quite as random as I thought. Perhaps worth noting: I wouldn’t argue with a copyeditor on serial commas–and, in fact, I normally make a point of not going back to my original manuscript when reviewing galleys, assuming that professional editors usually know what they’re doing–but I think I’d be dismayed if I published through a UK publisher and saw a bunch of flyspecks at the end of quoted material.

I occasionally post something here (or write something as a Bibs & Blather in Cites & Insights) about possible Major Projects I’ve considered, abandoned, or whatever.

As I look back, it appears that I haven’t actually done a coherent list of possible projects since February 2009; I’ve just noted individual things along the way. Given events of the past two weeks, I think an update is in order.

Or, rather, two updates.

1. Updating the February 2009 list

Here’s what I said in February 2009 as to possible projects at this point–not including my fifth choice, “treat semi-retirement more seriously,” which could have been worded “remove the semi- from semi-retired; take up golf or gardening or yelling at kids to get offa my lawn or, more realistically, get heavily involved with the local Friends of Libraries”:

Here’s the list, in alphabetic order for want of any better:

1. Balanced Libraries, Second Edition (incorporating Library 2.0 & “Library 2.0″)
2. Blogging for Libraries – A replacement for Public Library Blogs and Academic Library Blogs but done in a very different way.
3. The Liblog Landscape Revisited - Some differences in approach, but largely an one- or two-year update.
4. Library as short-run publisher – A workshop and book on no-cost print-on-demand publishing for public (and academic) libraries, for their own purposes and to aid patrons (e.g., genealogists and others).

And here’s what’s happened with each of the four:

1. Nothing so far. I did a major follow-up to the original essay. So far, combining those two and other essays into a book doesn’t seem like either a great or a terrible idea. Maybe closer to “terrible.”
2. Didn’t happen, not going to happen, no way.
3. Sigh. I did this. Twice. The first one sold badly (21 copies to date, as compared to 69 for the original). The second one barely sold at all (it’s still stuck at two-digit total sales, but hope springs…well, maybe not eternal). I am not doing a 2011 version, even though the semi-comprehensive nature of the 2010 version almost calls out for continuing study. Without upfront funding, that’s just not gonna happen. See #4 and the rest of this post, along with people directly telling me that not only wouldn’t they pay for the book but they really didn’t give a damn about the whole thing, to understand why. I’m a slow learner, obviously, but not wholly incorrigible.
4. Here, I got somewhat positive feedback–but ran up against issues with workshops and bigger issues with trying to do it as a self-published work. I concluded that it only made sense if it could get a wide library audience, which meant having a reputable library publisher behind it, and that maybe it was a little premature. Well, I now have a highly reputable library publisher behind it, and I no longer think it’s premature. Which leads us to…

2. Where things stand as of now

• I’m starting serious work on a new book project based on idea #4, not necessarily for libraries as publishers (although that might make sense in some cases) but for libraries as facilitators for community members. I believe it’s going to be a great, relatively brief, book (that could lead to workshops if there’s demand) that will be immediately useful for nearly every public library and possibly many academic libraries. It will be published by a major library publisher with a good track record for reasonable pricing, good publicity and good editorial quality–but it will also be an example of what it espouses (walking the talk), as the typography and layout will be done by me, using Word2010 and a .dotx template that will be readily available for use by others. This project will get the bulk of my extra time from now through early fall; not sure when it will appear, but hoping for the first half of 2012. I’m excited about this one: I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, I think the conditions are better now than ever before, and those I’ve talked to–including my wife, not always enthusiastic about these projects–is reasonably enthusiastic about the possibilities.
• While #2 above is dead in the water, I will be working on a somewhat related project, primarily this fall and next winter: the actual experience of (primarily public) libraries in social networks (primarily Twitter and Facebook), based on a combination of broad research, requests for feedback and comments from libraries, and other resources. I believe this one will also be immediately useful to most public and many academic libraries.  (No, it will not be 170 pages of tables and charts, although there will be some tables.) It will be published by another leading library publisher with a good track record for editorial quality, good publicity and books that aren’t wildly expensive. No idea of the schedule; guessing latter half of 2012.
• I’m pondering some possible major changes to the way Cites & Insights operates, although I’ve made no firm decisions yet. Some changes might be visible as early as this summer.
• There’s one new thing that seems likely to come to pass, but I’m not willing to talk about it until it’s a done deal. If it happens, chances are you’ll see something late this summer or early this fall…

I suspect that I’ll start fomenting new “big project” ideas around the time I’m polishing the submission draft for the second book noted above; as long as I can find at least one good topic a year that meets three tests, I’ll keep looking for and working on them. The three tests:

1. It’s something I believe I can do well that either hasn’t been done before or hasn’t been done nearly as well as I believe I can do it.
2. It’s something I believe will add value to the library community.
3. It’s something a library publisher (or, I suppose, some other “traditional” publisher) will put under contract. After my experiences with self-publishing, I’m becoming a great believer in “Show me the contract!” as a way of testing likely marketability…and of letting the experts do the marketing (and help polish my books through editing).

In case it isn’t obvious from all this: I may be discouraged about a few situations and apparent failures, but I’m not giving up–and the two book contracts surely help keep me upbeat and moving forward!