Profiles 37-40

AbsTracked

“A blog listing useful links. (Since this blog is from the perspective of an off-duty law librarian, links will generally be related to the topics of law, libraries, reference, technology, and fun.) …” By Abbie Mulvihill. U.S. Blogger. Began February 2005. Lasted 62 months: Most recent post March 10, 2010. Group 2 (only one post March-May 2010).

Academic Evolution

“the order is changing…the change needs order” By Gideon Burton. U.S. TypePad. Began December 2008. Lasted 15 months : Most recent post February 23, 2010. Group 3 (no posts March-May 2010).

Academic Librarian

“On Libraries, Rhetoric, Poetry, History, & Moral Philosophy” By Wayne Bivens-Tatum. U.S. Movable Type. Began July 2007. Lasted 40 months through May 2010: most recent post July 7, 2011. Group 1.

Accidental Aussie

“A personal account of an information professional’s journey to the Sunburnt Country of Australia….” By Robyn. Australia. Blogger. Began April 2006. Lasted 40 months: most recent post August 1, 2009. Group 3 (no 2010 posts). Partial metrics.

Aaron the Librarian

By Aaron Dobbs. US. WordPress. Began June 2006, lasted 48 months (so far, through May 2010). Group 1

Abby the Librarian

By Abby Johnson. US. Blogger. Began October 2007, lasted 32 months (so far). Group 3 (GPR 0).

About You: Resources for Everyday Life

US. Blogger. Began January 2009, lasted 17 months. (Defunct and removed at this point.) Group 1.

Ab’s Blog

“e-resources management, technology, and anything else that strikes my fancy.” By Abigail Bordeaux. US. WordPress. Began January 2005, lasted 60 months (so far). Group 3 (GPR 0 and no posts in March-May 2010.) This blog had activity as recent as July 2010, but tends to be missing in March-May periods.

A Publik Library Life

“I am the Lizard King, I can do anything.” US. LiveJournal. Began May 2005, lasted 16 months. No posts since 2006. Group 4.

A Splash Quite Unnoticed

[Disappeared since study.] US. WordPress. Began August 2007, lasted 23 months. Group 4.

A Striped Armchair

“Blog of a twenty-something reader and unapologetic book nerd.” By Eva. US. WordPress. Began January 2007, lasted 41 months (so far, as of May 2011). Group 1

A Wandering Eyre

“traversing life with words.” By Michelle Boule. US. WordPress. Began November 2004, lasted 67 months (as of May 2011). Group 1

A Librarian By Any Other Name

“Is Still A Collection of Information.” By VWB. US. Blogger. Began November 2006, lasted 43 months. Group 1.

A Library Writer’s Blog

“Have writer’s block? Hopefully this resource will help librarians identify publishing and presentation opportunities in library & information science, as well as other related fields. I will include calls for papers, presentations, participation, reviewers, and other notices that I find on the web. If you find anything to be posted, please drop me a note. thanks — Corey Seeman, University of Michigan(cseeman@bus.umich.edu).” By Corey Seeman. US. Blogger. Began February 2004, lasted 76 months (so far). Group 1

A Passion for ‘Puters

“The Intersection Of Libraries, Computers and Web Trivialities.” By Robin Hastings. US. WordPress. Began April 2007, lasted 37 months. Group 2.

A Patchwork of Books

By Amanda (Snow?). US. Blogger. Began February 2007, lasted 40 months (so far). Group 2 (Google Page Rank).

The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010 is about as clear a failure as I’ve ever had (well, other than losing my job, twice). The most ambitious and difficult of any of the research projects I’ve carried out, it’s not only had the lowest sales by far, it’s the only case where people have explicitly told me they don’t even want to see the results if they’re free–that, basically, nobody gives a good, well, I won’t finish that sentence.

(Just read a post by someone who seems to feel that a slender self-published book is a failure because he’s only made $9,000 in net revenue after three months, along with thousands of free downloads. $9,000? It doesn’t look as though I’ll see $90 in revenue from this book, and it sounds like this one was a lot bigger job. For me, as a library writer, $9,000 net revenue for any project, over several years, not three months, is an enormous success!)

I know: I screwed up. Let it go. If you want to be sensible, let more than that go… But:

The person who purchased the sixth copy of the book (as a download–I think maybe two print copies have been purchased) sent me email asking for the complete list of blogs and for lists of blogs in each of the four groups.

I responded that most of the blogs are, in effect, listed in alphabetic order as the index to the book (which is entirely blogs), and that the lists weren’t readily available, as it was difficult to justify putting more effort into such a disastrous failure. (Every time I touch it, I wonder about continuing C&I unless I find sponsorship…although I must admit that there have been donations this year, although not yet reaching a three-digit total.) The purchaser responded with disappointment, said that it would be normal for (all raw data for a project?) to be included as appendices, and…

So here are the questions:

• Am I being remiss in not going to the extra effort–probably a few hours to clean up the master spreadsheet, maybe a little more if I post it as anything other than an .xlsx file–to make all the data in this failed project freely available?
• Is there any beneficial outcome to expending that effort, for a project where I’ve been told to go away and stop bothering people?

Advice welcomed.

A Digital Outrigger

“supporting research in digital libraries & usability.” By Steve McCann. US. WordPress. Began September 2006; lasted 45 months (so far). Group 1.

A Fuse #8 Production

By Elizabeth Bird. US. WordPress. Began February 2006; lasted 52 months (so far). Group 1. Partial metrics thanks to LJ/SLJ platform.

A LIBRARIAN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

“Librarians build community by working as advocates for human rights.” By Kathleen de la Peña McCook. Blogger. Began November 2004; lasted 67 months (so far). Group 1.

A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette

“A polite librarian is a good librarian.” By J. Blogger. Began January 2005; lasted 65 months (so far). Group 1.

3 Geeks and a Law Blog

“A law blog addressing the foci of 3 intrepid law geeks, specializing in their respective fields of knowledge management, internet marketing and library sciences, melding together to form the Dynamic Trio..”Group blog. US. Blogger. Began May 2008; lasted 23 months (so far). Group 1.

42short

“Sleeps with the fishes.” By “james” Blogger. Began May 2002. Lasted 45 months: last post January 2006. Group 4. No metrics available.

A Canuck Librarian

By Jennifer L. Cyr. Canada. WordPress. Began January 2004. Lasted 77 months (so far, through May 2010). Group 3 (GPR).

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

“All I want: like Buffy, I want a chair. A fireplace. A tea cozy. And to talk about stories. Pull up a chair, have a cup of tea.” By “Liz B” (Elizabeth Burns). US. Blogger. Began April 2005; lasted 62 months (so far, through May 2010). Group 1.

I originally planned to publish chapters 2-11 of The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010 in Cites & Insights, one chapter per issue, with Chapter 2 appearing in December 2010, Chapter 3 in January 2011 and so on through, possibly, September or October 2011. I hoped that I’d see enough parallel book sales to justify doing that and, with luck, to justify doing a five-year study of liblogs. Because these chapters contain graphs and other stuff, the “HTML separates” appear as PDFs with sets of book pages rather than in the usual HTML form.

But maybe not…

Fact is, as you can readily discover by clicking on “Liblog Profiles” as a category (since I pledged to do one post with four liblog profiles for each copy sold), only four copies of the book have been purchased–two downloads and two paperback.

That’s not as bad as disContent: The Complete Collection, which, halfway through the four-month offering, has sold exactly three (count them: 3) copies. I’ve accidentally extended that four-month offering to five months (through the end of March), but that’s as far as it goes. Sad to say, I’m confirming my suspicion about “freemium” offerings and my so-called audience–and it appears to be even worse than I thought.

I appreciate one colleague’s honesty: he doesn’t intend to pay for library literature, no matter who writes it. I’m getting the idea that this is a general opinion, just not usually stated so bluntly.

As to the liblog books, I had honestly hoped and expected that some or all of the library school libraries/collections would acquire these. But, you know, they’re not either from A Major Library Publisher or overpriced special studies from importantly-named research groups, so…

I don’t think it’s that nobody wants to read this stuff. I think it’s that nobody wants to pay for it.

Here’s the track record:

• Public Library Blogs: Sold 80 copies, of which 28 are in libraries (according to Worldcat), including no more than three institutions with library schools. Meanwhile, the text portion of this has been downloaded more than 2,500 times in C&I (1,254 as an HTML separate plus 1,321 in the issue, through 12/31/10).
• Academic Library Blogs: Sold 43 copies, of which 21 appear to be in libraries–including no more than nine institutions with library schools, and probably significantly fewer than that. (I’m including two Australian possibilities here.) More than 2,500 downloads of the text in C&I (1,225 as an HTML separate; the same 1,321 in the issue.)
• The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008: Sold 66 copies, of which 13 appear to be in libraries–no more than nine of them library schools. So far, 1,600+ downloads in C&I (as a full issue), but it’s early yet.
• But Still They Blog: Sold 19 copies, of which three (so far) are in libraries, at most one with a library school. So far, 1,053 C&I downloads–but it’s very early, since that issue came out in September 2010 and these stats only go through 12/31/10.
• Chapter 2 of The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010: So far–and it was only out for seven weeks through the end of the year–127 separate downloads and 425  copies of the issue, for a total of 552. Four books sold.
• Chapter 3 of The Liblog Landscape 2007-2010: This one was out for less than two weeks through the end of the year, so these are almost meaningless numbers: 48 separate downloads, 371 copies of the issue, for a total of 419 copies. Again, four books sold.
• Going back: My 2006 study of the “great middle” of liblogs has been downloaded some 22,000 times, 13,000 of them as a separate–and the 2005 study has been downloaded more than 23,000 times, 14,000 as a separate.

So there’s a readership, as long as it’s free. Which, with any sort of institutional or corporate sponsorship, would be just fine with me.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have called 66 copies anything close to acceptable–but if I accept that the liblog studies are mostly a hobby, that’s at least enough to pay for software upgrades and the costs of getting the thing into print, even if it’s not much more than $1/hour for time spent.

Nineteen copies? Not so much. Four copies (so far)? I haven’t yet covered the direct cost of buying a proof copy.

Current plans

I’d planned to include Chapter 4–which starts to get into the meaty, interesting facts and figures–in the February issue of C&I. (No, you haven’t missed it: It won’t be out for at least two weeks, maybe three, maybe more.)

And I’d still love to do that…if there’s some evidence of at least modest sales for the book or download. Let’s call “at least modest sales” five copies per chapter, which would yield at least 55 copies of the book as a whole (Chapter 1 is never going to appear in C&I. But if more than 200 copies of the book are sold, I’ll change the PDF price to $0, which would make it freely available.)

So once fifteen copies have been sold, I’ll put Chapter 4 in the next issue of C&I. Twenty copies: Chapter 5. And so on.

This, of course, assumes that C&I itself continues for the long run…

If Chapter 3 never appears? Then I’ll almost certainly come to my senses regarding the five-year study. (I had a neat new idea about a slight extension of that study, one that could only appear online or as PDFs, since it would require multicolor output, but that neat new idea certainly won’t happen if the study doesn’t happen.) If neither library schools nor librarians are willing to provide any support for this stuff, then it’s clear that I really shouldn’t be doing it. Time spent helping out with the Friends store at my local library might be more productive for all concerned…

Sponsorship may, to be sure, change the picture, and firm up the picture for C&I itself. When I know something, so will you.

If not? Well, then let’s not waste any more language on alternative forms of publishing or new models or the role of independent researchers. Without the imprimatur of formal publishers and formal journals, the work is, apparently, effectively worthless. If I want to keep writing (other than blogs), I should find topics that publishers will buy rather than topics where I believe I have something special to offer. And that may be a lesson I should have learned a long time ago.

101 Tips for School Librarians

UK. Started November 2007, lasted six months—because the task (“101 tips”) was complete. Group 4

2 Kewl Librarians

“A blog with thoughts on training, collection development, products, and any other library related topics that we might think up” Group blog. US. Blogger. Began July 2006, lasted 47 months (so far). Group 2 (GPR).

21st Century Library Blog

By Steve Matthews. US. WordPress. Began January 2010, lasted five months (so far). Group 1.

2CoolTools

“Learning 2.0 California Style — Technology Trends and Tools for Educators and Librarians.” By Jackie S. US. Blogger. Began January 2007, lasted 41 months (so far). Group 1.

…With Intent to Commit Horror

Since 6/1/10, renamed “Horror Books with the Undead Rat” with former title as new subtitle. By Greg Fisher. U.S. WordPress. Began July 2007, lasted 35 months (so far). Group 2 (GPR 3).

025.04: Michael’s blog

“It’s supposed to be online library systems, but my cat and class skills are not sharp.” By Michael. UK. Blogger. Began December 2006, lasted 30 months. Group 4.

025.431: The Dewey blog

“Everything you always wanted to know about the Dewey Decimal Classification® system but were afraid to ask …” Group blog. U.S.. SixApart. Began October 2006, lasted 44 months (so far). Group 1.

100 Scope Notes

“Children’s Literature News & Reviews.” By Travis Jonker. U.S. WordPress. Began November 2007, lasted 31 months (so far). Group 3 (GPR at time, now qualifies for Group 1).