Walt at Random

Cites & Insights 10:3 (March 2010) is now available.

The 26-page issue, PDF as usual (with HTML separates for each essay), includes two essays:

Making it Work: Philosophy and Future (pp. 1-22)

Two clusters–one on the philosophy and values of libraries and the other on high-profile statements on libraries and their future.

Perspective: Writing about Reading 5: Going Down Slow (pp. 22-26)

Slow reading and related topics.

I’d love to hear about blogs by people who work in community college or junior college libraries. You can either comment below or send me email (waltcrawford at gmail dot com).

There are probably a few among the 500 (or so) liblogs I subscribe to–but when I categorized libloggers for The Liblog Landscape, I didn’t distinguish them among the 170+ “academic librarian” blogs.

Why do I care?

• I was vividly reminded during at least one Midwinter session that academic libraries (and librarians) just aren’t the same as public libraries (and librarians). I always knew that, but it was driven home with some force.
• My sense is that many, if not most, community college/junior college libraries are hybrid institutions, with characteristics of both public and academic libraries.
• If that’s true, then I’d like to pay more attention to those librarians (and other library staff).

(If there are other equivalents for community college or junior college, the latter being what it’s called in my home town, I mean y’all as well–that is, publicly-funded institutions primarily offering 2-year degree programs with lots of continuing ed as well, usually with lower entry bars than state colleges and universities. City colleges? Whatever.)

Feel free to add your own blog or let me know about others you’re aware of. And thanks!

This appeared in the June 2008 Cites & Insights, as part of an omnibus Perspective “On Semantics, Reality, Learning and Rockstars.” I’m republishing it because I think it’s still relevant (maybe more so), although I’m not linking it to anything specific…

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One unfortunate undercurrent in the various discussions surrounding change and continuity has to do with lifelong learning for library people. Why “unfortunate”? I’ll get to that shortly…

On one hand, you get people saying every librarian needs to learn A and B and C and…well, you know, into the dozens. The answer to that is generally Nonsense, for several reasons:

• While each library above a certain size may need to have someone familiar with each item in a list, that doesn’t mean every person or every professional in the library needs to be familiar with every item. Very few cataloging gurus assert that every reference librarian and every rural/small library director needs intimate familiarity with RDA. It’s equally reasonable to suggest that some technical services librarians don’t need to be able to install wikis.

• For many of us, detailed learning substantially before the point of use is mostly wasted. We forget details and maybe even broad strokes. How’s your calculus these days? We need to be able to find out what we need to know when (or ideally, shortly before) we need to know it. Nothing new here either. One new thing, maybe: Some things that we’re told everybody needs to learn almost certainly will disappear or become irrelevant before many of us have the chance to put that learning to use. (How’s your understanding of Gopher navigation techniques? Updated your Orkut and Friendster profiles lately?)

• Most of us don’t have time to learn everything that might be useful for us, just as most of us don’t have time to keep up with as much formal and informal literature as might serve us well.

But there’s a huge caveat here. A huge caveat:

You don’t have to learn everything—but you do need to keep learning something.

Dorothea Salo objects to the comment “I don’t have time to learn all this!” She’s been writing about difficulties getting librarians to pay attention to issues that do affect them and notes this as one response. (The post is also about different learning styles—the notion that some people learn better in a “steady stream” of daily reading while others prefer the “single spray” method, attending a conference or workshop to pick up a lot of stuff at one point. I think she makes an excellent point—people needing to spread the word in some important areas may need to make more effort to reach those who primarily learn at conferences. All I have to say about the post as a whole is “I agree.” I’m expanding on one comment here.)

I can think of a way to hear that comment charitably, although I suspect it’s being a little too charitable. If a person is saying, “I don’t have time to learn all this,” that may sometimes be right: The person simply may not have room (time, focus, concentration) for a big learning agenda at the moment. But I don’t believe that’s what Salo’s objecting to, and I don’t think that’s what’s usually being said. What I hear, a bit less charitably, is “I don’t have time to learn any of this,” which translates to “I don’t think I need to keep learning.”

And that is simply not acceptable for anyone who calls themselves professional.

You don’t have to learn everything—but you do need to keep learning something.

So why did I say unfortunate? Because it’s easy to conflate two “don’t have time to learn” situations:

• This is too much for me to take in all at once, and some of it doesn’t apply right now or soon enough for me to retain the learning. That’s frequently valid and leaves room to find a comfort level, where learning appears more directly useful and doesn’t require loads of energy.

• I’ve learned enough. I don’t want to learn any more. Not acceptable. Not acceptable for professional librarians—and, I believe, not acceptable for anyone working long-term in the library field, professional or otherwise. That attitude wouldn’t be acceptable for doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers or accountants. Why should it be acceptable for library people?

Maybe this does loop back to the first discussion, which was (of course) about “Library 2.0.” Consider the very first paragraph of the very first page of Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change:

A library system that stands still is unbalanced and headed for trouble. A library staff obsessed with Hot New Things and aiming for new users at the expense of familiar services and existing patrons is unbalanced and headed for trouble. Very few libraries fall into either extreme, but sometimes it seems as though we’re urged toward one extreme.

Maybe I’m naïve here as well. I doubt that there are any significant numbers of libraries that look like the second strawman—but I wonder how many libraries (that is, library staffs) really do, to all intents and purposes, appear to be standing still? Let’s set this out as an opposition as well:

• I don’t want to sign up for the whole set of stuff called Library 2.0. You get no argument from me. Maybe your library shouldn’t be gaming. Maybe your patrons wouldn’t respond to social networking initiatives. Maybe you don’t have the staff to maintain a blog and don’t have any problem for which a wiki is a solution.

• I don’t want any of this Library 2.0 stuff. Our library’s fine, just fine. We don’t need to examine our operations, find better ways to stay in touch with our community or consider new technologies to support our routines. Now you get a big argument from me. I’m all for continuity, but continuity without awareness and change isn’t continuity: It’s rigidity—easily confused with rigor mortis. Even the smallest library staff needs to step back from time to time to look at how things are going, whether the library’s serving and effectively involving its community, and whether new tools could improve situations. Think you’re too small? The Wetmore Public Library (Kansas) and Seldovia Public Library (Alaska) serve communities of 362 people and 286 people respectively. Both libraries use blogs to good effect—to create an online presence they almost certainly couldn’t provide otherwise.

You don’t have to do it all (just as you may not be able to have it all). But you do have to do something—or at least make sure that you’re doing the best you can. That involves lifelong learning. That’s one of many things good public libraries support, and it’s an essential aspect of being a good library person.

I’m preaching to the choir—but maybe you can pass this particular sermon along to those who might think that old traditionalist Crawford is saying it’s OK for them to do nothing at all. They’re wrong.

Karen Coyle posted “Walt Crawford should read the document” on May 10, 2009 on her blog, Coyle’s InFormation.

Note two things about that sentence:

1. It includes a direct link to Coyle’s post.
2. I include the name of Coyle’s blog correctly, spelling and all.

Now consider the first paragraph of Coyle’s post, reproduced here exactly as it appears:

In his March, 2009 Cites & Insites, Walt Crawford does a roundup of comments on the Google/AAP settlement, and gets very agitated when reviewing some of my posts. I’m used to that. But agitation tends to cancel out reason, and Walt gets some things wrong that he might have understood better if he had kept a clear head.

No link–but then, how could there be a link, since there’s no such publication as “Cites & Insites”? (I don’t regard “Insites” as a word and assuredly would not use it for an ejournal.)

The March 2009 Cites & Insights (volume 9, number 4) consists of an essay on a proposed settlement involving Google, AAP, and the Authors Guild (not just Google and AAP). I regard that essay as considerably more than “a roundup of comments.”

I’m not sure whether Ms. Coyle is used to people in general getting agitated when reviewing her posts or whether that’s specifically aimed at me, but the last sentence is unquestionably aimed at somebody named Walt Crawford.

The suggestion that I was unable to reason clearly because I was so agitated by Ms. Coyle’s comments is either insulting or patronizing; your choice. It’s also false. (I checked the indexes for Cites & Insights. Except for March 2009, every time I’ve quoted or commented on Karen Coyle it’s been entirely positive comment–so I have to assume that other people get agitated by her comments. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.)

There is an ornithologist named Walt Crawford in the Midwest, director of the World Bird Sanctuary. In the overall scheme of things, that Walt Crawford (we have the same middle initial, but I’m not a “Jr.”) is probably more important to the world than I am–but he has a somewhat lower web profile. I’m pretty sure we’re both members of the Nature Conservancy… Still, I doubt very much that St. Louis’ Walt Crawford has a publication named Cites & Insites or that he wrote about the proposed Google Book Search settlement.

Still…there’s enough wrong with Ms. Coyle’s first paragraph (in a post that appeared nearly three months after the essay in question) that it’s tempting to leave it at that. If Coyle can’t be bothered to link to the essay being criticized or name the publication properly, and if she finds it necessary to patronize me in the post title and the lead paragraph, why should I take her comments seriously? (She knows how to do links: there are two links in the post. I can only assume that the decision not to link to my essay is deliberate.)

[Why did it take me two weeks to respond? Anyone who's followed this blog or my FriendFeed feed knows: Since May 10, I've been spending nearly all my energy moving to a new house--and from May 14 through May 18, I didn't have internet access. Also, I recognized right off the bat that a hasty response was a bad idea.]

A quick exercise

Before reading this response further, you should read the commentary. If you haven’t already done so, I suggest reading the whole essay (including but not limited to “Putting on several hats” on pp. 4-5)–but since I’m being charged with agitation and loss of reason, you could focus on pages 20-25. Consider particularly the language in “Google/AAP settlement” (pp. 20-21) with its “Ping!” refrain and the right-hand column on p. 21 (from “…this is the pact with the devil” through “THIS IS EVIL“).

If, after reading the extensive quotations from Coyle and my brief interspersed comments, you find that Coyle is consistently cool and logical whereas I’ve gone off the deep end and gotten things wrong, then it may not be worth your while to read the rest of this.

But as I reread it, twice, I see no agitation on my part, and less rhetorical fervor in my notes than in some of Coyle’s commentary. Maybe Coyle wasn’t agitated in those posts, but it certainly reads that way–or is it that Coyle is allowed to be agitated but I’m not?

Specific objections…

What of my comments does she object to?

All libraries as well-curated collections

In questioning the need for Google to digitize based on deliberate collection-building, I say “I don’t know of any big academic library or public library that’s a single disciplinary collection–or, realistically, a set of well-curated collections.” (Coyle omits the italics in “any.” No biggie.)

Coyle says “an academic library is INDEED a set of well-curated collections.”

Really? Good academic libraries include well-curated collections, but I’ll suggest that most big ones contain a lot of materials outside that set of collections, particularly for libraries using lots of standing orders and approval plans. [OK, I spent too many years at UC Berkeley. If anyone suggests to me that the Doe Library is entirely a set of well-curated collections, I'd probably snigger, much as I love and respect the library.]

But that’s a matter of definition–what constitutes “well-curated”? I could have simply taken issue with Coyle’s lead sentences in the paragraph in question:

So the main reason why Google Books is not a library is that it isn’t what we would call a “collection.” The books have not been chosen to support a particular discipline or research area…

Even if I overstated “any,” Coyle’s implicit definition of “library” here excludes an enormous number of libraries. If Coyle wants to say that “Google Books is not a research library,” I probably wouldn’t object–but “research library” and “library” are not synonymous.

Library costs

I said “I don’t remember public universities admitting to substantial costs in cooperating with Google.”

Coyle says “Dan Greenstein estimated $1-2 per book”–and offers a link.

The article linked to says no such thing. It says that Greenstein estimated Google’s scanning costs at $1 or $2 per volume. Here’s the link: read it for yourself. (It’s a Daily Cal article. Depending how you read it, Greenstein might have been estimating a cost for cooperating with Google elsewhere in the article, but certainly not as quoted by Coyle–and, frankly, I can’t be sure just what the article is saying about the UC costs of the Google project. In any case, it wouldn’t have been an admission: This article appeared before UC joined the project. It would have been a forward estimate.)

I’ll stand by my statement: I don’t remember public universities admitting to substantial costs in cooperating with Google. (The first three words represent a caveat–maybe somebody somewhere said it and I don’t remember or never saw it. Greenstein did not say it, at least not as quoted from the cited article.)

Changing library use of libraries’ own material

Adding one brief paragraph to a long Coyle quotation, I asserted that nothing in the proposed agreement changes the ways libraries use their own material.

That’s a factual statement. Coyle’s criticism:

Not of their hard copy materials, but legal minds think that this changes the landscape for digitization and the use of digitized materials, even closing some options that might have been available before.

She quotes one such legal mind. Is there unanimity or overwhelming consensus? I don’t know (although I’m pretty nearly certain that there isn’t)–but it’s irrelevant to my simple, factual statement.

Privatization, profiles and abusing the language*

Coyle said in one of her original post that “The digitization of books by Google is a massive project that will result in the privatization of a public good: the contents of libraries.”

I objected to that sentence, “as I’ve taken issue consistently with the same claim by others with even higher profiles than Coyle (who are even less likely to ever admit they could be mistaken).” Coyle takes me on for not making the “higher profile” people and adds this: “But thanks for letting me know that you consider me a ‘lower profile’ person, Walt.”

What? If I say Barack Obama has a higher profile than Rick Boucher, I’m not saying Rick Boucher is “a lower profile person”–except by comparison. If you want names, there’s Brewster Kahle and Siva Vaidhyanathan–and yes, I do consider them higher profile. (Based on Coyle’s post that I’m commenting on here, however, I withdraw the parenthetical clause in my comment.)

I went on to say the “privatization” claim was “Nonsense. Sheer, utter nonsense. The libraries and contents will still be there. OCA will still be there. I’m sorry, but this one just drives me nuts: It’s demonization of the worst kind and an abuse of the language.”

Coyle’s response?

There is general agreement that Google gets a monopoly…at least on out-of-print books.

Based on this “general agreement” she says the claim of monopoly “is a factual statement.” I haven’t seen any sort of unanimity on this claim, and I wasn’t aware that consensus constituted fact–but in any case, that has nothing to do with the wording I objected to: “privatization of a public good: the contents of libraries.”

Did Ansel Adams privatize the great views in Yosemite by taking photos that are so iconic they’ve made it difficult for anyone else to do as well? Obviously not; he created something by using a public good, and in doing so enhanced the public good (making Yosemite more popular).

If I go to a library, check out some books, and create something new based on those books, it would be nonsense to say I’d privatized the contents of the library. If I built an index by going through each book, and then returned the books, it would be nonsense to say I’d privatized the contents of the library.

How is Google’s project different? The books are on the shelves, at least as accessible as they were before Google scanned them…and realistically a lot more accessible.

The public good is not in any way diminished or privatized. If a possible future extension of the public good is less likely because Google has a first-mover advantage or because the language of the settlement gives them advantageous treatment, that’s a very different thing.

Preservation and longevity

Discussing issues of preservation and longevity, I said:

Won’t the fully-participating libraries have digital copies? I can’t think of institutions with better longevity.

Here’s how Coyle begins her refutation of my comment:

To begin with, only fully participating libraries will have digital copies…

Since Coyle agrees that “fully participating libraries will have digital copies,” there’s really no point in going further. (If I say “All Honda Insights are hybrids” and someone begins a critique of that statement by saying “To begin with, only Honda Insights–among Hondas–are always hybrids”–there’s little point in continuing the discussion.)

…without discrimination and without liability

Here’s one where I may be wrong. I assumed Google wouldn’t argue with the idea of carrying all scanned books.

Coyle points out that the settlement does not oblige them to do so. Since this is the single case in which she’s asserting I would have gotten it right if I’d read the full 134-page settlement, I assume this is the genesis for the post’s title.

If we assume that Google was 100% responsible for the language of the settlement (which I do not) then I’m clearly wrong here. Let’s assume that I am.

I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again. If Coyle had pointed out this single case in a more temperate manner, I’d be delighted to include that in an update to the essay as a useful correction and expansion.

There are legitimate reasons for concern about the settlement

That’s what Coyle says.

I agree. I say so repeatedly in the March 2009 Cites & Insights.

If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have produced a 30-page issue: A one-paragraph note would have been sufficient. I certainly wouldn’t have guided people back to Coyle’s posts.

Coyle doesn’t think that anything she has said is “nonsense.” Sorry, but I have to disagree. The “privatization” line is nonsense–just as it’s always been when Prof. Vaidhyanathan uses it, just as it is when Brewster Kahle uses it. It’s an abuse of the English language, and by demonizing Google it gets in the way of improving the settlement and the situation.

Frankly, if it hadn’t been for the tone of Coyle’s post and her accusation that I’d lost a clear head, I might not have written this post at all. Coyle has provided valuable service over the years in analyzing the Google Books project and the proposed settlement.

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*Postscript: The comments on this post include various defenses of “privatization” as an accurate and appropriate term. They make interesting reading, and I urge readers of this post to read all of the comments–and decide for yourself. (I’ll probably prepare a commentary in a future C&I, incorporating most or all of this post and its comments.)

I still regard “privatization of public goods” as an abuse of the language as used for anything in the proposed settlement. When you create something new based on public goods, leaving the public goods intact, I can’t find that to be privatization as I understand the word.

But I should also clarify that it’s not Karen Coyle’s coinage or distinctive usage–if I’m saying it’s nonsense on her part, I’m also saying it’s nonsense on the part of Siva Vaidhyanathan, Brewster Kahle and probably quite few others. Which, to be sure, I am.

It’s a shame that an argument over books uses the language so sloppily–but “privatization of public goods” has a distinctive harshness to it that more accurate terms might not.

This postscript does not attempt to cut off the discussion of the term. I think it’s a fascinating discussion. Do note that I regard comments here to be bound by the same CC license as the blog itself, meaning I can (and will) quote them in their entirety in Cites & Insights–and, of course, that anyone else can quote them for noncommercial use.

An odd topic for me? Well, yes, given that I don’t work in a library and have never spent much time on the public-workstation theme.

But ALA Publishing sent me a copy of the April 2009 Library Technology Reports (v. 45:3), “Open Source Public Workstations in Libraries,” by John Houser–who, until recently, was Senior Technology Consultant at PALINET and handled the technology side of what’s now the Library Leadership Network.

Here’s the abstract:

In a time where an economic downturn and concerns about climate change are influencing decisions, many libraries are looking for ways to save money and to reduce their impact on the environment. This report provides detailed information about the operating systems, software, and approaches used by three libraries and one academic institution that have implemented open source public workstations. It explains how open source operating systems and applications, when installed on appropriate hardware, can decrease power utilization while providing a reliable and satisfying customer experience. It will help library decision makers who want to find out about alternatives to Microsoft Windows–based PCs running Microsoft Office, not only as a means of  cutting costs or reducing a carbon footprint, but also as a means of providing a better experience for library customers.

I suspect it’s worth buying if you’re in a library that has public workstations (if your library doesn’t subscribe to LTR, you can buy the issue for $43). Houser suggests reasons for considering open source solutions for public workstations, describes current open source products that may be suited for such workstations and offers several case studies, considering two of them in detail.

In some ways, I’m a skeptical audience for this report. I question the assumption that older/underpowered computers (inappropriate for XP or Vista but fine for Linux) necessarily use less power than contemporary computers–and Houser’s clearly uneasy with that particular argument.

For that matter, while I think the concept of open source software is great–the Library Leadership Network runs on open source software (MediaWiki), my blog runs on open source software (WordPress), and my primary browser is open source software (Firefox)–I’m also a happy Vista user who has no interest in trading Office2007 for OpenOffice.

But the reasons I prefer Office2007 and Vista at home probably don’t apply to public workstations. For such workstations, a set of open-source tools should be entirely workable and indeed more than is needed–and there’s no getting around the cost savings. Let’s be honest here: If and when I buy a netbook as a travel computer, there’s a very strong chance I’ll buy a Linux system.

Houser writes clearly and knows his stuff. If there’s a major problem with this report, it’s a problem shared by other recent LTR issues: It’s on the short side, with a total of 34 text pages. On the other hand, that also makes it a quick read and easy reference. All in all, a good introduction to one interesting approach (or, really, three related interesting approaches) to providing public library workstation support.

It’s been almost exactly two weeks since I wrote “LTB–and a lot more.”

That post noted some of the reasons I’ve done very little contemplative or really new writing in the last six weeks or so–and am likely not to do very much of it for the next month (or so). That’s not entirely true: I did a future edition of “disContent” that I’m quite pleased with and I’ve been generating (and editing, and organizing) content for the Library Leadership Network. But the longer essays–whether contemplative or synthetic (that is, synthesizing from various posts)–weren’t happening.

During those two weeks, I did put out an issue of Cites & Insights. That issue should be a real bargain: It has the most important sections of two $29.50 books about library blogs, all yours for $0. It also has some notes on readership over the first two million words of C&I. So far, I can’t say that the issue has either aroused any obvious interest or even achieved the usual first-half-week level of downloads and readership, but these things (can) take time.

The title

The inspiration for this post is John Scalzi’s post “I Got Nothing” at his blog Whatever. Inspiration, that is–not parallel. Scalzi’s post concerns the fact that he has only one book in the publishing pipeline, with no other books under contract. For Scalzi, a successful and award-winning science fiction writer, this could be cause for concern–but, as he notes, it’s also an occasion to try new things…with no books he has to work on.

The situation here is not parallel. I’m not suggesting that I’m remotely in Scalzi’s league as a writer. I’m also not suggesting that anywhere near as many people would care (his posts get lots of comments, generally quite interesting ones–and he posts fairly regularly. For example, this post, which went up five hours ago as I write this, already has 35 comments–and doubtless more when any of you go to it).

But Scalzi’s post, and title, did encourage me to look at my own situation…and wonder.

Maybe it’s not just moving?

Yes, moving is disruptive–and when it’s from one house you’ve lived in for 11 years to another 30 miles away, when incidents add to the confusion (thanks to a misstep just as we started looking for the first time at the house we believe we’re buying, my wife’s hobbling around with a hairline fracture–since then and for the next month or so: as she says, she fell for the house), when you’re dealing with a truly strange real estate “market,” and when you factor in California’s, and especially Santa Clara County’s, increasingly extensive paper trail…well, it’s really disruptive for a very long time.

[An aside: Supposedly, local realtors are "going paperless"--but I'd say there's at least twice the paperwork there was 11 years ago, including incredibly detailed disclosure forms. We've spent hours just initialing and signing form after form after form...and, if I didn't have an all-in-one printer so we could print out "faxed" PDFs, sign them, scan them back in and attach them to email, I don't see how we could get through this at all--we'd be driving out to Livermore twice a day. I know our buying agent and selling agent will each give us a CD at close of escrow with copies of all the paperwork--but meanwhile, I'd swear we have more than half a ream of paper for the purchase transaction, and almost that much for the sale.]

But…well, I can’t honestly say that move-related stuff is occupying all my afternoons and evenings. Even as we start packing toward the actual move, deciding on a mover, contacting utilities (and, later, the post office, bank, magazines, credit card companies, IRS, etc., etc., etc.), all that stuff should take less than half the time I’d normally devote to writing-related work.

Work that, other than some column-related effort, isn’t really happening. If I sit down to start on an essay, even one that grows by bits & pieces (e.g., Trends & Quick Takes), I find myself checking FriendFeed, checking email, then going off for a nap…and reading a magazine or exercising or going for a walk.

Which makes me wonder whether the move isn’t a convenient catchall for something else…

In recent years, I’ve said I’d keep on writing as long as (a) people want to read what I have to say and (b) I find it interesting & worthwhile to do so.

Right now, I’m a little uneasy on both counts. With luck, this too shall pass…

No quick decisions

Once again, I’m not doing anything (including not doing anything, if that makes sense) in any great hurry.

As to “the four projects,” no decision yet–although I guess the second possibility (library blogs) is dead in the water, along with sales for the books. (Short-term lesson in Andersonomics: Giving away the meat of the two library blog books has, to date, resulted in zero, count them, 0 sales of either book. But, you know, T-shirts at my author’s reading concerts are doing just fine…)

Unless there’s a sudden change in attitude, there’s a good chance the June C&I will consist of a reformatted version of the first 121 pages of The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008, which would probably yield a slightly large but not immense issue (I’m guessing 32 to 42 pages, depending on how I handle figures)–in other words, everything except the individual blog profiles. That book’s completely flatlined at this point as well, with no sales in at least three weeks (50 total to date), so we’ll see what giving (most of) it away does for sales or at least readership.

After that–we shall see. I’ve got lots of material ready to work on. (I’d still like to carry forward the Liblog Landscape study another year–I’m just not sure I can justify the effort on any basis, including “the good of the profession.”) The creative juices could start flowing again most any time…

Or the sense could grow that I’ve become an “old mind” that people are tired of hearing from, that my style of thinking and writing doesn’t have much place in Today’s Library Field and that I should just let it go.

Right now, I got nothin’.

Judith Krug died over the weekend. Krug headed up ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) for decades–since 1967.

Jessamyn West offers a brief post that says it as well or better than I could.

I was slightly acquainted with Krug, and had the chance to chat with her at one or two state library conferences. She was as charming and interesting in person as she was relentless in pushing for the freedom to read and intellectual freedom.

Krug was one of the good ones. She’ll be missed. The work will continue.

Stones–milestones, that is

• This appears to be the 1,000th post in this blog. Not “post #1000″–for various reasons, if I was still using post numbers, it would be higher than that. The celebration of this milestone–which, if I was still blogging at the frequency I originally anticipated, would be about six years away–will be muted.
• Cites & Insights reached a milestone this year–twice. The milestone? Two million words. How twice? The raw word count, including the masthead, “Inside this issue,” and repeated material from previous issues, passed two million words in the January 2009 issue. The refined word count–excluding repeated material longer than (roughly) a paragraph and excluding mastheads, banners and “Inside this issue”–passed two million words in April 2009. (The publication also passed 2,500 pages in January 2009. Word and page counts exclude annual indices and the phantom COAP issue.) You’ll see more about that, overall readership, and the most widely-read essays for the period 2004-2009 in the May issue. (Yes, there will be a May issue, probably in a week or so, despite the continuing upheaval. Most of the issue will be “free books”–in one sense at least.)

Bones

The “bones” of houses, in this case–that is, structural integrity, pest control, proper maintenance. We’ve learned a few things about appreciation for “good bones” and about just how local today’s odd real estate market really is.

(The distinction here is between remodeling and obvious visual “improvements” vs. things like cracks in the eaves, termite damage, apparent standing water…the kinds of things a good home inspector and pest inspector will find.)

Our house has great bones–we’ve always kept it in good shape, even though the kitchen still has the original (1950s) tile. That was critical for two of the offers we got, including the one we accepted. We finally asked why they’d chosen ours over the one nearby that’s roughly the same price but freshly remodeled. The answer boiled down to bones–turns out the remodeled house showed significant problems in the inspection. (And, as is frequently the case, the owners planned to remodel anyway, so remodeling wasn’t a big selling point.)

The house we’re buying–and yes, we did get the house–also has great bones. We spent two hours yesterday walking through it with a home inspector (the right kind of inspector: all the company does is inspections, no repairs, and he’s not a moonlighting realtor), noting a variety of tiny things to be resolved and a couple of slightly-larger repairs, but also noting that the important stuff was all great. He was as enthusiastic about the house as I’ve ever seen an inspector be–”this house is in great shape” is a literal quote. (I think he was also pleased, because he’s been inspecting a lot of bank-owned properties, which tend not to be in great repair.) And I suspect the bones were one reason this house also had four offers.

If you’d like a moral here, there is one:

• Pay attention to household maintenance first. Keep your house in great condition. Remodeling and the like can come a little later.

The broader story, though, is the truly peculiar and local state of real estate at this point. The Experts continue to say California’s in trouble, especially since there are probably more foreclosures coming–and, they tell us, foreclosures drag down the whole market.

It depends. From what we’ve seen in these transactions–and in the fact that both of the other houses up for sale in this neighborhood sold as rapidly as ours did [the remodeled one is off the market for now] and that the agents we talk to say multiple offers are now becoming normal again in nearby towns–it’s more complicated. I suspect the “foreclosure market” is largely separate from the traditional home-buying market.

What feels good: The sellers in Livermore are happy with our offer (yes, we paid more than asking, but they’d priced it fairly)–and we’re delighted with the house. The buyers in Mountain View are delighted with the house–and we’re happy with their offer. Two win:win transactions–that’s how business and real estate should work, but win:win seems to have been in short supply recently.

Broader implications? I’m not sure there are any. I do know this: Broad statements about The Real-Estate Market or even The California Real-Estate Market are too broad to be very useful. Even broad statements about the Mountain View or Livermore markets may be too broad. Local, local, local…

Footnote

I haven’t written anything about the Darien statement, and not much of anything about the latest Taiga list. Nor do I intend to at this point. Once things become more peaceful and after there’s been enough time for various folks to digest and respond, I might do a “preserving the zeitgeist” piece or I might not. If I do, I’m likely to be more observer than participant.

Readers of ONLINE magazine may feel that I’ve already responded, though, since my March/April 2009 “Crawford at Large” column, “Futurism and Libraries,” includes a section entitled “The library” fallacy, with “The library” in quotes. That column was written long before the Darien statement–but I’ll stand by my unease with the whole notion of “the library” either as Platonic ideal or useful universalism. (I’ve already gone on record as finding “one big library” more unfortunate than useful.) I’m not strong on universalisms in general. Beyond that, I’m just not taking part in this discussion at the moment.

I am not now, never have been, and never will be a director, AUL or AD at a major academic library–but I pay a fair amount of attention to what they’re talking about, at least indirectly.

I’d read some of the Taiga statements and found them, well, a little extreme. But for various reasons (self-preservation, laziness, inarticulateness), Ive never commented on them.

John Dupuis, braver and more articulate than I am, has posted a commentary that has a Daily Show feel to it: It’s amusing–but also makes a lot of serious points, and makes them well.

Go read it.

I may yet do something on Taiga in a future C&I–or maybe I don’t need to, with colleagues like Dupuis out there.

Cites & Insights 9:5, April 2009, is now available.

The 32-page issue is PDF as usual, with HTML versions (such as they are) for each essay available via the links below.

The issue includes:

Making it Work Perspective: Thinking about Blogging: 1

Do comments make a blog a blog? Is the “blogosphere” imploding? Have conversations moved elsewhere? And some offhand notes about blogs as a median medium, in an “interesting sweet spot in a casual media hierarchy of length, thought and formality.”

Perspective: Writing about Reading 2

Ignoring the Death of Serious Reading, which is as specious as the Death of Blogs, the Death of Print Media and even (in my opinion) the Sudden Death of Newspapers, we look at some other reading-related topics: Aliteracy and Online and Print Reading. A third topic somehow moved over into…

Library Access to Scholarship

The Death of Journals (Film at 11). That’s the overall title, and no, I don’t believe journals are nearing sudden death either…but the topics this time around do relate to journals: Are print journals obsolete? Should professional journals evolve into blogs?

Net Media: Beyond Wikipedia

It’s not about Wikipedia–or maybe it’s (indirectly) all about Wikipedia. After some questions as to why so many people seem to love monopolies so much, there’s a bunch of Knol knotes and some catching up with Citizendium–and a few brief notes on Wikia (which is not Wikipedia).

And that’s it for April.

Greg Schwartz just announced that Uncontrolled Vocabulary, the “weekly live interactive roundtable discussion of all things library,” is on hiatus. The eloquent post offers reasons why (a matter of family priorities) and how difficult it is to take the step.

It’s not a decision I make lightly and it in no way reflects my enthusiasm for what we do here. I love producing this program. I love the conversations. I love the people who’ve joined me on this journey. I know some of them will be genuinely disappointed. For this, I am sorry.

…Please understand that the problem for me is not so much the hosting of the show, which is only an hour of my time per week. It’s the never-ending involvement: the slave-like attention to my feed reader, the setting up of blog posts, the reading and re-reading of proposed conversation starters. All worthwhile activites that I enjoy, but that require a certain constant level of engagement which forces me to make compromises with the rest of my priorities. I’m making a conscious decision to not make those compromises anymore.

So far, it’s only on hiatus–but a “permanent vacation” is a possibility.

Great work (from everything I’ve heard)

True confession: I’ve never participated in a UV episode (there have been 71 to date)–and I’ve only listened to one of them all the way through.

That’s my loss. I’m just not a podcast person–even less so now that my daily commute is from the dining room to my office, maybe 25 feet. (But even when I was working, it was only a 10-15 minute commute–and I think I’d find something like UV too distracting for that commute.) Since I wasn’t a listener, it never made much sense to be a participant (and I tend not to do any professional stuff after dinner).

But I’ve heard enough, from people I trust, to know that UV was great stuff–lively, interesting, informative, with a diverse range of perspectives. The one episode I did listen to made me want more, just not enough to find the time for it.

The profession definitely owes Greg thanks for what he’s done to date–and, to be sure, for the earlier Carnival of the Infosciences.

This stuff is hard (and not always very rewarding)

There have been a number of unique, passion-driven experiments in non-institutional, freely available  “periodical media” serving the library field–making a distinction between things that appear on a fairly regular basis and the hundreds of blogs and other wholly irregular sources. (If you think I’m putting down liblogs, you really don’t read my stuff much: I’m making a distinction, not a value judgment.)

A few examples (excluding peer-reviewed OA journals) and what’s become of them:

• ExLibris, Marylaine Block’s weekly essay, which lasted more than 300 editions. It eventually became less-than-weekly. Block gave up on it in 2008, but continues to maintain the archive.
• NewBreed Librarian, “a publication and web site intended to foster a sense of community for those new to librarianship, whether in school or just out.” The bimonthly “webzine,” heavy on graphic design, began in February 2001–and ended in August 2002.
• Library Juice “was an irregular, weekly, then biweekly, then, for a moment, monthly electronic zine for librarians, library and information science students, and other interested people, published between January, 1998 and August, 2005.” Rory Litwin, who produced the zine throughout its eight-year life, resurrected the name as a blog, a book and a book publishing company. I’m not aware of any archive of the many zine issues.
• Carnival of the Infosciences, while technically a series of blog posts, falls into this category, with the interesting twist that it had many direct hosts during its 90-issue life (August 2005 to May 2008). While the link here yields pointers to the first 57 editions, the wiki hasn’t been kept up to date; you’ll have to search a little to get the remaining 33 editions. Update: Schwartz notes that links to the latter half of the Carnivals are here; I just missed them.
• Free Open Scholarship Newsletter, a monthly launched by Peter Suber in March 2001 to support “free online scholarship,” is a survivor–in part because SPARC took it over, sponsors it (Peter Suber is now a senior researcher at SPARC, among other things) and renamed it SPARC Open Access Newsletter in July 2003.
• Current Cites, a team effort providing “8-12 annotated citations” of current library literature each month, is also a survivor and by far the longest-lived of any of these efforts, since it began in August 1990.
• Added 2/25: LLRX.com, “Law and technology resources for legal professionals” (most definitely including law librarians) is a monthly collection of articles and columns (in a way, it’s an overlay journal) that Sabrina I. Pacifici has been doing since 1997. It has advertising and is a strong survivor. As noted on the “About” page, “LLRX is now in its 12th year of continuous publication, as a solo, independent enterprise.”
• Cites & Insights, my own experiment in this field, began in December 2000 and has appeared at least monthly ever since. I no longer consider it an experiment. It does have modest sponsorship. And, frankly, if I was still fully employed and had a better sense of balance, free time and priorities…well, I’m not sure C&I would be around.

And now another one’s gone, at least temporarily. I didn’t use “unique” in the phrase “unique, passion-driven experiments” because I’m a sloppy writer–I used it because it’s true. Each of these (and probably others I’ve forgotten or somehow missed) has had its own strengths, weaknesses and approach. Each has served the library field well (in my opinion).

And most have, I suspect, been underappreciated and under-rewarded relative to the direct work and indirect effort that’s gone into them. As gray literature (and I’ll include podcasts as literature), they’re mostly ignored by indexing services and other “official” resources. Nobody got rich from advertising on any of these. In most cases, I think the creators have needed a little craziness to keep things going.

So, Greg, you’ve done good work–and made what’s undoubtedly the right decision. Hope things work out.

Cites & Insights 9:3, February 2009, is now available for downloading.

The 30-page issue is PDF, as usual. Three of the essays are available as HTML separates (using the links below). The first, which is also the longest, is available as a PDF separate–the inclusion of embedded Excel graphs within the document made HTML creation more cumbersome than I was willing to deal with.

This issue features the article versions of my two presentations for the OLA (Ontario Library Association) SuperConference, held just over a week ago in Toronto, Ontario. The first article is a longer version of my session “Shiny Toys or Useful Tools?”; the second article includes “My own take” as the first set of Tech Trends, and that was my initial commentary during the “Top Tech Trends” session.

Issue contents:

Making it Work: Shiny Toys or Useful Tools? (pages 1-9)

Blogs and wikis aren’t shiny new toys for libraries and librarians any more. They’ve moved from toys to tools. This article includes the only defensible definitions of blogs and wikis that I know of, some comments about planning library blogs, and sections on the state of liblogs and library blogs in December 2008. Included–for the first time in C&I–graphs, eight of them. (As noted, the link is to a 9-page PDF.)

Perspective: Tech Trends, Trends and Forecasts (pages 9-18)

It’s that time of year again–time for lots of trendy commentaries. For a change, I begin with my own set: The trends I see “as vital for thinking about libraries, technology and life.”That’s followed by tech trends and commentaries from nine different sources, six of them library-specific; two sets of general trends, one of them just full of trendy neologisms; and three sets of forecasts (short-term predictions), one of them coupled with a scorecard for 2008.

Interesting & Peculiar Products (pages 18-23)

One long commentary on “budget” high-end audio systems and “the rule of 10,” plus comments on seven products (or groups of products) and seven editors’ choices and group reviews.

Trends & Quick Takes (pages 23-29)

Four longer commentaries and six quicker takes.

My Back Pages (pages 29-30)

Four brief commentaries.

I wrote these some time ago, in preparation for the OLA SuperConference and as part of a Trends & Quick Takes Special for the February Cites & Insights (not out yet–maybe in a week or less?). I didn’t post them here because I wrote them for C&I; I did, however, include them in a Technology Trends article for the PALINET Leadership Network.

I’m posting them here for two reasons:

1. First, because it may be a while before C&I comes out (various disruptions, not to worry)
2. Second, because Steve Lawson posted a really terrific “Top Tech Trend” item that has some overlap with mine–and after I noted that on FriendFeed (a comment that was intended to be along the lines of “great minds rest in the same gutter,” or whatever the saying is), he added a link to the post that suggests that he’d seen me offering similar ideas. And, you know, the more I think about it, the more I think that’s probably not true–that Steve monitored the same trends I did, had the same sense about them, and came up with his commentary wholly independently. (OK, maybe we chatted about it on LSW Meebo, back when I was showing up there once in a while. Maybe not.)

I think Steve’s post, regarding the “social software deathwatch,” is relevant and interesting in ways that my little set of trends may not be. But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I have to say. Think of it as a preview of one small portion of one essay in the February 2009 C&I.

My own take

In the Midwinter 2009 issue, I quoted from my 2004 mini-essay on the “top technology trend,” quoting Cory Doctorow and Boing Boing. Repeating part of the beginning of Doctorow’s entry: “The last twenty years were about technology. The next twenty years are about policy…” I believe that’s still true-and maybe the economic reality that emerged last year and will be with us for some time to come demonstrates that better than everything. Technology helped get us into this mess; I don’t see any way that technology will get us out of it.

Beyond that, I see these trends as vital for thinking about libraries, technology and life:

• Limits: They exist. Your financial resources are limited; you can’t keep borrowing against tomorrow indefinitely. Deny them as we might, limits–natural resources, time, attention–don’t simply disappear. Denying limits and hiding them under various odd assumptions can lead to disasters of various sorts.

• Business models: They matter. When you’re considering how various services for your own work and your library’s work will work, think about business models. To what extent are you relying on free services that don’t appear to have any source of revenue? What happens to your service if those services disappear? Do you have any rational basis to believe that they’ll continue to exist, grow and be developed without clear revenue sources? Your library has a business model, typically that of a community service: People pay in advance in order to fund a common good.
• Trusting the cloud: Set aside the jargon–the cloud’s just software and services on someone else’s servers. “Trusting the cloud” has three key aspects, one particularly important where library functions are concerned: Trusting that the services will remain (see “business models”); trusting that your data will be safe; and trusting that confidentiality will be preserved. I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t use the cloud; I am arguing that you should think several times before relying entirely on the cloud.
• Valuing existing users and services: Yes, you need to see how you can serve emerging needs of your community (your community)–but times of limits make your existing services more valuable than ever. Don’t ignore your existing users in order to court a minority of people living the digital lifestyle; find some balance. And if you find that some portion of the digerati really do have all the money to satisfy their instant-everything demands and have no intention of using your services–well, in fact, you can’t please everybody, and there’s a limit to how hard you should try.
• Real communities: What technologies and balances serve your users in your community? The answer’s considerably different for a town in which 99% of residents are wealthy and have high-speed broadband and smart phones (if such a town exists) than it is for a city where many people aren’t online at all (except at the library), many more have only dialup at home, and $100 a month for a smart phone data service is an outrageous expense. Where’s your community–and how does your library serve your users effectively?
• Taking back the language: That’s a group heading for a number of language-related issues. It means understanding that “Essentially free” means somebody somewhere is paying a lot of money. It means thinking to yourself “what you mean we?” when someone pronounces something that “we” or “we all” do or think. (The full phrase, from a brilliant song by Oscar Brown, Jr. regarding the Lone Ranger and Tonto, is slightly politically incorrect–although, you know, a majority of those using unfounded “we”isms are indeed white men.) It means flagging “inevitable” as a typically nonsensical substitute for argument. It means honoring skepticism while trying to avoid cynicism.

So there you have it. And do read Lawson’s commentary; it’s excellent. (Now to close this and add portions of his commentary to my Trends article–and, tomorrow or the next day, larger portions to the PLN article.)

This isn’t a proper post-conference summary. Between congestion and the results of two back-to-back conferences in cold & colder climates, together with a travel day that was even longer than expected, I’m still not fully up to speed…but thought a few notes might be in order.

Overall

The OLA SuperConference was a pleasure, with thousands of librarians of all types attending an astonishing variety of programs. I didn’t attend quite as many as originally intended (running tired throughout, so I tried to save whatever energy I had for the two sessions I was doing), and there was a real collision of programs I’d have liked to see on Friday afternoon when I was doing one. Still, a really good conference. I’d certainly return under the right circumstances.

My sessions

Shiny toys or useful tools?–my presentation on blogs and wikis, mostly blogs–was well-attended. They had to bring in more chairs. I’d guess there were at least 80 people there, and only a few left during the session. Unfortunately, I forgot to preface my talk with my general approval of the Law of 2 Feet: “If this isn’t what you expected or you’re not getting much from it, feel free to leave–I won’t be offended.” I was told later that OLA people tend to obey the Law of 2 Feet in any case.

As it was, the session was about half advice on setting up and using blogs and wikis and about half status updates on library blogs and liblogs, based on my books and a late December 2008 set of snapshots. I suspect the talk would have been even better if more of it was “how to do it well and what to avoid” with a few facts thrown in for balance.

A longer version of the talk, in article format, will be part of the February 2009 C&I, maybe out in a week, maybe longer, depending on how long it takes to regain some energy…

Top technology trends–where I was one of three panelists, along with a public librarian and a school librarian–was very well attended (it’s a spotlight session). Probably 250-300 people. My “trends” (not specific technologies, but issues) have already appeared on PLN and will also be part of a big Trends article in the February 2009 C&I. The others had excellent presentations. (Apparently, Meredith Farkas also spent less time on specific toys and more on overall aspects and policy issues.) I thought it went very well, but I’m the wrong one to judge.

Other sessions, once over lightly

My notes are sketchy and I think you’ll find most of these presentations online. I thought John Dupuis was interesting and enlightening on the use of Web2.0 tools in the science community. A session on using technology to see how users navigate online interfaces compared and contrasted in-person observation and remote computer-based observation; an interesting session, but not without problems. I wondered about the observer effect, and I really wondered about a remote observation technique that requires participants to download software that includes a keylogger! It felt as though the session was mostly about testing techniques, not about the things being tested, and maybe that’s OK. A “debate” on whether reference needed librarians had a slight misdescription in the program–it was really about whether reference desks needed professional librarians, a very different question.

Beyond the sessions

I noticed a couple of things about the conference:

• The receptions–and there were quite a few of them–had full bars, not just wine and beer. Maybe I don’t get invited to the right receptions at ALA, but that struck me as different.
• Some of the Canadian speakers used “North America” or “North American libraries” as shorthand for “United States and Canada,” omitting another N.A. country with roughly three times Canada’s population. But then, those of us in the 50 states frequently use “America” as shorthand for the U.S., so this is not a criticism.
• I don’t think there’s much to say about famed Canadian politeness. Let’s face it, library conferences tend to be fairly polite gatherings in any case…
• It was a VERY packed conference, with sessions starting at 8 a.m. and running well past 5 p.m., and with as many as 31 or 32 simultaneous programs (rarely fewer than 28 except for plenaries). Talking to some presenters who only had 15 or 20 attendees, they seemed to feel this was par for the course for specialized presentations. (The program does have “Level II” and “Level III” notes on presentations that assume some prior knowledge.)
• The Intercontinental Hotel is joined to the conference center and a real boon for thin-blooded folks like me, unwilling to venture out into sub-zero weather (Centigrade, that is) more often than necessary. The room was fine–but the hotel’s only restaurant was remarkably expensive for dinner (more expensive than the first-rate Frank at the Art Gallery, for example), and with one astonishing characteristic: No Ontario Chardonnays (only one Ontario white wine, a fairly obscure varietal), despite ambitious wine prices. Ontario produces a lot of wine and a lot of excellent wine; the reasonably-priced Lone Star Cafe across the street featured Ontario wines (including Chardonnay), as did the reasonably-priced Loose Moose Tap & Grill (also nearby), as did the reasonably-priced C’est What?, as did…well, almost everybody (certainly including Molson’s at the airport). (Frank offered nothing but Ontario wines, as far as I could see, including some relatively rare ones.) I think Intercontinental should get its act together. (I’m also getting sick of all the business hotels that Proudly Brew Starbuck’s, but I’m probably in a minority there.)
• Three cheers to the Airport Express drivers. The Wednesday driver took his time, so that we arrived a few minutes later but all in one piece (Wednesday conditions were pretty miserable). The Saturday driver was interesting, amusing, making the drive to the airport almost a mini-tour. And the price was right, for carriage in big comfortable buses with good reclining seats and shapable headrests,  lavatory and wifi (not that I took advantage of either). I almost never tip airport shuttle drivers. I made exceptions in both these cases, admittedly with those boring U.S. bills instead of sound Canadian coin.

That may be it for a conference post. When C&I is ready, I’ll add pointers to the appropriate articles (or copies of the articles) to the OLA site. Now to photocopy and mail in expenses…

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I’m hiding this here under the fold because I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s been suggested, by a couple of people, that I put together a program on effective publishing via Lulu and CreateSpace, as a way for libraries to do short-run books for their own purposes and to encourage community publication. If I did this, I’d work up a Word2007 6×9 book template that uses standard Vista typefaces, with sample text to show how it works.

I’m not sure it’s worth the effort (and I’m sure I wouldn’t be ready to do more than a handful of these presentations). Comments?

Today is apparently Open Access Day.

I’m not much for memes, and according to some folks I’m not a good OA proponent. I lack the “wholehearted” uncritical approach, for one–and my primary interest is in seeing academic libraries have the budgetary flexibility to maintain strong monographic and humanities collections, which I see as threatened by the outrageous and increasing costs of the STM (science, technical, medical) journal literature.

Peter Suber, the dean of open access and proprietor of the essential (if sometimes overwhelming) resource, Open access news, labels me an “OA independent,” and I’m comfortable with that label.

That said…

If you don’t know about open access, you need to

The fundamental idea behind open access (with or without the capital letters) is that people–all people, not just inner circles–should have access to published, peer-reviewed journal articles. The writers of the articles–the researchers–don’t get paid for the articles anyway, except indirectly (tenure, professional awareness, etc.) Most of the action (and most of the subscription money) is in science, technology and medicine (STM), although OA can involve any field.

The traditional journal system is broken. Too many of the journals cost too much–and strip academic libraries of the flexibility to maintain solid monograph and humanities collections because they’re trying, impossibly, to keep up with those faster-than-inflation price rises. The net result is that fewer people have access to less of the research over time. That’s not good for the fields, it’s not good for people seeking out information. It is, to be sure, very good for a handful of very large publishers and a much larger group of professional societies who are basically depending on libraries to subsidize their other activities, as they count on high-priced publications to cover other society costs.

Starting points

If you want to dive headlong into current issues in OA, the link to Suber’s blog is essential.

For a slightly more gentle introduction, I’ll refer you to the cluster on open access that we’ve put together at PALINET Leadership Network (PLN), which is free and open to everyone, particularly for reading:

• Start with Open access basics, which combines Peter Suber’s two-minute introduction to OA with a few quibbles and definitions.
• A somewhat longer and extremely useful Open access overview, taken directly from Peter Suber’s site, is well worth reading.
• Open access: why it matters focuses on the benefits of OA and is a short read.
• I published Thinking about libaries and access in June 2006 as one view on how open access can and should involve and affect libraries. It’s definitely not a canonical piece. (This version includes some July 2008 updates.)
• You can explore some of the difficulties around OA with three other pieces:

1. Open access myths, a compilation on some of the myths that continue to be raised as arguments against OA.
2. Open access issues, notes on some of the real issues that remain.
3. Open access controversies, discussions of some controversies that are more than myths.

• Open access resources will guide you to half a dozen key sites, ten blogs, half a dozen ejournals and the Open Access Directory, a recent, growing, authoritative “compendium of simple factual lists about open access…to science and scholarship.”

It matters

To me personally? Not so much–at least not at the moment.

To the library field, to library leaders and to humanity? A lot. Maybe that’s why, even as a somewhat skeptical “OA independent,” I’ve devoted more than 130 pages of Cites & Insights to OA-related coverage over the years–the equivalent of two medium-length books. That’s certainly why I put together a strong OA cluster at PALINET Leadership Network and tagged it all as “policy.”

If you’re not already familiar with OA, you should be.

If you’re in an academic library, you should consider how your library could be involved in OA.

If you’re a researcher or article writer, consider how OA can help and what you can do.

It’s not about “losing copyright” (and certainly not about robbing authors!). It’s not about losing peer review.

It’s about gaining access.