Walt at Random

You may recall that a while back (February 4, 2010), I posted “EPub, First Attempt“–noting the possible emergence of a new book collecting all of the C&I essays on open access, and wondering how to produce a (free) ePub version of that book.

In that post, I offered links to two attempts at producing an ePub version (from the complete Word version, lacking only an index):

• ePub from PDF (the PDF produced by Word’s “Save As” Option for PDF with Acrobat installed)
• ePub from Word’s “filtered HTML” output.

Three days later, I added a third option:

• ePub from RTF (as produced by Word’s “Save As” option).

Since then, I’ve seen quite a few access for the versions–through yesterday, 161 for the HTML version, 22 for the PDF version, 15 for the RFT version. I’ve only received one response based on somebody actually trying out the versions on their own ereader.

Still draft, but here’s the PDF

While I’m still waiting for other feedback and to see whether one possibility for indexing the book actually happens, I’m increasingly aware that, even by my modest expectations, a print book version of this massive compilation (more than 500 pages long) is likely to be somewhat less than a best-seller…as in, I might be lucky to even reach two-digit sales.

Since the PDF version and ePub version were going to be free anyway, here’s what I’m going to do:

• Here’s the full PDF version (still draft, ’cause no index). Because this is “Save as” rather than “Print to,” it does have a working outline tab. On the other hand, if you don’t have Arial on your reader, you may have problems with the mysterious presence of Arial characters in the document (there shouldn’t be any, but there apparently are), since the typeface is not embedded. (I don’t know of any way to embed it using “Save as”–it doesn’t seem to give me the same range of options as PDF printing, but PDF printing doesn’t build the headings outline.) Note: It’s a moderately large file–just under 3MB.

If you find the PDF version worthwhile, I cordially invite you to visit Cites & Insights and leave a donation. I’ll suggest at least $5, but that’s up to you.

You’re also free to copy the PDF elsewhere and redistribute it, as long as there’s attribution and you’re not charging for it. I’d rather you didn’t, only because I’d like to know how many copies are downloaded, but the CC license holds: You can, as long as it’s noncommercial.

If the indexing doesn’t work out and I don’t get appropriate feedback and/or indications that this book would actually go anywhere, it’s quite possible that “oaldraft.pdf” will be the final version of Open Access and Libraries (with one or more of the ePub versions also left up indefinitely).

You should be able to translate this file to something your non-PDF-supporting edevice can handle, using Calibre–after all, that’s what I did. If so, you’ll probably get the odd results I did, but maybe not.

That’s it: If you’re interested in the book, be my guest. We’ll see what happens from here.

When last I discussed the possibility of a book combining all 33 of the Open Access-related essays in Cites & Insights from 2001 through 2009 (plus one “disContent” column from EContent Magazine), the issue was whether it was worth doing an ePub version: Whether anybody would want it.

Now there’s a slightly different issue, one that may derail the effort entirely–and you’ll see what it is if you revisit the original post.

To wit:

• It appears that I can’t really use Word2007’s built-in indexing feature, at least not with “Mark All.” I figured I could generate an index in 5-10 hours through that method–and, indeed, it takes about an hour to go through 50-60 pages.
• Unfortunately, when I save the results after 50-60 pages and reopen the file, it’s unusable: The 519-page book has become 1200+ pages, with the bottom half of each page made up of a multiline, uneditable, page footer that seems to comprise several different page headers. (Hey, at least the first time this happened, it gave me another chance to see that my weekly incremental backups actually work–I could restore last week’s pre-indexed version neatly enough. Call that lemonade.)
• As far as I can tell, it would take at least 50-60 hours for me to do an index separately. I can’t justify that “for the good of the community,” so that’s not going to happen.
• So here’s where it stands: Depending on feedback between now and February 7, I’ll either:

1. Make Open Access and Libraries: Essays from Cites & Insights 2001-2009 available as a free PDF and probably free ePub (unless that conversion turns out to be a hassle), and as a 6×9 paperback for $5 more than the cost of production (yielding $4 a copy for me)–but without an index.
2. Scrap the whole project because it’s so awful to produce a nonfiction book without an index.

Just skimming through the vastness of the book (really: 191,000 words–it’s big), I find the chronological arrangement interesting and slightly useful. And, what the heck, if anybody out there cared, preparing an index would be a great project–I’d certainly mount it on my website if somebody did it.

Do it or dump it?

That’s what it boils down to. The Word version’s in place. All I need is a cover (not difficult) and to do the ePub conversion (and redo the PDF conversion) and upload to Lulu.

Thoughts?

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Status Update, February 2, 2009:

Two developments:

1. An acquaintance with some indexing experience offered to try to index the thing–which requires working from a 2.8MB PDF (to retain pagination). Not sure that will work out: It’s a BIG effort for a wholly unpaid gig that may not be read by that many people… But I’m going to give him a few weeks and see what happens. I have no doubt whatsoever that he’s capable of doing a good job…
2. I think I have a clue what’s causing Word to go berserk (but am not sure): Namely, I was using “Mark All” for terms that appear in one chapter’s running page head, and that may confuse Word beyond redemption. If #1 doesn’t work out, I might try again, avoiding that particular situation. Or I might not. As noted in the comments, there’s also the possibility of post-pub “crowdsourcing” an index.

In sum: The book isn’t going to appear in the next week or two, and probably not until March. I probably will make it available in ePub form (if Calibre does a good conversion), at the same $0 price if Lulu supports that. Meanwhile, off to other stuff!

Two semi-related brief topics:

The Question

I asked a similar question of Peter Suber and another person who shall remain nameless, and got a positive response from Suber, no response from the other. So I’ll broaden it a bit:

Do you think it would be worthwhile to have all the scholarly-access-related articles from Cites & Insights collected into a single document, in chronological order?

If I finish this process, the result would be a substantial book–right now (copyfitted but lacking indexing), it’s 511 6×9 pages containing 191,000 words in 34 essays.

The book would be available in (at least) two forms:

• As a free PDF download (from Lulu), carrying a Creative Commons BY-NC license, with no DRM or other disabling issues.
• As a (thick!) trade paperback, priced at $5 more than Lulu’s actual production cost, yielding $4 per copy to me (basically to provide a little payback for the indexing and putting the whole thing together).

Note the word free. While Lulu now charges $1.45 plus 20% of set price for PDF downloads, Lulu continues to waive that $1.45 if the set price is $0.

The book would not have updates or corrections (other than a few corrected typos). The index would probably be fairly minimal; there’s no way I’m going to spend the time to do proper indexing for 191,000 words, given that I suspect almost all “sales” will be of the PDF variety.

UPDATE, February 1, 2010: If this book appears at all, it will be without an index. I don’t know if it’s a Word2007 bug or just the complexity and sheer length of the book, but when I try to index using Word’s indexing tools, and do more than about 50 pages of the 519 (using “Mark All” as appropriate), the saved version of the file comes back as garbage–expanded to more than 1,200 pages thanks to very long, meaningless, unchangeable pagefooters. I can’t justify taking the time (I’d guess 60+ hours, minimum) to prepare an index manually–so, although I understand that it’s abhorrent to do an unindexed nonfiction book, that’s the only way this can happen.

NOTE: I am not asking for commitments–and in any case I’d have no way of knowing who downloads or buys the book. I’m only asking for expressions of support for the idea or, if you think it’s a terrible idea, expressions of non-support. Leave a comment or send me email (waltcrawford at gmail dot com). Say within the next week; the copyfitting’s done, and I’ll do indexing after writing the first essay for the March C&I, unless I decide to abandon it.

The Status Report

On January 1, I noted the first review of But Still They Blog and also noted that Lulu could now handle ePub, the apparent “universal standard” for ebooks. I looked for “indications from, say, three people that they would buy an ePub version” before going to the trouble of locating software to do the conversion, testing the conversion, and uploading an ePub version.

I received one response–from a colleague who’s already purchased the print version but offered to test the ePub version.

Based on that level of interest, it’s hard to generate any enthusiasm for going to the trouble of doing an ePub version of this possible new book–particularly since I’d probably give that one away.

So: Anybody out there who would be more interested in the OA-related book if it was available in ePub? Not asking for a commitment, just for legitimate interest.

After all, if a universal standard is met by universal ennui, there’s little point in adopting it.

Here’s the recent history:

• On August 25, I posted my thoughts about possibly giving up on Open Access, which would effectively mean shutting down Library Access to Scholarship in Cites & Insights, since OA has probably been 95% of what’s been there. I got a few responses…
• On September 2, given the lack of feedback, I added another post. I got one memorable comment that I’m afraid is all too true, about how much most scientists care about OA…
• On September 14, I asked the question within Cites & Insights itself.
• On September 23, I decided to Punt–doing a “brain dump” on all the stuff I’d accumulated on OA over the last year or so, but postponing a decision on whether to do anything more about OA.
• That brain dump became a single-article issue, the November 2009 Cites & Insights, published on October 4, 2009. (It’s an ezine. Why shouldn’t it use magazine date conventions?)
• On October 9, I posted “On the way from the dump“–noting that the one-article issue showed a much larger than usual spike a few days after publication (I’m pretty sure Library Link of the Day deserves most of the credit).
• A few people commented on the issue. John Dupuis wrote a generous post hoping I’d continue, perhaps on an annual-summary basis.
• As of today, the PDF of that issue–the real C&I–has been downloaded 1,102 times (and viewed 5,500 times, but I typically ignore PDF pageviews because I don’t know what they mean), and the HTML version has been viewed 2,338 times. Those are strong short-term numbers (for example, the October issue has only been downloaded 594 times to date; the September issue’s up to 1,187 but that’s over 2.5 months).

So?

So I thought about John Dupuis’ comments. A lot. I also thought about some of the secondhand comments I’ve seen. And I thought about one or two people who’ve said my writing about OA is the only OA stuff they read.

And, the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to let it go.

• The November 2009 issue is not an annual review of OA. Not even close. It wasn’t intended to be. If you want an annual review of OA, go read Peter Suber–he’s qualified to do it and he does a fine job.
• I have never pretended to provide sound, balanced overall coverage of OA. I’d consider it unfortunate if someone thought my coverage provided a reasonable overview of OA.
• Some of the negative comments I saw indicate that people who have never read anything I’ve written before will come to something like this and read it entirely without context (e.g., one person who seemed to assume that I have never examined Stevan Harnad’s proposals!). I’m not ready to repeat a decade’s worth of context every time I have a month’s or a year’s worth of notes to add…
• And, as before, there are other people doing this stuff–some of them well, at least one or two better than I ever will. We have the OA heretics, the OA cheerleaders, the deep OA analysts, the OA faultfinders, the one-note champions and those who cover the field broadly, deeply and fairly. I’m not needed there.

Over the last two weeks, I saw at least two items online that I was tempted to tag “oa” in Delicious. I did tag one item–and I’ve just gone back and added an “lln” tag, since I think that particular item should be used to improve one of the Open Access articles on the Library Leadership Network.

But for C&I? The more I think about it, the less likely it is that I’ll go back to the topic.

A considerable surprise this morning, when checking the last week’s statistics for Cites & Insights

Typically, C&I averages 300-400 sessions per day, except during the first few days after a new issue, when it’s likely to run 500-800 sessions per day. (Average since March 11, 2009, when the domain was moved to a new server, is 376 sessions and 1,098 pageviews per day–but the pageviews are even spikier than the sessions, typically hitting a couple thousand per day right after an issue comes out.)

When the current issue, my brain dump of open access stuff, came out, the initial surge was a little higher than usual, up around 800 sessions (and over 3,000 pageviews). That wasn’t too surprising; among other things, Open Access News and DigitalKoans both noted the single-essay issue.

But…

Yesterday, there were 1,915 sessions. That’s more than twice as many as I’ve ever seen, except for the time ALA Direct linked to an essay.

It’s true that Library Link of the Day linked to the issue–but I only see 31 referrals from LLotD. (On the other hand, it’s possible–even likely–that hundreds of people clicked on the LLotD link in Google Reader, Bloglines or some other aggregator, so maybe this does account for a lot of it.)

I see more than 700 downloads of the issue so far, which is strong but not spectacular for the first four days–and nearly 1,600 pageviews for the HTML version, which is fairly remarkable for four days. (There are some 3,700 pageviews for the PDF version, but I never know what to make of those, so I leave them out of my statistical recording–which may be a mistake.)

Early days, to be sure, but possible conclusions:

• I should do more single-essay issues. (That one’s tough. The most successful issues have been single-essay issues, but some of them have done poorly–and I generally don’t like to do them.)
• I should stop doing more sections–maybe people want to see my final comments on something. (That one’s just strange.)
• Library Link of the Day has an enormous but indirect influence. (This may be the most likely.)
• No conclusions at all…

I do note that, to date, no open access blog other than OAN and DigitalKoans has seen fit to mention the issue at all–which is in keeping with the history of C&I and the OA movement.

Oh, and as to possible sponsorships for C&I in 2010, which could influence the course of the ejournal: Still batting zero, not that I’ve been pounding the virtual pavement.

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.

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.

Cites & Insights 8:11, November 2008, is now available for downloading.

The 26-page issue (PDF as always, but with HTML versions available from links here or at the Cites & Insights home page) includes five essays:

Bibs & Blather: Books and Blogs

Mostly updated versions of Walt at Random posts–library blog books going out of print soon, a progress report on The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008 (with more progress since the post) and notes on Technorati, blogs as a whole and the liblog landscape.

Making it Work: Libraries and the Social Web

Notes on aspects of social-web applications in libraries beyond blogs and wikis.

Perspective: How Common is Common Language?

An original “research” project: What happens when you try 300 everyday sentences against Google–and when you try just the first eight words of each sentence? The answers may surprise you.

Library Access to Scholarship: OA Controversies

Notes on the brouhaha when publishers tried to undo the NIH mandate by congressional hearing–and other notes on open access opposition and, for that matter, extreme positions on both sides.

Retrospective: Pointing with Pride, Part 7

Just a few highlights along the way–considerably shorter than previous indulgences.

Heather Morrison has a post about the “gratis v. libre” distinction that Peter Suber is suggesting as being more neutral than “weak vs. strong” when discussing the difference between open access as a way to read material and open access as a way to reuse material.

It’s a useful distinction. No, more than that, it’s a necessary distinction. And it allows people to start discussing whether “the goals” should be libre (which seems to be required by some of the OA declarations) or gratis (which opens readership–what a lot of us thought was the goal).

That’s why I featured it in Open access basics, the starting point for the PALINET Leadership Network’s cluster of articles on open access. (I believe I was one of the first to pick up on Suber’s usage–and note, with a little disappointment, that pretty much nobody but Suber has mentioned the PLN open access cluster. Too bad; I believe it’s a significant contribution and could use wider readership and discussion.)

Here’s the thing, though: Morrison includes this paragraph:

Since IJPE is not a peer-reviewed journal, the focus of the open access movement, it is not quite accurate to call IJPE OA – even though it is gratis, libre, and scholarly in nature.

Huh? Because the primary focus of the OA movement has been peer-reviewed articles, then anything else can’t be called OA? When did that happen?

The paragraph and those that follow do bring up another issue: Does “libre” mean anything at this point?

IJPE operates under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY), Noncommercial (NC), Sharealike (SA) license. That’s not the most restrictive CC license, but it certainly doesn’t remove the permission barriers that some people feel need to be removed: You can’t reuse IJPE material in commercial settings without permission, and the SA portion makes datamining and derivation a little tricky.

If I were to call Cites & Insights OA, I’d call it gratis, not libre, because I use a BY-NC license (but explicitly allow derivative works without requiring sharealike).

I would have left a shorter version of this as a comment at Morrison’s blog–but it doesn’t support comments.

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Update: It may be useful to quote Peter Suber, from his longer Open access overview:

• Royalty-free literature is the low-hanging fruit of OA, but OA needn’t be limited to royalty-free literature. OA to royalty-producing literature, like monographs and novels, is possible as soon as the authors consent. But because these authors will fear losing revenue, their consent is more difficult to obtain. They have to be persuaded either (1) that the benefits of OA exceed the value of their royalties, or (2) that OA will trigger a net increase in sales. However, there is growing evidence that both conditions are met for most research monographs. Nevertheless, this is still a minor front in the larger campaign for OA to royalty-free literature.
• Nor need OA even be limited to literature. It can apply to any digital content, from raw and semi-raw data to learning objects, music, images, multi-media presentations, and software. It can apply to works that are born digital or to older works, like public-domain literature and cultural-heritage objects, digitized later in life.
• I refer to “peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints” in my subtitle because it’s the focus of most OA activity and the focus of this overview, not because it sets the boundaries of OA.

There are plenty of issues and controversies around open access. This needn’t be one of them.

Cites & Insights 8:4, April 2008, is now available for downloading.

The 28-page issue is PDF as usual (or not as usual–I’m now using Word 2007 and Microsoft’s free PDF-output download), but HTML separates are available from the C&I homepage

The issue includes:

• Bibs & Blather – a very short introduction to the issue and what got left out.
• Library Access to Scholarship – Harvard and Institutional Repositories
• Old Media/New Media Perspective: Thinking About Kindle and Ebooks
• Making it Work Perspective: TechNos and TechMusts

By the way, if you know anyone who’s been getting issue alerts via email, let them know they need to sign up for C&I Updates or Walt at Random; Topica no longer accepts my posts (and entirely lacks help/contact info).

Cites & Insights 7:11 (October 2007) is now available.

The 30-page issue (PDF as usual, but HTML separates of each essay are also available) includes:

• Announcing Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples – a new book that every public library (and library school) should own.
• Bibs & Blather – Incidents and Sideshows: the accidental theme of most of this issue.
• Library Access to Scholarship – PRISM: Enough rope? (Will AAP come to regret the new “partnership”?)
• ©3: Balancing Rights – SFWA Takedowns: A Copyright Incident
• Making it Work – Library 2.0 discussions (and another sideshow)
• Net Media Perspective: Tracking High-Def Discs – The Battle Continues

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large 7:9 (August 2007) is now available for downloading.

It’s an odd issue: Four somewhat overlapping Perspectives and an Offtopic Perspective.

The 26-page issue (PDF as usual, but each Perspective is available as an html separate from the homepage) includes:

• Perspective: On the Literature

I believe that gray literature—blogs, this ejournal, a few similar publications and some lists—represents the most compelling and worthwhile literature in the library field today…

• Perspective: On Authority, Worth and Linkbaiting

Yes, it’s the dreaded Britannica Blog essay. Yes, I’m late to the game. No, this is not primarily about Michael Gorman, although his blogging (his blogging!) plays a crucial role in the discussion. There will be no fisking here, tempting though it might be—either of Gorman’s posts or of some over-the-top responses…

• Perspective: On Disagreement and Discussion

Are librarians willing to disagree with one another?
What a silly question. Of course we are (I’m counting myself as a librarian for this discussion). Consider some disagreements I’ve chronicled and taken part in here and in my blog, just for starters….

• Perspective: On Ethics and Transparency

How much do you need to know about who I am and how I deal with issues, people and organizations that might relate to my writing? What do you need to know about my ethical standards? How much disclosure assures adequate transparency?

• Offtopic Perspective: 50-Movie Classic Musicals, Part 2 – including Rhythm and Blues Review, Till the Clouds Roll By, All-American Co-Ed, Hi-De-Ho (an hour of Cab Calloway: how can you go wrong?), Royal Wedding…and a whole bunch more.

Not included in this issue: Perspective: On Clever Names for Perspectives. And the Bibs & Blather has appeared instead as an absurdly long post at Walt at Random.

What follows was written as the Bibs & Blather for the August 2007 Cites & Insights. I’m doing final work on that issue now. This isn’t worth the print space, but it might make an amusing, if very long, post.

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I’m starting this essay on July 4, 2007—the same day I start writing the first of several related essays for the August Cites & Insights, getting back to writing after a two-week break.

Why two weeks? ALA Annual came first. Then came the aftereffects of a difficult journey back home—it took three days to regain reasonable energy and catch up part of a sleep deficit. (“Sleeping” in Dallas-Fort Worth’s Terminal D was iffy at best). About the same time, I was finishing up the July issue (final copyfitting, etc.) and getting it out—and catching up on blog posts.

Oh, and doing the initial work toward producing a PoD book version of LIBRARY 2.0 AND “LIBRARY 2.0” and the followup PERSPECTIVE: FINDING A BALANCE: LIBRARIES AND LIBRARIANS. By the time this diary/essay is complete (which may be “by the time the August issue is complete”), either that book will be available at Lulu or I’ll have decided it’s not worth the trouble.

Anyway, the holiday gives me a chance to kickstart the writing process. I already knew there was plenty to write about: Folders filled with stuff on MAKING IT WORK, TRENDS & QUICK TAKES, separate essays, NET MEDIA…and some special folders relating to some essays I’ve been promising to do for a while, plus one I’d tried to avoid but find I can’t.Turns out the four essays I have in mind all overlap. They’re all real essays—opinion pieces informed by source material from others, rather than collections of citations and extracts with a few comments thrown in for seasoning.

I’m not sure how they’re going to turn out, or what’s going to wind up in the August issue. So I’m maintaining this essay as a sort of diary as I go along.

Making the sausage? Most of you probably get the reference already—you don’t want to know how sausage is made or how legislation gets written. You may not want to know just how messy the “creative” portion of Cites & Insights is. I think some of you might find it interesting to see how much can change between initial intent and final issue. Thus, this odd essay. Or maybe I’m just postponing actual writing for another 15-20 minutes. You think?

First update, 3 p.m., July 4, 2007

I stopped postponing the actual writing. I was aiming for maybe 3,000 words on disagreement and discussion as the first of three or four essays. I hoped to be done by now. At this point, I have just over 6,000 words (2,000 imported from a Walt at Random post and comments on that post) and I’m not quite done with the first draft.

The overlap between this essay and the second essay (on the literature) is obvious and growing. My comments on toxicity aren’t going to make it into the essay, and maybe that’s for the best. My sense that much of the August issue will be about authority, voice, discussion and relevance—all overlapping—seems likely to be right. Now? Time for a break.

Second update, 4:30 p.m., July 4, 2007

Maybe it’s not time yet to make any decisions about the PoD book—although, as I think about updating the liblog piece from last year (and maybe the other one from two years ago), the future starts to look a lot more interesting than “the past” in the form of adding footnotes and index entries.

First, though, let’s see if it’s feasible to finish the draft of this essay. Today.

Last update for July 4, and close of the first essay

It was feasible. Unfortunately, the essay’s now 8,600 words long—way too long if I plan three other essays and other C&I departments—and I’m not sure how I’m going to cut it without losing context in quoted material. There are worse problems, I know—but when you’re discussing discussion, it’s important to keep the level of discourse clear and to retain context as much as possible. You may disagree. On to the next essay—but not today, and maybe not tomorrow or the next day.

Second Essay

It wasn’t “tomorrow.” It is the next day: Friday, July 6 at around 1 p.m. Yesterday included the last movie of the last disc of a 50-movie pack, so I finished off the OFFTOPIC PERSPECTIVE and posted the Disc 12 portion.

I also verified my tentative conclusion of late July 4 regarding the PoD book. It’s not going to happen for a couple of overlapping reasons:

• Gven ongoing job uncertainties and the dog days of summer, I only have so much energy. I’d rather devote it to new stuff (including “new old” stuff, namely revisiting liblogs from last year) than adding a little value to old stuff and making it pretty—particularly since I’d guess the book version would never reach high two digit sales, much less three digits.
• For the PoD book to make sense at all (that is, for time spent on the footnotes, bibliography, index, cover preparation, etc. to be worth at least minimum wage), I’d need to price it at $25 or more—and given that most of the content is from other people, that raises tricky questions I don’t feel like dealing with.

I took off work early today (making up extra time from earlier) to start on the second of what could turn out to be five interlinked essays. I can only hope none of the others will be nearly as long as the first; there is no way I’m doing a 40,000-word issue.

On the other hand, an “all PERSPECTIVES” August issue might not be a terrible thing if it’s not too heavy or too long. The second essay is much more “where I stand” informed by comments from others, on my view of the current literature. It should be easier and shorter. It also begins with a blog post—but this time, portions of the post appear at the start of the essay rather than the end.

Update, 3:15 p.m., Friday, July 6

The second essay, at least in draft form, is a one-shot: I was able to compose it in one sitting. It’s definitely shorter (around 2,800 words at the moment), if perhaps not as short as it could be. I feel as though I cheated a little at the end, pointing to two [later three] posts rather than fleshing out secondary topics, but I really did want to keep this one relatively short. More than enough for now (there’s already enough for a full issue, but I’m just getting started). Next? Either the Gorman/Britannica/linkbait commentary or an essay on ethics, transparency and disclosure. I’m not sure which.

Third Essay

Saturday morning (7/7/07, for what that’s worth)—the time between breakfast and grocery shopping. Time enough to check mail (all list mail except one LinkedIn invite), blogs (not much this morning, as expected), a few other sites—and to set the scene for the third essay, after making notes on some source documents last night.

Looks like it will be the Gorman/Britannica/linkbait/authority essay, and the fun part will be keeping it relatively short. Does an issue with a quartet of true Perspectives—personal essays—and one offtopic perspective make sense? Maybe yes: It’s summer and OK for regular departments to take a brief vacation.

Maybe no: A couple of those departments are getting badly backed up…and there’s the “blog followup” issue looming beyond this one. Maybe it doesn’t matter: Looks like that’s what will happen, like it or not.

Odd. I was really nervous about two weeks without writing—and now I’m ahead of the game. That’s good in this case: I can print out the essays, let them sit for a while, revise them for better quality and shorter length—and get started on the liblog retrospective in the meantime. If I’m not busy looking for work and wondering whether the promised survival of C&I is really such a safe bet, that is.

Hmm. Just realized that it might make more sense to do more of the source markup and start the PERSPECTIVE this afternoon. Can’t possibly finish it this morning in any case. There’s a plan. So I’ll start the file, give it a title, and let it wait.

First update, 12:45 p.m., July 7, 2007.

“More of the source markup” doesn’t mean “all of the source markup”—there’s just too much source material (and I was selective in printing commentaries). It’s now clear that I need to make this one mostly summaries and pointers with relatively little quotation and direct commentary. Maybe one C&I can take four true personal PERSPECTIVEs; it certainly can’t take more than one or two very long PERSPECTIVEs. Splitting these across issues seems absurd given the amount of overlap. So, here we go.

Second update, 4:20 p.m., July 7, 2007

Done—or at least finished for the first draft. I concluded that it made sense to stop analyzing source material after a certain point, at least if the essay was going to be reasonably brief. It’s not terse by any means, but at least it’s not much over 3,000 words. Is it worthwhile? I’m not the judge.

Fourth Essay

Monday, July 9, 2007: I did “other stuff” yesterday, including prep work for the blog projects and finding interesting 50-movie packs for future exercise (two sets of westerns—who woulda thought? and a comedy set I’m still thinking about).

This essay won’t get written in one pass because I’m working “normally”—that is, after work (and exercise). That means no more than 60-90 minutes per day, and I don’t believe I can write this one in 60-90 minutes, although I might get the bones of it (and the cited material) in place. We shall see.

First update, 6:30 p.m., July 9, 2007

Off to a good start—cutting Lessig’s statement down to 20% of original size, offering initial notes, cutting about 20% from Houghton-Jan’s statement, preceding that with notes on previous Ethics essays. So, tomorrow, to deal with Houghton-Jan’s statement, consider the third post (Farkas), and maybe wrap things up with my own stance. Or maybe that will take until Wednesday.

Second update, 4:50 p.m., July 10, 2007

Can I finish this draft today? We shall see.

Final update, 6:15 p.m., July 10, 2007

Yes. It’s finished and it’s a good length—although it can certainly use polishing. So now I have 24,000 words, way more than enough for a summer issue. I’ll set them aside for a few days (maybe a week) while I get started on some other projects. Maybe then I can cut down the longest essay and make some balanced sense of the four interlinked essays.

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Afternote: 1,800 of those 24,300 words (after the first round of revisions) were the B&B you just read (if you’re still here). I trimmed another 600 words and did a fair amount of copyfitting to get it down to 26 pages.When will the August issue appear? Maybe Sunday, maybe not. I’m certainly not planning to compete head-on with HP–and there’s other stuff to complete.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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