You’ll probably want to print out at least one draft version, to do your own editorial review and to gauge overall appearance. But printing 6 x 9″ pages on letter-size (8.5 x 11″) paper wastes a lot of paper–and most duplexing printers won’t automatically duplex in a case like this, so that you have to manually refeed sheets in order to use both sides.

There’s an easy way to save paper and still have fully usable editing and review drafts (more so in Microsoft Word than in LibreOffice/OpenOffice)–and, at least for Word, this technique still allows for automatic duplexing.

Two Pages to a Sheet

That’s what it’s called in both Word and LibreOffice, although that’s a slight misnomer: It’s really two book pages to a printout page, which means you’ll get four book pages per sheet of paper if you have a duplexing printer.

The technique’s simple. I’ll show the method for Word2010 and for LibreOffice 3.3, but it should work equally well in all versions of Word and OpenOffice/LibreOffice, although the steps to get to a detailed print menu in earlier versions of Word are different.

Microsoft Word

Here’s all you need to do–and your printer should already be on when you do this.

1. Click on the File tab, the leftmost tab. (For Word 2007, that will be the Office icon, and the next step may be different. For earlier versions of Word, it should be the File menu–and the next step will be different.)
2. Click on the Print tab on the left-hand side of the resulting overview page. (By now, you probably know that this page gives you a great summary of your word count, page count and…sigh…just how long you’ve actually spent editing this masterpiece!)
3. Here’s a portion of the resulting dialog box, with the key setting already changed (highlighted), by changing the pull-down menu from the default “1″ to “2.”
   

   Word2010 Print Options menu (partial)

That’s it. Click on Print at the top of the page (above the portion shown here) and your chapter or book will come out at two pages to a side or four pages to a sheet.

In my own tests, the resulting pages are 90% of the original size. That’s big enough so that you should have no trouble editing and considering overall layout. If you’re also saving ink by using draft mode (my printer calls it “Quick Print”), that should work fine as well–but do note:

The printed results are not precise replicas of the actual pages. You should print out at least one page full size and with normal/full quality printing to get a better sense of how your typeface looks on the page.

It appears that Word retains print settings throughout a session, but not between sessions. Check the Print menu each time you’re printing a document.

LibreOffice and OpenOffice

While LibreOffice requires the same small number of steps, the results aren’t quite as good.

Here’s what you do.

1. Click on (open) the File menu.
2. Click on Print.
3. Here’s part of the Print dialog box:
   

   Portion of LibreOffice Print dialog box

4. Click on the Page Layout tab, which will bring up this dialog box, shown with the relevant change (Pages per Sheet) made:

LibreOffice Page Layout dialog box

That’s it. You can click Print directly in this dialog box.

However…

In my testing, the resulting pages are only 77% of the original size. That may be a little too small for comfortable editing–or it may not be.

I imported a fully-formatted book chapter, created in Word2010, to test this process. I noted that not only was the chapter a page longer than it had been in Word, all of the grid and border lines in tables had disappeared, as had all bullets. While this is another example of the limitations in LibreOffice/OpenOffice’s vaunted Office compatibility, it’s not something that would affect most users: Presumably you use LibreOffice because you don’t own Word, so you’d do your table and bullet formatting directly within LibreOffice.

This is the first in a series of Micropublishing Tips to expand the content in The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing.

No more. Nobody should be reading these “reviews” for anything other than casual amusement. So I’m adopting a flick version of the Nancy Pearl Rule (you know: If after 100 pages minus your age a book doesn’t hold your attention, give up), which itself is a codification of Life is Too Short. From now on, if I just don’t give a damn about a movie after half an hour, I’m inclined to give up. Life really is too short. I’ll include a short note as to why I didn’t watch it, but no $rating. The situation arises right away with this larger half of the set.

Choices, 1981, color. Silvio Narizzano (dir.), Paul Carafotes, Victor French, Lelia Goldoni, Val Avery, Demi Moore, William R. Moses. 1:30.

The plot from the sleeve—and I got pretty well into it within the first 30-40 minutes: A high school student is a great football player and a virtuoso violinist (in the school orchestra that’s taught by his grandfather), and of course good-looking and popular. But he’s also deaf: Completely deaf in one ear, half-deaf (well, a lot more than half-deaf without his hearing aid: he can’t hear somebody speaking behind him at all) in the other, as the result of a swimming accident when he was eight.

The new school doctor says he can’t play football because he’s deaf. As his father and the coach are trying to appeal this situation, he starts withdrawing and hanging out with a punk acquaintance just back from Juvie. Oh, he also tries to get it on with a girl he’s known for something like 15 minutes…and this is before he gets knocked off the team.

This rates as “Box Office Gold” because of a very young Demi Moore in a small role, I guess (she was 18 and it’s her film debut, but it’s a tiny part). The problem is that I really didn’t find the kid sympathetic or believable, I found the movie listless and boring, and I didn’t feel like watching the rest of what felt like an Afterschool Special flick. Life is too short. (I thought of “Afterschool Special” before I saw just that description in the first IMDB review). No rating.

Crossbar, 1979, color, made for Canadian TV. John Trent (dir.), Brent Carver, Kim Cattrall, John Ireland, Kate Reid. 1:18.

Another movie about a young sports star with a disability problem—but this one’s quite different. The hero is a Canadian Olympic-class high jumper (the sleeve says “pole vaulter” but he doesn’t use a pole), winner of a bronze medal, who goes back to his farm and winds up missing a leg because of a combine accident. He’s not a virtuoso in some other field, he’s not an amoral asshat, and while he certainly goes through some issues, the film is largely about bravery and relationships (family and otherwise) and it winds up being decent. A young Kim Cattrall (22 at the time) plays his ex-girlfriend/coach and does it well.

The plot, basically: His sometime girlfriend, an Olympic-class runner, comes out to visit—but she’s actually planning to move to her new boyfriend’s place with superior training facilities as she prepares for the next Olympics. He doesn’t know this. He’s more than a little down and sneaks off one day to canoe a river with rapids, with no safety vest, apparently thinking he might just die. He doesn’t—and decides he wants to get back into jumping. Which he does, despite his father’s “freak show” comment, with the help of the ex-girlfriend, now coach, and—eventually—all the other Canadian jumpers.

Far-fetched? (A one-legged man hopping up to the bar and clearing a 7′ crossbar height?) I dunno. Nicely done, with some realistic family portrayals? Yes. Of course it’s schmaltzy and includes some of the typical stuff you’d expect, but it also has some fairly good acting (including John Ireland and Kate Reid as the guy’s parents). Not great, but not terrible, and a very good print: $1.25.

Lovers and Liars (orig. Viaggio con Anita), 1979, color. Mario Monicelli (dir.), Goldie Hawn, Giancarlo Giannini, Claudine Auger, Aurore Clement, Laura Betti, Andrea Ferreol; score (and conducted) by Enrico Morricone. 2:00 [1:35]

I suppose you could call this odd little Italian movie a romantic comedy, if your definition of “romantic” is based on Elvis Presley’s classic “Hounddog”—or, in this case, horndog, the apparently sole motivation of the male protagonist. It’s most definitely European, even if it does feel like a TV movie: Casual full frontal nudity (no, not Goldie), extremely casual sex (yes, Goldie), not terribly sophisticated writing.

The plot: Guido, our “hero,” gets a call while he’s at home with his attractive wife and rebellious teen: His father’s doing badly and he needs to go to the family home up north. So he packs…and goes over to where his girlfriend from the last summer lives, so he can pick her up and take her with him. She’s moved on (as is demonstrated when she resists his charming attempt to have sex with her while she’s still asleep), but her temporary roommate—Here’s Goldie!—would be happy to have him drive her north. (She works at the U. of Chicago, met an Italian there, fell for him…and bought a 14-day excursion air fare so she could visit him. He, of course, is no longer interested. So she’s trying to see Italy on no money.)

After various misadventures including a multicar crash and his attempt to have sex with her while she’s asleep—in the car—which she responds to as sort of “I’m not interested, but if that’s what you want…” they wind up on a tourist island, but it’s off-season. Then we get various other bits of nonsense as he’s trying to keep her available (“interested” doesn’t seem to be an issue: she has no apparent qualms about whatever partner’s handy) while he deals with his family. The trouble is, he doesn’t appear to have any personality other than being a horndog—he’s mostly tiresome.

It all climaxes in a long set of scenes where we learn that his father—now dead—had had a mistress for 18 years; his brothers knew; so, for that matter, did the mother (but didn’t say); and, well…the movie ends. I kept hoping for it all to mean something. That was clearly a forlorn hope. Maybe the missing 25 minutes explains why this “screwball comedy” just seemed sort of blah. Goldie Hawn is very Goldie Hawnish. The Enrico Morricone score? Meh. A very soft print. Charitably, $1.

Twisted Nerve, 1968, color. Roy Boulting (dir.), Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Billie Whitelaw, Phyllis Calvert, Frank Finlay, GBarry Foster, Salmaan Peerzada. 1:58 [1:52]

In the opening scene, a young man is playing ball with a person with Down syndrome. This turns out to be at an institution, the young man is the other’s brother, the doctor says not to disturb their mother by bringing her around. Did I mention that the filmmakers found it necessary to have a voice-over before the movie emphasizing that people with “mongolism” (and their siblings) aren’t necessarily psychotic or criminals…and, yes, used the term “mongolism” repeatedly in a 1968 film.

Next: The young man’s in a toy store. He goes up to the counter looking at a duck. While an attractive young woman is discussing the price of something with the clerk (and smiles at him at one point) and then buying something, he pockets the duck. Two store detectives follow both of them out of the store, interrogate them on the assumption that the young woman is his confederate in shoplifting, and eventually free them when she pays for the toy after convincing them that she has no idea who the young man is. The young man, calling himself Georgie (his name’s Martin) and frequently referring to himself in the third person, says he loves ducks…

With a start like that…OK, I probably should have given up on it early, but Hayley Mills (the young woman—home from college from the summer and working in a public library while studying for her exams) and some of the other characters in her mother’s boarding house kept me watching. The young man is, as we gradually learn, some sort of schizophrenic and definitely a murdering psychopath. But he’s so cute… Along the way, we get exposed to a fair amount of casual racism among all British classes, including the other doctors who refer to an Indian doctor (one of the boarders) with various “amusing” epithets. This doctor, who winds up saving the day, is perhaps the only likable character other than Mills’ character, but that’s two better than some movies.

It’s not a particularly good picture, and the suggested genetic link between Down syndrome and sociopathic behavior (explored at some length in a hospital lecture) is truly offensive—but it’s an excellent print and both Hayley Mills and Billie Whitelaw (as her mother, who’s been having it on with one boarder and develops a fatal attraction for the strange young man) offer good performances. I wouldn’t watch it again, but I’ll give it $1.25.

And I’m confused.

At least in the United States, I’ve always been led to believe, data is not copyrightable.

I know that facts are not copyrightable, just as ideas are not copyrightable. Only creative expressions are copyrightable.

Data is facts.

So why would you need to assign a Creative Commons license–the only function of which is to loosen restrictions on copyright you’re presumed to hold–for something that’s not copyrightable?

One could even argue that assigning a CC license to data is copyfraud, as it carries the implicit notice that what it’s assigned to is indeed subject to copyright.

Yes, I know, the laws are different in different countries. But, to the best of my knowledge, CC licenses are country-specific, partly for that reason. Is CC0 universal? Can it be?

What am I missing?

Is CC0 an attempt to waive (conceivable) copyright in the arrangement of data within a database? (Supposedly, if that arrangement is in itself creative, it could be subject to copyright.)

Am I missing something else?

Just a thought…

The interesting note in those comments is that, after citing a couple of true locally-owned groceries (the kind with one to ten stores in a small area), the article noted that Safeway is in fact “local” since the headquarters are in Pleasanton–the neighboring city in question.

That got me wondering about the other places we might use as supermarkets or grocery stores.

• Lucky, the only one in walking distance, I already knew: It’s part of Save Mart, and Save Mart is headquartered in Modesto, CA, my home down, about 75 miles from here.
• Trader Joe’s is headquartered in Southern California–but it’s owned by a German family.
• Our only other real option is Nob Hill, which is part of Raley’s…which is headquartered in Placerville, probably 90-120 miles from here.

I suppose there’s Target (their food prices are awfully good), and that’s headquartered in Minneapolis. There’s Whole Foods, headquartered in Austin, TX, but even if there was one around here (there isn’t), we couldn’t afford it.

Interesting. Every place we’re likely to buy most groceries is headquartered in California–and, to be sure, we buy most produce at local farmer’s markets.

No deeper significance. I know supermarkets are typically regional: That’s why Consumer Reports food reports include store brands from stores I’ve never heard of, but never Safeway store brands.

I trust the person didn’t actually mean that I need to be institutionalized. Let’s assume that’s the case. I hope I’m still a few decades away from being institutionalized…

While I’d certainly accept an ongoing “consultancy” or, say, Jack-of-some-trades Emeritus position, with adequate funding (let’s call it $15,000/year plus inflation, for at least four years), somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’d still like to hope that there’s a way to make a more project-oriented version of this happen–namely, the future outlined in “Prospectus: An Ongoing Public Library Social Network Scan” [which I've updated slightly since it was first posted, and which appears in differently-modified form in Bibs & Blather within the current Cites & Insights] and expanded in “A library is…”

Over the last few days, as I’ve reviewed the full second draft of Successful Social Networking in Public Libraries and started determining how to modify it for the third (submission) draft, I’ve realized and found out some additional items that may add meat to all of this.

The IMLS Oops

I knew all along that the best source of key data for libraries in all 50 states (plus DC and some American territories) was IMLS–but last August, when I tried to download and open the latest public library statistics, I found that it wouldn’t work: The Access file wouldn’t open in Excel and the flat file was not something I could handle. (The Access file is actually three linked .mdb databases.)

Either I did something wrong back then (quite possible), something’s changed on my computer (also possible–I do have Windows Update auto-enabled), or something’s changed elsewhere in the universe, because when I tried the same thing today, it worked.

This would have been nice last August–or, better, last June before I started any of the library scans–if only because the IMLS database includes the actual names that public libraries use, which either aren’t always used in the state spreadsheets (available from most but not all states) or aren’t in columns that I found obvious. As a result, some library searches were clumsier than they needed to be, and it’s even possible that I missed a few.

So: If I did have funding to do a complete sweep for 2012 and later years, I could apparently work with the national files even without buying new software. That’s a good thing. And having the actual library names in one neat column does make life easier…

The potential side-effects

If I could get ongoing funding for this project, I could be persuaded quite easily to treat it as a form of personal sponsorship (and yes, $15,000/year plus inflation would be about right), which would mean:

• PDFs and other electronic output directly from the studies themselves would be freely available and would carry a Creative Commons BY (attribution) license. (If there are spreadsheets, they’d carry a CC0 license, although that’s silly since data is fundamentally not copyrightable anyway.)
• I would retroactively change the Creative Commons license for Cites & Insights and Walt at Random from CC BY-NC to CC BY–that is, “use it as you will, as long as you give me credit.”
• I would treat all of my books for which I have full control as carrying a Founder’s License: That is, I’d dedicate them to the public domain after 14 years. That would include all my books before Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality–which is more than 14 years old, but I’m not in a position to make it public domain. (When Being Analog turns 14, in another year, I’d ask ALA Editions whether it’s out of print and thus has control return to me. If so, I’d make it public domain.)

So there’s an amplification. Any takers?

I asked the question again recently in a comment grumping about the lead sentence of a LISNews story, a sentence beginning “In an age of library closings”:

The net number appears to be negative

As I was looking at IMLS offerings, I did open the Public Libraries Survey Fiscal Year 2009,

And in the executive summary I found this bullet point:

“The number of public libraries has increased over the past 10 years.”

Later, I saw text that suggested there were 151 more public libraries in 2009 than a decade before.

It’s not clear to me whether IMLS means 151 more outlets (branches) or 151 more entities (libraries and library agencies). In either case, it’s a net increase, which says a lot about the flood of stories about how public libraries are shutting down all over the place. (In one case, it’s about a 1.6% increase; in the other, it’s about 0.9%.)

My question still stands: How many public libraries (not branches) have actually closed for extended periods, let’s say two years or more? How many of these are in towns and cities that have not become ghost towns?

Yes, there are budgetary problems. (When aren’t there?) Yes, public libraries need more funding.

But to me the primary effect of the “public libraries are closing all over the place!” meme is self-fulfilling prophecy and grist for the mill of libertarians and those who dislike public libraries: Oh well, they’re already shutting down like crazy, that’s just the way it is.

Which, as I suspected, is simply not true.

As part of that activity, I want to do some cleanup of existing posts and categories, in order to make the categories a little more useful. (I also plan to add a new category or two.)

There are a whole bunch of posts that are outdated, and some of them really don’t have any significance any more. I could do two things with those posts:

1. Get rid of them.
2. Eliminate existing categories and categorize them as something like “Archived crap”

Your suggestions or other alternatives are welcome (as long as they’re not spam).

Cites & Insights Volume 12, Issue 1 (January-February 2012) is now available for downloading at http://citesandinsights.info/civ12i1.pdf

The 20-page issue, PDF as usual, contains three sections, each separately available in HTML form (the subheadings are links):

Bibs & Blather    pp. 1-7

Announcing The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing and why (almost) every public library and (many) academic libraries need it–and some notes on the virtues of professional editing. Also announcing the availability of Cites & Insights 11 (2011) in book form and offering some numbers for Cites & Insights readership in 2011, some not-very-meaningful notes about most-read posts in Walt at Random (which increasingly seems to be “read” mostly by spiders and spammers), and repeating my Prospectus: An Ongoing Public Library Social Network Scan.

Making it Work: It’s Academic (or Not)    pp. 7-12

Why I don’t plan to write much about academic libraries in future Cites & Insights issues and some of my beliefs about academic libraries. Also some notes on “Academic Libraries in Facebook: An Analysis of Users’ Comments,” an article I had lots of trouble with, after finding that the only discussion of that article I could find was by a certain pseudonymous blogger (who increasingly appears to be named Spencer, unless that’s the snarky-comment-responder lackey).

Offtopic Perspective: 50 Movie Box Office Gold, Part 1   pp. 13-20

I did pay attention to the handful of people who expressed sadness about the hiatus and possible termination of this ejournal–and the parts they liked. So if you were hoping that Offtopic Perspectives and My Back Pages would go away, well, guess again. Not quite the first half of a 50-pack of all-color, mostly recent, movies, all with fairly big stars: A combination of TV movies, movies with no real US distribution, and other oddities. (Not quite the first half because it’s discs 1-6 of a 13-disc set.)

But, hey, these things take time.

I’m pleased to note that Information Technology and Libraries, LITA’s peer-reviewed journal, is going gold Open Access (and electronic-only) this year, effective with the March 2012 issue. Here’s the blog post.

I would suggest to LITA that “electronic-only” could and perhaps should have one exception: LITA could make annual print editions available for the few libraries or others who might want them, at no cost to LITA and with almost no trouble (assuming papers will appear in PDF form), using Lulu as a vendor. My new book (The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing) includes a chapter that’s mostly on this topic.

In any case:

Congratulations, LITA.

[How many more divisional refereed journals does ALA have to go before it's a truly shining example of gold OA?]

The setup: An unmarried photographer for Life (Niven) is driving to Carmel to photograph a young woman who’s written a bestseller opposing romance—The Lady Says No. He’s towing a trailer containing his photo equipment. He stops for a comely young hitchhiker—who, as it happens, is married and brings along her soldier husband. She insists that they stop a little farther down the road, packing the car with another five or six soldiers and girlfriends. They all want to go to Monterey (where the action is)—but first, he has to make his Carmel stop.

When he does, he assumes the aunt is actually the author, not the beautiful young woman. After various nonsense, he tells her to show up the next day at the beach, and goes off to Monterey. Then, the aunt’s wandering husband shows up and…oh, well, there’s just too much plot to summarize. As you might expect, the photographer convinces the woman that romance isn’t such a terrible thing. It’s all light, including an interesting dream sequence. Not great, but amusing. I found it more than a little sexist, which reduces the overall score to $1.25.

Life With Father, 1947, color, Michael Curtiz (dir.), William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor, Zasu Pitts. 1:58.

Previously reviewed in Family Classics 50 Movie Pack: See Cites & Insights 5:4. What I said then, with price modified for changing expectations:

Charming period family comedy based on Clarence Day’s own writing about his father, wife, four sons, and complex household. Taylor—two years older than in National Velvet, and already a beauty—has a secondary but important part. Well acted. Good print with occasional flecks and, near the end, a vertical streak. $1.50, reduced for damage.

I haven’t watched this version at all. With less damage, I’d give it a full $2: It’s a fine comedy.

Lonely Wives, 1931, b&w. Russell Mack (dir.), Edward Everett Horton, Esther Ralston, Laura La Plante, Patsy Ruth Miller, Spencer Charters, Maude Eburne. 1:25.

This one’s a knockabout farce with a lawyer prone to “blooming” (infidelity) after 8 p.m., his wife gone to the mountains (but returning by surprise), his mother-in-law trying to keep him from blooming, a new secretary with quite a walk…and a vaudeville impersonator who wants to add the (famous) lawyer to his act. Oh, and a nervous butler and French maid. And the impersonator’s wife…who’s brought into it by her friend, the secretary, on the basis that she can get the lawyer to get her a divorce, cheap, if she plays along on a date.

Put them all together, mix with the lawyer’s bet that if the impersonator can fool the mother-in-law (and give the lawyer an out to spend the night, um, blooming), he can add the lawyer to his act…and it’s supposed to be hilarious (and risqué!), especially the last 20-25 minutes. Maybe it is. Edward Everett Horton certainly gives it his best shot. But, well, I found myself nodding off in early parts and regarding the last part as more action than comedy. Maybe that’s just me. Not just me: The print’s a little soft, and the sound’s pretty bad, with dialog getting softer and louder for no apparent reason. All considered, I can’t possibly give this more than $1.

Peck’s Bad Boy With the Circus, 1938, b&w. Edward F. Cline (dir.), Tommy Kelly, Ann Gillis, Edgar Kennedy, Benita Hume, Billy Gilbert, Grant Mitchell, Nana Bryant, George ‘Spanky’ McFarland, William Demarest. 1:18 [1:06]

I find this movie almost impossible to review entirely out of context—except to note that it’s a good example of how to pad a 20-minute plot out to feature-film (albeit short feature) length, in this case by including whole gobs of circus acts, some of them twice.

The basic plot: our hero, a “bad boy” in the prankster sense of “he’s a caution!” rather than one of the future thugs in a “cute” Boys or Kids series that will go unnamed, is such a caution (finding a frog and putting it in his soup bowl at lunch) that his parents tell him he can’t go to camp as they’re going on their fishing vacation—and he’s planning to win the obstacle race the third year in a row, which would mean he could keep the cup that he shines incessantly.

Just as they’re leaving, the husband and wife, separately, each relents and gives him $5 to cover the train ride to the camp and his expenses. (Hmm. $5 in 1938 would be $76 in 2010. Still a pretty cheap train ride and camp expenses.) But he goes out to hang with his buds and discovers that a circus is coming to town, that day, one night only. In ensuing plot twists, he loses his $10, he winds up in a girl’s dress, he…well, of course there’s a happy ending.

It’s padded all to pieces but it is good fun, probably the more so if you’re a fan of the series (of which this is apparently the third and last). Good cast, including one of Spanky McFarland’s few appearances as somebody other than Spanky. It’s also missing 12 minutes, apparently. I come up with $1.25.