Walt at Random

First there’s Cites & Insights.

Or, rather, there isn’t–any news on that front, that is. I published an unusual two-month issue on May 10, 2011. I didn’t plan to do any work on C&I for at least a month. That’s exactly how it’s worked out.

All’s quiet on the C&I front. In the long run, that’s not tenable. In the short run…well, there will be an issue that includes August 2011 as part of its stated date. Just when, I have no idea. At that point, I’ll probably remove any mention of “monthly” from the site pages and masthead–until/unless there’s a reason to restore planned monthly publication.

Then there’s Library 2.0: A Cites & Insights Reader. The status of that effort:

• As an example of micropublishing with little or no budget, and as a series of screen captures (hurray for Windows7’s Clipping Tool!), it’s great…except that we changed the template after the book was uploaded. I may update the book with the new template. I may not.
• As an easy way for people to support C&I and get a really good combination of essays…well, I’d like to thank the three (3) people who have, to date, downloaded PDF versions. No paperback copies sold except for my proof copy. Not quite enough to date to pay for two lunches at my favorite Chinese restaurant, but close…
• As an indicator of whether people really cared about the Library 2.0 essays, given that the first of them continued to be downloaded more than most current issues, well… the book appeared on May 27, at which point I instituted “speed bumps” for the original essays. You can still get them for free, but it takes additional steps. Here’s what I’ve seen since then: 106 downloads of 6:2 (yielding the single PDF page describing the book and providing the new temporary names), 29 of 11:2 (ditto)…and 108 downloads of the temporary version of 6:2. And, as noted above, three people who cared enough about the essays and C&I to pay $5.99 for 6:2, 11:2 and others in between and after. So “cared enough” to hand-copy another link is one thing; “cared enough” to spend the price of two lattes is quite another. Interesting. Not terribly surprising. Early yet. We shall see.

ALA2011? I’ll be there. I’ve prepared a tentative schedule. I’m still extremely open to suggestions.

And so on…actually, you could think of this post as mostly a reminder that:

1. Cites & Insights hasn’t completely gone away yet.
2. There won’t be a new C&I before ALA2011.

PS: Given FF and other discussions of the past week or two, it would be tempting to talk about fair contracts for articles and books–and I’m beginning to recognize that I’m lucky enough to deal with extremely honorable companies at this point. But that’s another discussion…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Cites & Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.