Just a quick multifunction post for no particular reason:
- I reached a milestone yesterday, completing Phase 1 of my 2012 book project–that is, checking public libraries/library agencies in half of the U.S. states for presence on Twitter or Facebook. More than 2,500 libraries checked in all, starting near the end of July. (There will be a followup, intended to be precisely three months after the initial scans.)
- I have not yet started on any of the data analysis or real work on the project, and probably won’t even add the key columns to the spreadsheet(s) until I’ve taken a day or two away from the project. Conclusions will, of course, be part of the book. On the other hand…
- The process involved looking at more library websites than I’d ever expected to, and that did generate some thoughts that have very little to do with the book. I may turn those thoughts into a casual essay (or part of an essay) for Cites & Insights. (No, I’m not planning any grand set of guidelines or critiques–others who are closer to the issues have done those or will do them. These will be casual thoughts.)
- Also completed the first half of a closer milestone: Making changes in my current book project (The Librarian’s Guide to Micropublishing) based on the editorial pass. Starting, oh, as soon as I finish this post, I’ll be doing the second half of that milestone: Detailed copyfitting to deal with awkward line-break hyphens and the like. (For very good reasons, I’m doing the actual layout on this book.)
- Once that’s well under way, I’ll do some C&I writing…and maybe get back to watching old movies.
- I am firmly resolved not to deal with a silly list issued by some college that gets lots of attention for the list. I looked at part of it, broke down laughing, and decided that it wasn’t worth the time or attention. Silliness is always with us; the Onion and Cronk do it better.
- Speaking of old movies, which I wasn’t, our Saturday movie last weekend was a reminder of why I don’t plan to give up on physical discs any time soon–the Blu-ray version of Forbidden Planet, magnificently restored–and with loads of extras, running to more than four hours altogether, I think (including some we won’t bother with, such as the full-length 1957 film that also “starred” Robby, the Robot). Yes, we’ve seen the classic movie (perhaps the first A-level SF movie?) before; no, we’ve never seen it like this–and even if we had high-speed broadband, you can’t get this level of picture quality via streaming.
- And to close this randomness: Perhaps worth noting that, of all the Blu-ray discs we’ve watched from Netflix–probably 80% of the discs over the last couple years, certainly more than 100 discs–only one has had any problems. (That one looked as though someone had deliberately tried to damage it, and succeeded.) That tough coating on Blu-rays apparently works: Most of them look as though they’d never been played.
