On January 6, 2014, I posted “Toward 15 and 200: Your help wanted,” a request for donations to support Cites & Insights at two levels and with mild perks for support.
That request also appears in the current Cites & Insights (March 2014).
Briefly: If you regard C&I as worthwhile–both for the last 13 years and in the future–I could really use some evidence of that. Publicity (posts, etc. linking to issues that you’ve found worthwhile and think other people should read) is always helpful. Direct support–I’m asking for $30 or $50 in this case–is, of course, also helpful, to cover the direct expenses and encourage me to keep up the major expenses (which are indirect).
I’m targeting enough revenue to justify going to one professional conference a year–either ALA or something else–at least partly to stay in touch with people in the field and “the buzz.” But the perks would also provide an advisory panel, which could be mutually beneficial (I think).
The minimum target for this fundraising drive is 50 supporters & sponsors.
As of now, after roughly six weeks, the results are greater than 0% but less than 10%.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
If, of course, you believe I’m another useless old white man who should shut up and go away, you could let me know that directly or simply ignore C&I and these requests. I’m getting some evidence that this blog itself is being ignored, at least as a source of worthwhile (linkable) comment*, and it’s certainly true that I’ve spent most energy recently on C&I and on research/writing that actually pays a little.
Right now, I’m looking at what I’ve tagged for future discussion in C&I and considering two sets of possible topics:
1. Those that are either fun or topics I feel really strongly about and feel I can add something worthwhile on.
2. Those I feel I can add something worthwhile on, but are perhaps more work than fun–and are perhaps more important for the field.
The growing temptation is to go through and strike #2 altogether. Some level of support may change that.
*For example, I thought “Favoring the ALA Statement of Appropriate Conduct” was an at least mildly useful addition to the commentary on that issue. As far as I can tell, nobody ever linked to it, certainly including one long list ‘o’ links on the issue. The other indications of this are the total lack of comments hereabouts–not atypical for blogs these days–and the fact that the most-“viewed” pages when I look at site stats are almost never either recent or anything other than random. E.g., for February so far, the top actual post is “What’s on your Firefox search dropdown?” from October 2006, and of the top five none are from 2014 and the only one from 2013 is about 2.5-buck-Chuck.
