The Liminal Librarian

Since I've finally waded my way out of the Deathly Hallows (and don't even get me started on that ending!), it seems timely to point to "Teens Weigh in on Changes in Publishing, Media" over at O'Reilly Radar. This quote cracks me up:

"As high school students with busy lives, going to a bookstore is just not part of our schedule. It isn't that we don't want to read, but with schoolwork, sports, and personal life, not enough time is left open to both find interesting books, as well as read them."

Yeah, gosh, that is different than when I went to high school... but, sarcasm aside, some thoughts there about reading for information v. reading literature. And about movie hype v. book hype, which displays a pretty major lack of understanding as to the comparative economics there, but so it goes.

On that note, we're also off to play the blogs vs. print game again... Current Cites points to "What a Difference a Publisher Makes" over at OptimalScholarship, with a fascinating look at recent studies on copy editing changes and the implications for repositories. Stephanie Willen Brown at CogSci Librarian asks which is better, blogging or print publishing, and Jim Rettig responds over at Twilight Librarian.

Brown writes: "...does it matter that librarians are writing more on blogs than in print?" Are they? This, I'm not so sure about. Some librarians are writing more on blogs than in print. Some librarians are reading more on blogs than in print. Some librarians still wouldn't know a blog if it came up and bit them. I think it's more useful to argue that different formats serve different purposes. Brown quotes Stephen Abram along the lines of: "It doesn't matter where you write, just get your ideas out there." Well, yes, and no. It does matter where you write if you're working towards tenure. It does matter where you write if you are targeting a specific audience, or trying to impress your boss, or your work needs some editing editing, if you are worried about the longevity of your work, or want a bigger audience than might flock to your brand new blog, or ... It does matter where you write if you are concerned about timeliness or if your thoughts flow more freely in a more informal medium or if you have a built in audience online, or ...

In principle, though, Abram has it right. The answer to the question of blogs or print is: YES. The more of us that participate, in whatever medium, the wealthier and more robust our profession.

Then again, publishers don't help themselves in cases like Eric Schnell's, who details his two-year saga over at The Medium is the Message in "Where is My Manuscript? part 1 and part 2. Perhaps one of our measures of a journal's prestige should relate to its responsiveness and timeliness. T. Scott weighs in here with "Publishing Faster," talking about the five-six month turnaround time at JMLA and the basic issues with timeliness and quarterly publication.

Note also his comments on the other issues with Haworth journals when considering where you might yourself wish to publish... Then again, you could always self-publish on Amazon.com!

Labels: amazon, blogging, blogs, editing, haworth, print, publishing, reading

Way back in December, I read Dorothea Salo's post on "Why I Am the Enemy," checked "keep new" in Bloglines with the intention of responding to the bit of her post containing a lament about the slow pace of print publishing, and then... well... didn't. (I guess the faster pace of blogging only works if bloggers are on the ball!)

I already talked last year about some of my reasons for the continued viability of book publishing. Now that I've been blogging a bit longer, I still believe in all of those pluses -- but also in the complementary nature of the two formats. I believe that a big chunk of the readers who see Dorothea's chapter in the upcoming Information Tomorrow book will be unfamiliar with her blog, and that her ideas need to be seen by this different audience. I believe that conversation about her work, and that of the other contributors to the collection, will explode online post-publication, and that this is a Good Thing.

ALA Editions posted an interesting book production timeline on their blog a while back, which might provide some insight into why book publishing takes so darn long. And yes, I get frustrated with the slow pace of print publishing as well, but understand it a bit better now that I'm seeing it from the other side.

Labels: blogging, books, publishing

The discussion on well-known library bloggers made me wonder -- what do people read outside the library field? I never get to play the meme game with anyone, so thought I'd attempt to start my own...

Here are five random picks out of the non-library blogs I follow:

The Lipstick Chronicles - (mild nsfw warning) is pretty much just for fun. Written by four authors who "write books that combine elements of chick lit, mystery and romance," it gets into the writing process, kids, sex, family, books, and whatever else have you.

Barbara's Blog: Barbara Ehrenreich Comments on Working in America - If you've found her books interesting, you'll probably also find her blog interesting, although it's only updated sporadically.

Bitch Ph.D. - Academia, parenting, and feminism, what's not to like?

Boing Boing - I admit that I wait for Boing Boing to approach a couple hundred new posts, then do a massive skim. But the mix of fun, weird, and thought-provoking pointers make it worth dropping by.

Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers - Thoughts on the publishing process, mixed with cartoons.

So what do you read that's absolutely not library-related? If you're a library blogger reading this, consider yourself tagged, and tag your own post fiveblogs.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, fiveblogs

A couple of the respondents to the alternative careers survey mentioned that they keep up by reading library blogs, but added parenthetically that they find the well-known blog/bloggers to be too inbred, too repetitive, and too busy patting each other on the back. I've heard people say this before, and I'm wondering how prevalent this feeling is.

I usually like seeing several bloggers take on a given issue, because each tends to have different insights and bring in different links. But, I also try to subscribe to a variety of blogs, as well as to less well-known blogs, to avoid becoming my own filter. While I dearly love my Bloglines (and keep meaning to check out that Google Reader people are raving about -- another reason for repetition, since it takes several times to sink through my head!), I try to be aware of the dangers of confirmation bias as I note myself jumping to the bloggers that I most agree with and skimming over those I don't.

I find This Week in LibraryBlogLand and Carnival of the Infosciences helpful in bringing in ideas and bloggers I might otherwise miss. But, I'm curious: What do you all do to overcome your own confirmation bias? Do you still read the "big name" bloggers?

Labels: bloggers, blogging, blogs, confirmationbias

Since I ran across PayPerPost, I've been fascinated with the line between personal blogging, professional blogging, and blogging for profit. This might be less of an issue in libraryland, given the limited number of "A-list" bloggers that could actually bring in anything resembling real money. (The only good examples I can think of off the top of my head are Library Stuff's ITI sponsorship, and possibly LISNews, when it contained Google ads.)

In all, though, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the concept of blogging for profit, since it seems very easy to cross ethical lines when you're writing, even indirectly, about someone who's giving you money. I get muddled here, however. Librarians who write and speak, myself included, obviously use their blogs to cross-market their other endeavors, and I've accepted banner advertising on LISjobs.com. (Then again, I'm not writing about any of my sponsors on LISjobs.com!)

Bloglines is helping me work this out by serendipitously popping related items across my radar, so this is partly a linkdump to keep them together. For one, check out this weekly list of professional blogging opportunities and pro blogger job board. (Yeah, I know, I need to work on keeping this blog current first!) There's even a ProBlogger blog, devoted to "helping bloggers earn money."

If you're turning pro, though, you might want to check out these blog writing style tips or look at how not to blog, which, among other tips, tells you to avoid "over-monetizing" your blog. You might also want to put a little more thought into the whole process than this...

Labels: blogging, monetizing, problogging

Among other things, my husband's company does search engine marketing and optimization, so I get to hear a lot about conferences and strategies. It's interesting to look at the time and resources that some companies put toward SEO/SEM and contrast this with what a lot of libraries do -- which is: get a site up, maybe submit a listing to a search engine or two, and then forget about the issue. (Although I did notice that some of the OCLC folks made it to SES Chicago a couple of months ago.)

This is especially interesting given our inherent professional interest in findability. Perhaps we spend so much time making sure our stuff can be found that we forget the importance of making sure we can be found. Sarah Houghton-Jan addressed this topic a bit in a presentation at the last Internet Librarian conference on Online Outreach for Public Libraries, which is a fantastic start -- and if your library hasn't implemented the steps on her list, it might be a good project to tackle this week.

It's also fascinating to see some of the other tactics people use to get the word out. Maybe I live under a rock, for instance, but the first I heard of PayPerPost was the other night, when my husband mentioned using it as part of a marketing campaign. (I don't think he'll pay ME to post, alas.) This is not, perhaps, a model we wish to adopt -- but getting buzz about our services online can be priceless.

If you're interested in dipping your own toes into the SEO waters, check out Couzin and Grappone's Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day. This is probably the most readable introductory book I've seen on the subject, yet thorough enough to keep you busy for quite a while.

Labels: blogging, findability, payperpost, pubcon, search, sem, seo, ses