Journals & Magazines

Journals &amp; Magazines

She Wanted To be a Librarian, But She'll Have to Settle for Being a Star

Jennifer Garner tells Oprah Magazine, that when she was a young’n growing up in West Virginia she always wanted to be a librarian.

“I had a very rich imaginary world,” said Garner, who is 37. “And my dream was to grow up to be a librarian, because I had a librarian named Mrs. McCann who I thought was the most magical woman on the planet. She used to publish little versions of my stories, typing them on manila folders and illustrating them with pictures of me and my teddy bear.”

Why The Associated Press Plans to Hold Some Web Content off the Wire

In a break with tradition, The Associated Press plans to prevent members and customers from publishing some AP content on their websites. Instead, those news organizations would link to the content on a central AP website — a move that could upend the consortium’s traditional notions of syndication.

That’s one revelation from a document we obtained (labeled “AP CONFIDENTIAL — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION”) that offers new insight into how the AP is planning to reinvent itself on the Internet according to Neiman Lab, Harvard University.

The seven-page briefing, entitled “Protect, Point, Pay — An Associated Press Plan for Reclaiming News Content Online,” was distributed to AP members late last month. It provides greater detail about the tracking device that will be attached to AP content and describes their plans to create topic pages around news stories to rival Wikipedia and major aggregation sites. And in an hour-long interview last night, the AP’s general counsel, Srinandan Kasi, also shed light on how the consortium views reuse of its material across the Internet.

Cites & Insights 9:10 (September 2009) available

Cites & Insights 9:10 (September 2009) is now available.

This 28-page issue includes the results of two followup "research" projects and a certain amount of summer silliness. The issue is PDF. While three of the four essays are available in HTML form (as links from the essay titles below), I really don't recommend viewing either of the research projects that way--they're heavy on tables, and it's fair to say that Word's HTML converter was overzealous in its preparation of tables: They may or may not look very good, and they result in quarter-megabyte downloads. The PDF version is much easier to read...

Here's what's in the issue--and yes, some of the "regular" features may return soon:

Perspective: Public Library Blogs: A Limited Update

I looked at May 2009 posts and comments, and the most recent post prior to May 31, 2009, for all of the public library blogs in the book Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples (based on blog activity March-May 2007). This update considers currency, frequency, comments and conversational intensity and how those have changed from 2007 to 2009--and includes brief notes on pioneer blogs and some of the blogs I found particularly intriguing. (The HTML is large and may not look all that great.) With this update, my work on these blogs is complete--and the spreadsheet's yours for the taking, if you're so inclined.

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Remember Shorthand?

NY Times: Shorthand wasn’t always just for secretaries and court reporters, Leah Price writes in her essay on the history of shorthand in the London Review of Books.

Before the 1870s, it was used more for writing down one’s own thoughts or discretely noting the conversation of others. Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton and Charles Dickens used it, as did legions of “spirit-rappers, teetotalers, vegetarians, pacifists, anti-vivisectionists, anti-tobacconists,” and other members of a “counter-culture of early adapters” who generated something of a shorthand craze in mid-19th-century Britain. Isaac Pitman, creator of the wildly successful “Stenographic Soundhand” method still used today, made arguments that don’t sound so different from the tweeting techno-evangelists of our age. When people correspond by shorthand, he declared “friendships grow six times as fast as under the withering blighting influence of the moon of longhand.”

I remember my mother with her spiral top notebook and two columns of lines writing down what seemed to me to be completely indistinguishable marks. Anyone out there know shorthand? Is it of any value today?

Library Journal, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly For Sale

Reed Business Information is putting Publishers Weekly and its affiliated publications, Library Journal and School Library Journal, up for sale. The sale of the group is part of RBI’s strategy to divest most of its trade magazines in the U.S. Last year, Reed Elsevier, parent company of RBI, tried to sell all of RBI but dropped the sale when it couldn’t get the price it wanted in a depressed market for media properties.

In a related announcement, Tad Smith, CEO of RBI US, has resigned. John Poulin has been named acting CEO and he will head the sales process.

Who wants to buy some professional journals...Blake?

Science moves from the stacks to the Web; print too pricey

If information isn't online, it may as well not exist. In the latest sign that the world of traditional print has become a world of hurt, the American Chemical Society is reported to be planning to switch to an online-only publishing model for its journals.

Afghanistan and Multiculturalism in Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

An article published by Emerald Group Publishing in Multicultural Education & Technology Journal focuses on the novels of best selling author Khaled Hosseni. The paper analyses how his novels ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ have affected the American secondary school curriculum with themes of multiculturalism stemming from Afghanistan and the world that surrounds it. Today this world is more mediated than ever by various computer technologies. Entitled ‘Afghanistan and Multiculturalism in Khaled Hosseini’s Novels: Study of Place and Diversity’, this conceptual paper was written by Mary F. Agnello, Reese H. Todd, Bolanle Olaniran and Thomas A. Lucey. This study considers Hosseni’s novels which depict his homeland Afghanistan. Through his novels, Afghanistan has now become more accessible to the outside world, particularly in international and US classrooms. As these novels have been banned in schools in both Afghanistan and the US, this study discuses how certain cultures censor literature they believe conflicts with their values or way of life. Globalisation has helped to transform how an individual perceives their national identity and culture, this has been strongly affected by the fluidity of existing cultural boarders, and therefore the need to manage these differences is increasingly important with the creation of a new educational agenda.

Cites & Insights 9:9 (August 2009) available

Cites & Insights 9:9 (August 2009) is now available--just in time for the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. That's not a coincidence, to be sure; although the issue may not be directly relevant to the conference, if I didn't publish it now, it wouldn't be out until at least July 19.

This one's 32 pages, PDF as usual, but those who detest PDF or otherwise really need HTML can download the three articles separately.

The issue includes:

Perspective: Writing about Reading 3

The theme for this installment: Rethinking books and rethinking reading. Which means most of the long essay is about ebooks and ebook devices. (How long? A little more than half the issue, that's how long.)

Offtopic Perspective: 50 Movie Comedy Classics, Part 1

What's funny is generally in the eye of the beholder, although I suppose there may be objective criteria for labeling a flick a comedy. Watching the many early shorts and early movies in this first half of a 12-DVD collection was sometimes hilarious, frequently a little painful. (If I never see another East Side Kids "comedy" that will be just fine with me.) There's some gold here--and some dross as well.

Making it Work: Library 2.0 Revisited

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Keeping a Story Out of the News For the Safety of Kidnap Victims

For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. Thankfully, he escaped by climbing over a wall on June 19.

Days after Mr. Rohde was kidnapped in November, editing tussles began on his Wikipedia entry.

NY Times executives believed that publicity would raise Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors as a bargaining chip and reduce his chance of survival. Persuading another publication or a broadcaster not to report the kidnapping usually meant just a phone call from one editor to another, said Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia.

Wikipedia, which operates under the philosophy that anyone can be an editor, and that all information should be public, is a vastly different world. More on how the story was treated by Wikipedia from the New York Times.

Texas Tech Librarian Proves Existence of Spider-Man

Yes, Mary Jane (what happened to Virginia?), there is a Spider-Man.

According to Newswise, that’s what pop-culture guru and associate humanities librarian for Texas Tech University Libraries Rob Weiner set out to prove in an article published in the International Journal of Comic Art.

In much the same way that editor Francis Pharcellus Church proved the existence of Santa Claus in his famous 1897 New York Sun editorial, Weiner contends that Spider-Man and his costumed peers have entered mankind’s collective consciousness, filling a shared need for heroes.

“When I started reading graphic novels, I was struck by the fact that stories about Spider-Man or Batman and Superman could have as many plot twists and turns as any story by Shakespeare, Stephen King or Leo Tolstoy,” he said. “I was struck by how good some of the writing was for these so-called “kiddie” books, and that somehow these archetypical characters like Spider-Man were replacing Odysseus and Zeus as part of modern mythology.”

A copy of Weiner’s article is available as a pdf upon request, or a copy of the journal can be purchased at the International Journal of Comic Art.

Romance is in the Air and On the Air

Care to guess who America's best-loved novelist is?

Yes, it's Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, who is profiled in this week's New Yorker.

Also for your audio buffs, a podcast with Lauren Collins which describes the history of the romance novel, why the genre gets no respect, and how Roberts has domesticated romance.

Protesters Demand to be Heard about the Closing of the Rapid City Hospital Library

Follow up on a story we posted last week about the Rapid City Regional Hospital removing its librarian and closing its library (I like to think that maybe LISNews contributed to what LJ is calling the 'backlash'...)

Library Journal reports: Rapid City Regional Hospital (RCRD), SD, has ended public access to its medical library and fired its longtime medical librarian, provoking a negative reaction to the decision.

In response to a story in the Rapid City Journal June 9, some 70 people wrote about their displeasure with the hospital, bringing up salient points about the nature of libraries and librarians.

Unfortunately, closing libraries is an increasingly common occurrence in the private sector. But in this case, the public has been affected, and they’re making sure their displeasure is heard.

"A library is about INFORMATION, not about books," wrote one poster. "Librarians are skilled in helping people connect with the INFORMATION they need, AND they help to make the information accessible too," she continued.

Many posters made well-informed arguments for the profession. A past hospital employee wrote, "[Other hospitals] understand that the librarian is the key to making these electronic resources work, finding the best resources to buy, at the best prices, continuously teaching users and making the databases work well for the employees, doctors, and patients."

Cites & Insights 9:8 (July 2009) now available

I've just published Cites & Insights 9:8 (July 2009).

The 30-page issue, PDF as usual but with HTML versions of most essays, includes:

Bibs & Blather

Notes on sponsorship for C&I, the status of four possible future projects--and the move of Walt at Random to ScienceBlogs.

Making it Work Perspective: Thinking about Blogging 2: Why We Blog

Continuing the discussion of blogging philosophy and practice that began in Cites & Insights 9:5 with a focus on reasons for blogging.

Interesting & Peculiar Products

Seven individual items and technologies, plus eight editors' choices and group reviews. From high-def Bluetooth to whether you can call a $1,500 computer a netbook...

Perspective: On Privatization

Musings on whether Charles Dodgson had the proper theory of language (as stated by his character, noted wordsmith H. Dumpty), plus unaltered copies of the two blog posts (and most of the comments) at issue.

Trends & Quick Takes

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Apocalyptic New Yorker Cover

In case you haven't seen it...from the June 8 & 15 issue~

Cover entitled “Future Generations” by Dan Clowes, part of a second generation of American underground comix artists.

Order! Order! No Tweeting (Well Maybe Some) in the Court!

Is everything on twitter 100% accurate? Far from it. And can a journalist chronicle a court case 140 characters at a time?

Lawyers Weekly (Canada) asks us to judge for ourselves. Follow trials in Ottawa and London, ON where judges in both cases are letting journalists stream events from the courtroom to the Internet via Twitter. Here are two cases to follow: In Ottawa, the bribery trial of Mayor Larry O’Brien and in London ON, the Bandidos trial.

Many lawyers aren’t yet sure what to think. “This is evolving rapidly,” says Toronto-based Daryl Cruz, partner and leader of th litigation practice group at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. “Six months ago, we probably wouldn’t have had this conversation because it wouldn’t have crossed anybody’s mind.”

Says law librarian Connie Crosby: "It (twitter) doesn’t give a lot of room for clarifying context and giving facts" principal of Toronto-based Crosby Group Consulting. She adds that tweets can be taken out of context, as happened when somebody mistakenly attributed an inflammatory tweet about Tamil protesters to Toronto Mayor David Miller when, in fact, the comment was merely addressed to Miller. She tells us that news organizations like The Wall Street Journal are now sending their reporters guides that cover Twitter as a medium for reporting.

Cites & Insights 9:7, June 2009, available

Cites & Insights 9:7 (June 2009) is now available.

The 48-page issue is only available in PDF form (it includes 16 graphs and more than 60 tables, and it just wasn't worthwhile to generate the HTML version, which would probably run 65-80 pages).

It's another special issue:

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Copyright Battle Looms for Doctors Who 'Grew Up Google'

In most cases, unless a medical professional or researcher works for an organization that can afford subscriptions to medical journals, much research remains beyond their reach. There are thousands of different journals, and access to just the most well-regarded can run thousands of dollars a year.

Now, with Washington rushing to transform health care, a debate often limited to hospital wards, medical schools and Internet forums is pushing to the fore. It's a debate deeply rooted in beliefs about access to information -- medical research. Increasingly, a generational gap is emerging.
[Story @ AB News]

Body + Soul Magazine Promotes BookSwim as "Easier" Than Library

Ouch. In the May 2009 issue of Body + Soul magazine--"A Martha Stewart Publication"--"renting a book" via BookSwim is #1 on a list of "6 Simple Ways to Better Your Life and the Planet."

The magazine copy reads, "Looking for a good read? Try renting books Netflix-style with bookswim.com. It's easier than going to the library and greener than buying from the store. Log on and have your picks delivered to your door in recycled packaging."

Cites & Insights 9:6, May 2009, available

Cites & Insights 9:6, May 2009, is now available.

The 28-page issue is PDF as usual, although HTML separates are available for most essays (from the links below).

This issue includes:

Bibs & Blather

Two million and counting: Notes on the first two million words of C&I, including the most widely-read issues (or, rather, "what I know about readership except for the first two years") and most widely-read essays since 2004. Also a note on one "why" for the two major essays--the other "why" being life changes getting in the way of original essays.

Public Library Blogs

Most of the first 65 pages of Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples, excluding some overall lists of included blogs and the individual blog profiles. If the gurus of Andersonomics are right, this free access to most of the overall text will inspire lots of you to go buy the print book... If not, at least the study will get a lot more readership.

Academic Library Blogs

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University Press Hears Libraries' Pleas and Freezes Journal Prices

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education today records that Rockefeller University Press is freezing the rates of its journal subscriptions for 2010 at the 2009 levels. Although Rockefeller only publishes a few journals, "the symbolic value of the decision, however, should not be discounted".

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