Books or blogs or...?

There were two long and thoughtful responses to my recent blog entry which asked if one had a bigger impact on the profession writing books or blog entries. I thought they deserved their own post, so with the authors' permissions...

The author of the first response is Jancie Robertson who describes herself as "... a teacher-librarian in Mississauga, Ontario who grew up at a time when there were no computers, and have been in at the ground level so consider myself fortunate and I've taught 20 + years." She has a reader's advisory site at http://web.me.com/janicerobertson

BLOGS NOT BOOKS!

A "long term effect" to me means something that will still be around a couple generations from now. For example - your grandchildren's generation will still be able to read the book you wrote, but SO WHAT?

More important than the long term effect IMHO (especially considering how quickly book ideas become dated - is the wide spread immediate effect.

You asked "which sort of writing has the potential of making the greatest contribution to one's profession - books, articles or blog posts?" and then you said, "I'm leaning toward the first."

WHY do you think a book makes the greatest contribution to your profession? Here's why I don't think it does.

• Lots of people can't afford to buy a book and read it, but most people can afford to read a blog so with a book you have a limited audience.
• Some people don't want to read a book, but will read a blog (shorter time committment)
• You probably have NO idea how many lurkers you've influenced with your blog posts, and you never will know! Those readers link or point others to your words, and they tell two friends and so on and so on. Lots of people don't pass on books in the same fashion because they're too cheap and want to keep the book for themselves even if it wasn't that great.

A carefully crafted, established blog contributes immeasurably to our profession. It is a noble gesture to share a piece of yourself so publicly with people who often will give you nothing in return - no money, no fame, and sadly, often not even any thanks or praise. So... since you asked - I think your blog is an extremely valuable and generous use of time; precious as it is.

We've never met - probably never will, but I read your words of wisdom, your ideas, your suggestions, and your occasional rants, and feel like I have a mentor sharing a journey with me. I do NOT get the same feeling when I read a book written by a fellow librarian. I do not get the same feeling when I read everyones blogs - the ones that are not worth my time or the ones that I'm not developmentally ready for, have been deleted from my feedreader. At a workshop I ran for fellow librarians, you blog was one of the first that I introduced them to... and it was MUCH more exciting that just holding up a book and writing down the title!!!

So.... I'm offically casting my vote for blogs as the more significant contributor to our profession. I own a TON of professional books, but most of what I've learned and remembered and used and discussed and shared, came from blogs not books! (And I do love and buy books, just in case I needed to make that clear!)

Respectfully,

Janice Robertson
Teacher Librarian

I appreciate the kind words, Janice, and am humbled!

The second response comes from a library hero of mine, Walt Crawford. I know Walt best as the author of Future Libraries which was a seminal work in my thinking about how technology might impact libraries. He's written a ton of other library-related books, is a very popular columnist in the public/academic library world, and is the editor/publisher of the e-journal Cites & Insights.

So, on books or blogs or "other" as having the most impact on the profession? Walt writes:

It depends. I'd like to say books, but I suspect some of my ejournal issues and essays will have at least as long-lasting effects as any of my books. (On the other hand, I would never EVER suggest anybody emulate my founding of an ejournal. Never. Sharpen that stake and aim for the heart.)

So, yes, in general, a good book should have more long-term effect than most any article - and a lot more lasting impact than a blog post.

You have to understand: I'm really torn on this issue - but between articles and blogs, not between books and blogs. I wrote an essay in 2007, "On the literature," which values blogs (and other gray literature) over the formal literature (that is, articles) - but also values books, differently.

I read the [Janice's] comment, and I think it makes an excellent case. My own situation:

• Blog posts at my midrange blog reach at least 900 people, and possibly many more if they're picked up. Most aren't, but a few are.
• I'm a peculiar situation, because my most important stuff goes in Cites & Insights--and that seems to reach a few thousand people over time (well, 40,000+ in the case of the Library 2.0 issue, but that's an edge case).
• Only two books I've written have sold more than 5,000 copies (MARC for Library Use and Future Libraries), and most have sold fewer than 2,000...

*The hot-item PoD books I've been doing have sold, to date, between 30 and 250 copies each. Thus, blogging would reach 3-30 times as many people, C&I would reach 10-100 times as many...
And, frankly, I have no sense of the total readership of the two magazine columns I write, in EContent and Online.

My rough metric would be that you'll have more short-term impact and possibly a broader reach with good blog posts, but that you'll have more long-term impact with books, if you're really lucky (or really good). And that you'll never please everybody, no matter which choices you make.

Cheers,
walt c.

I'm also thinking one writes blogs, books and articles for different purposes – sustained lines of reasoning in books, reporting and calls to action in periodicals, and opinion/reaction in blogs. In a very general way. Walt commented on this statement:

These days, I'd say:

• Off-the-cuff stuff in blog
• Sustained lines of reasoning and synthesis in Cites & Insights [e-journal]
• Shorter, focused, linear narratives in columns
• ...and stuff in books that really doesn't work any other way.

But that's me.

Interesting topic, for me at least. Still wondering - books, blogs, articles, columns - which has the greatest impact?

The beauty of disconnectedness - Ken Rodoff

 It's better to do something than to do nothing. Clay Shirky

I just loved this mini-rant left by Ken Rodoff (The Why of It All blog) to my post about Twitter last week:

Twitter is a thing. Just another thing.

Twitter use may represent a less-than-dedicated employee, but at home isn't it less of a time-suck than, oh, say, SL [Second Life]?

What I find most confusing is how people can dedicate so much time AFTER work hours,AT HOME! to SL, UStream, WeStream?

Am I the only one with kids? Am I the only one trying to have a F2F with my spouse (I mean, a lot of people sure do love the F2Fs, you'd think they practice them in their homes)? Am I the only one watching Lost? Hell's Kitchen? The Office? Please don't answer those last three...I'm well aware I live, at times, a less than esoteric existence...but I'm watching them with my wife, and we're even talking about them.

And what about reading? When's anyone getting that done?

All I know is that this soporific soul of mine needs / craves / begs for sleep. Begs for balance. Begs for an all-inclusive life, but every time I add one thing, I've jettisoned another.

Take the origin of this comment:

1. Log on to Twitter
2. Click on Darren Draper
3. Click on the link to his blog
4. Click on his 'hey, read this' little blue widget
5. Read your post
6. Think about your point
7. Read the comments (okay, only two...wanna guess?)
8. Type my comment

Total time so far (Verizon Fios Internet...just thought you should know): 12 minutes.

So, what did I lose over these past 12 minutes:

1. The washer to dryer exchange that my load of darks so desperately craves.
2. Making lunch for work tomorrow.
3. Cleaning something in this house...anything in this house (myself included).
4. A chance to talk with my wife as all 4 of my children sleep.
5. A peregrination.
6. The top of the 9th inning of the Red Sox - Twins game.
7. The beauty of disconnectedness

And it's #7 here that irks me most of all because it's the constant addition of things that makes me realize how much I had in the first place.

When I think about Twitter I'm ashamed of myself. When I check Feedburner I'm mortified at who I've become. When I think about what I should blog about I near tears.

All of the aforementioned make me realize I've neglected my children, my wife, and in its purest form, my life.

Maybe I'll blog about it.

Advertise it on Twitter.

And see if my Technorati rank goes up.

Really now, just as Twitter asks: what are we doing?

Thanks, Ken. Your thoughts echo mine so closely it is almost eerie! (However I had to look up peregrination. Good word!) 

How we spend our leisure (or at least non-work time) is an interesting question. I was intrigued by Clay Shirky's observation*:

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

He continues:

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

Like Ken, I wonder if I spend too much time online at the expense of other activities. A friend observed that replying to each comment left on my blog:

... a personal comment just to say "thanks" [for leaving a comment] makes me wonder if the blogger actually has a life!

Well, I think I have a life. It doesn't include watching much TV, playing golf, or doing as much volunteer work as I should.  While Ken and I both have four kids, the LWW and I are empty nesters. (Whew!) So can we gauge by the amount of time we spend on line if we need to "get a life?"

Subjectively, we could place all our leisure time activities on scale. The low end might be watching Gilligan's Island re-runs (preferably while drinking a beer, wearing sweats, and in a prone position) and on the high end might be tutoring disadvantaged children, comforting lepers, or coaching one's daughter's hockey team. (I believe the last two also qualify one for cannonization.)

Blog writing, commenting, responding to comments is, I suppose, akin to pretending to be an elf. But if feels productive rather than consumptive and is one hell of a lot more entertaining than 95% of television programming.

I guess I would even Twitter before I would watch Desperate Housewives.

Are some uses of leisure time better than others?

 *Thanks to Tim Lauer for pointing out this video and transcription.

Tom Ross on games

Our state listserve has been having an ongoing discussion about the use of computer games in school.

Being the agitator that I am, I posted my lists of reason for and against games. Ending with:

THREE REASONS FOR BANNING GAMES

1. Kids playing games might be using resources (computers, bandwidth, chairs, oxygen) that other kids might need to do "real" school work.
2. Kids playing games find school fun and we all know life isn't about fun.
3. Playing games is against school rules

My friend Tom Ross, library media specialist for Robbinsdale (MN), sent me a reply which he kindly gave permission to share here. Tom is one of those wonderful writers who grows more eloquent as he grows more passionate about his topic!

One more very valid reason for banning games...
 
Because we choose not to adapt, "and those who do not adapt..." Well you know the rest of the quote.

Our educational community is choosing to live lin the 19th century and cannot adapt to the world our students live in.  We choose not to walk beside them, coach them and transform them into responsible users of all media. We are too busy with our own world to think about theirs. Let's face it, our educational community is uncomfortable with their world. Overhead projectors are still one of the most important purchases by media specialists, but only so because our teachers demand them. In this we fail. We fail to text, we fail to blog, we fail to WOW and many of us don't have a clue about what I just said.
 
Therefore, 1. We will be replaced the first chance they get, and 2. We will continue to lose the ability to influence the decision making process and ensure a safer, more sane world than we have now.

... I would put as Number 1 at the top of the "Reasons for Games," the following: 1. Influence the values of this generation for the future and 2. Remain relevant in the lives of our students. We are becoming irrelevant ar the speed of a duo quad four Pentium. Let me say that word again: irrelevant. Students are moving beyond us as if we did not exist. Our grammar, our word choice, our polite culture, how we spell our words, our attitudes, our culture, our world, our values are being left discarded like a used tissue. Complain about it as we will, it will not matter, because we will be replaced and like some forgotten massacre of the Second Boer War,  No one will even know we were here. It will be the sound of a tree falling in a far off Siberian forest.
 
Realizing that we as educational communities cannot make this and several other adaptions, (cell phones, hand held internet access and retrieval systems, I will predict that schools as we know them will continue to shrink and be replaced by other formats of education until they are things of curiosity of the 18th-20th centuries. This is just a reality, not an emotional response.  We won't be the first dinosaur that failed to make the adaptation. The question for us individually is whether or not we will allow ourselves to morph with the new world realities around us --- or simply retire?
 
 As for myself, I am not going softly into that good night.
 
Tom Ross,
Plymouth Middle School

How does the now over-used quote by General Eric Shinseki go? “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”  Thanks, Tom, for the passionate reminder.