I recieved the following comment from Walt Crawford about my "blog printability" entry, and I thought I should respond. I appreciate that he left a comment at all. His comments are italicized, my responses are not.
This weekend, I didn't find a Comment function on Texadata, or I would have offered a version of what Steve Oberg said. Actually, COWLZ isn't defunct, just dormant. And I think this is all explained on the C&I FAQ. Or you could ask me directly...(but I was on vacation).
OK, thanks for the info about COWLZ. I'll try to find the FAQ.
I find the rest of your comment curious: "Honestly, I think it is a waste of brain cells to write a column critiquing the printability of blogs. I don't think I've ever printed out a blog. If I produce something I think people will want to print out, I generally put in on my web page. Still, as a point of pride, I have to figure out how to address this. Damn..."
So, because you don't print out blogs, it's a "waste of brain cells" for me to write about something that I do--when blogs have long posts or lots of comments on something I'll want to comment on later. Interesting: I'm always impressed when someone else can decide what's a waste of my time or someone else's time.
Well, this is my true opinion. Perhaps I made the point inartfully, so I'll try to explain in a fuller manner (and be more careful of my tone in the future). I have a limited amount of time and resources to spend thinking about my professional interests. I expend mental energy according to an economy. I have infinite interests, but limited time and mental resources, so I have to pick and choose what I focus on and how much I apply myself to my projects. I established a blog to record my occasional thoughts without the expectation that they would be interesting to others. (I'm flattered on the rare occasion that they are.) I have a lot of other things to work on that I think is more important, so formatting my blog to be easy to print is very low on the list. I would rather spend my time reading articles, writing grant proposals, and working with our programmers on the development of our digital collections. Again, in this rage of activities, the printability of my blog is very low. Looking at this from Walt's point of view, it was not my intent to "decide" for him what he should or should not write about. Still, considering he is an important voice in the library community, I wish that he would have first evaluated the library blogs based on whether the entries are accurate, thoughtful, compelling, unique, and valuable to the library community. Instead, I get an "F" for formatting without any comment stating whether the blog itself is meaningful. Perhaps the profession needs a blog critic, a Roget Ebert of the library blogosphere.
And, if you think this is all a waste, then why bother fixing it? (If you do want to fix it, Baby Boomer Librarian has a post on how he modified the Blogger template to fix the printability problem. But if you don't think people trying not to waste brain cells should be printing out weblogs, why bother?)
Well, prior to Walt's comment, I had zero evidence that anybody was remotely interested in printing out Texadata entries. I only get periodical comments to the blog or via email. This blog is an experiment to see how I use it and how it can benefit my work. I'm still figuring that out and I don't have an expectation that it will be much used by others. Anyway, thanks for the tip about Baby Boomer Librarian, I'll check it out. I definitely won't be able to fix it anytime soon, but when I can get to it I will.
This weekend, I didn't find a Comment function on Texadata, or I would have offered a version of what Steve Oberg said. Actually, COWLZ isn't defunct, just dormant. And I think this is all explained on the C&I FAQ. Or you could ask me directly...(but I was on vacation).
OK, thanks for the info about COWLZ. I'll try to find the FAQ.
I find the rest of your comment curious: "Honestly, I think it is a waste of brain cells to write a column critiquing the printability of blogs. I don't think I've ever printed out a blog. If I produce something I think people will want to print out, I generally put in on my web page. Still, as a point of pride, I have to figure out how to address this. Damn..."
So, because you don't print out blogs, it's a "waste of brain cells" for me to write about something that I do--when blogs have long posts or lots of comments on something I'll want to comment on later. Interesting: I'm always impressed when someone else can decide what's a waste of my time or someone else's time.
Well, this is my true opinion. Perhaps I made the point inartfully, so I'll try to explain in a fuller manner (and be more careful of my tone in the future). I have a limited amount of time and resources to spend thinking about my professional interests. I expend mental energy according to an economy. I have infinite interests, but limited time and mental resources, so I have to pick and choose what I focus on and how much I apply myself to my projects. I established a blog to record my occasional thoughts without the expectation that they would be interesting to others. (I'm flattered on the rare occasion that they are.) I have a lot of other things to work on that I think is more important, so formatting my blog to be easy to print is very low on the list. I would rather spend my time reading articles, writing grant proposals, and working with our programmers on the development of our digital collections. Again, in this rage of activities, the printability of my blog is very low. Looking at this from Walt's point of view, it was not my intent to "decide" for him what he should or should not write about. Still, considering he is an important voice in the library community, I wish that he would have first evaluated the library blogs based on whether the entries are accurate, thoughtful, compelling, unique, and valuable to the library community. Instead, I get an "F" for formatting without any comment stating whether the blog itself is meaningful. Perhaps the profession needs a blog critic, a Roget Ebert of the library blogosphere.
And, if you think this is all a waste, then why bother fixing it? (If you do want to fix it, Baby Boomer Librarian has a post on how he modified the Blogger template to fix the printability problem. But if you don't think people trying not to waste brain cells should be printing out weblogs, why bother?)
Well, prior to Walt's comment, I had zero evidence that anybody was remotely interested in printing out Texadata entries. I only get periodical comments to the blog or via email. This blog is an experiment to see how I use it and how it can benefit my work. I'm still figuring that out and I don't have an expectation that it will be much used by others. Anyway, thanks for the tip about Baby Boomer Librarian, I'll check it out. I definitely won't be able to fix it anytime soon, but when I can get to it I will.
2 comments:
Good response. Thanks.
Saying you flunked printability certainly wasn't a negative comment on the content of Texadata (as I tried to make clear). If the content was worthless, then printability wouldn't matter at all...
Maybe someone should run a set of blog reviews. That someone won't be me (although I do intend to do some "metrics" at some point).
I'll boil down a portion of your response to it being a waste of your brain cells to worry about Texadata printability. I think that's exactly right, and I don't think you should worry about it. You don't write very long essays that often, and those of us who do want printed copies are learning the tricks to get them (emailing from bloglines when you have a full-text feed, as you do, is the easiest). So, I'd say, just leave it as it is.
Good deal, thanks for following up.
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