Friday, August 07, 2009

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.

Offtopic Perspective: Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins


I didn't buy this 4-disc, 20-movie (actually 18 movies, two TV episodes, and a great hour's worth of trailers); I received it as a gift. The usual little reviews on a bunch of movies that you might find unusual if you only know the Hollywood Hitchcock.

Perspective: Academic Library Blogs: A Limited Update


Similar to the public library blogs update noted above, this looks at currency (prior to May 31, 2009), posting frequency, comments and conversational intensity for May 2009 of the same 231 academic library blogs included in Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples--or as many of those blogs as I could still easily find. The discussion includes brief notes on pioneers and some of the standout blogs in 2007--how they're doing in 2009. Again, this ends my work in this area; the resulting spreadsheet is yours for the taking.

My Back Pages


As usual, this section is a "print bonus"--it's only available in the full-issue PDF. That's particularly relevant for one of the eight little essays in this section (discussing the typeface that spawned a worldwide movement to ban it). For those who've felt My Back Pages spent too much virtual ink on audio matters: Only the two shortest of these eight commentaries have anything to do with audio, and in one case that connection is a stretch.

That's it for this issue--which, as Whole Issue 120, would have been the final issue of C&I's first decade if I'd stuck to the original frequency.

Meanwhile, do note that Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples (currently available as a download from Lulu or a trade paperback from Amazon/CreateSpace) will go out of print and off sale on or about September 1, 2009. Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples will probably follow, a month later.