Infomatters

I went to the taping of Texas Monthly‘s talk show with Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek today. The discussion veered, naturally, to national politics but not before a few opening salvos from Evan Smith on the challenges of publishing in the digital age. Meacham made the point that Newsweek struggles continually with how to provide meaningful web presence in a world that demands free online information, updated hourly. He noted, to the surprise of some, that the real measure of success in the magazine and newspaper world, is not circulation numbers at all, but revenue stream from advertising, more important than circulation by ‘a factor of 4 or 5’ he estimated.

I recalled my undergrad sociology lectures on media from 25 years ago (maybe it was 30 years now!) where my naivety about subscription prices and profits in the news business was shattered, so I should not be surprised to hear these sorts of numbers again, but it seems many people are. I asked him if he could imagine that someday, the present day obsession with information online having to be free will be seen as a quaint, early belief of the web adopters, replaced in due course with a fee or subscription based model. His response spoke eloquently to the importance of a free press having the ability to withstand special interest funding and the hope that we would figure this out for the web but on reflection, I wonder how free our press has ever been?

All this, as the London Evening Standard elects to give its paper editions away free and to rely solely on advertising revenue. And this the newspaper of Churchill. Early signs since they started this in October 2009 are that circulation is up. No doubt the naysayers will be searching for evidence that quality is down but the experiment lives on, or, as is happening, cynics are suggesting the circulation data is less than accurate. Interesting times.

The predictions of e-book supremacy in the not too distant future have been made early (see Jonnassen, 1982) and often (see anything written about the Kindle), but I was struck by VP of Oxford University Press, Casper Grathwohl’s comment in the Dec 2009 issue of Library Journal that “we feel the ebook moment is finally here”. The cause of this supposed tipping point is not, as you might imagine, new technology such as the iPad, but good old fear generated by the worldwide recession which Casper feels is the true driver of creative juices.

It’s not easy to translate the belief into hard data, though there are signs that ebook sales are continuing to generate more and more revenue at the wholesale level — keep on eye on this page where, despite a blip in the last quarter, the trajectory is clearly up and up. O’Reilly dropped DRM and report ebook sales up 104%, and there is a general feeling among trend watchers that yes, the moment for e-books to shine has finally arrived. Two years ago, Amazon predicted $3bn in ebook sales by 2012 which has been revised upward to $9bn by some more recent analysts. The Association of American Publishers reports perhaps the most telling statistic: while book sales in general are still moving slowly up at just under 5% a year, ebook sales are rising at a rate closer to 200%. Assuming the pattern is stable (which is an assumption but not an entirely unreasonable one), the moment of crossover is coming.

Those of us who watched this world and studied reading on screen over the years predicted an inevitable time when e-reading would be routine but most of us, well me at least, argued that print would not die as a result but instead, the two media would co-exist, perhaps even synergistically. I still put my shirt on that outcome (digital for management, search, comparison, facts etc., paper retained for leisurely lengthy reading, deep study of narratives, or tasks that require perspective and overview of lengthy document contents ) and have not had a chance to play seriously with any e-book tool that I would want to take to the beach, but I see the future getting nearer. What is interesting is how many people are now reporting, at least informally, that they have switched to digital for the lengthy leisurely reads I felt to be paper’s greatest provision. Few if any studies have been reported on this as yet but it’s definitely an interesting question. Meanwhile, I expect I’ll still be buying and reading paper for the rest of my life but I might just be purchasing more e-texts along the way.

Having difficulty understanding the health care debate? Try this for some basic perspective. Truly, distance from the problem gives a clearer view.

Sent to me by a colleague, this is a true depiction of the process of peer review as experienced by many in the LIS community. One is tempted to name names but you can easily do that for yourself.

Of course the seriousness of peer review and the pitfalls in many implementations of it should not be underestimated. Some of the ‘reviews’ I have received over the years from so-called top journals would give any impartial observer pause. I don’t mean rejections, I mean one-liner acceptances, admitted reviewer ignorance of methods, and in one case, a paper came back with a line from a reviewer that said, basically, “I have no idea how these statistical tests work but the conclusions seem justifiable”. Is it any wonder there is public cynicism of science? Reviewing takes real effort though the process is largely thankless. The automated systems used by many publishers mean that as soon as you submit a review, you open yourself up to further requests for reviews, thereby creating the perfect disincentive to productivity. It’s become fashionable to question the value of double-blind peer review but one cannot divorce this discussion from a more systematic analysis of the whole process.

And as I write this, I received results of a survey from Elsevier of authors’ perceptions of what is important in submitting papers for review. Most important: speed of review. Next: quality of review. The trade-off continues.

Uniting in common cause for the Climate Conferences at Copenhagen, 56 newspapers around the globe for the first time published a common editorial on Dec 7th.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Interesting approach. Pity we did not see more of it in the US newspapers. I learned that only the Miami Herald would run with it, even though editors of other leading US papers offered private agreement with the text. Press freedom? Yeah right…..after all, those leaked emails show that scientists are just milking this stuff anyhow aren’t they?

If popularity of search terms is any guide, here’s all you need to know about people’s concerns as we enter another year of world conflict:

1. Michael Jackson
2. The Twighlight Saga
3. World Wrestling Entertainment
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. Nascar
10. Runescape

All this according to Yahoo!. Speaks for itself really. Interestingly, Google’s Trends offers a slightly different picture of today’s specific interests. The results are not more inspiring:

1. tiger woods car crash photos
2. carlos dunlap
3. tiger woods girlfriend joanna
4. tiger woods mistress rachel uchitel
5. solange magnano pictures
6. oprah.com/12days
7. las cruces public schools
8. grady sizemore photos
9. reserveamerica
10. free christmas desktop wallpaper

Good to know all that research into IR and access is making us smarter.

I hate the fact that despite all this connectivity, we still lose people. I also hate that despite all this connectivity, someone can go missing and we might not know for a year. This week I learned that Phil Agre of UCLA has not been seen for close to a year and his family are desperate. No, this is not a Wired story on how to remain invisible, this is possibly a tragic story of a faculty colleague without a connection to people who can help. Here’s a link. If you have a clue, let others know.

You might think H1N1 is contagious, but even swine flu has a way to go before it can spread as fast as BS-information. Fox News has broken a hot story — apparently all this new found cleanliness and handwashing can have deadly consequences which we are only now learning about. According to this shocking story, there is a very real chance of damaging long-term side effects if you drink hand sanitizer or set fire to it. Please, warn your loved ones. Information — keeping you safe!