Art, I think you make a point here that Rob Sanderson (I think) made in the IRC channel today.
We have a Code4lib planet. We have Ariadne and we have D-Lib (and, as we learned last week, we have ITAL). Where would the market for this journal be? Who would read it? Would it just be the same people that read the planet? Dorothea made a good point about the publish-or-perish faculty track. I understand that. I'm just not sure that we need another niche journal. I don't really oppose something like this. I'm just not entirely sure I see the value. Art, you write more (word count /and/ content) in one blog posting to LibraryCog than my contributions in two journal articles. As a professional (ok, by virtue that I get paid for what I do, not how I conduct myself), I get more out of the timely blog postings I read than the journal articles that I occasionally read (although there's value in... what, 60% of those, too?). So... take this how you will. -Ross. On Feb 21, 2006, at 9:01 PM, Art Rhyno wrote:
This is intriguing, I really like the idea of a publication that would have a high level of technical content, even if only to inspire more folks to consider the IT side of libraries. I would really like to see a low barrier way of capturing the excitement and enthusiasm that came through in the lightning talks at the conference in a journal-like setting, I don't know if that's possible. I also wondered about the concept of a "scenario of the month", some sort of technical challenge or problem, and providing a forum to describe some possible solutions with different tools. If you could give people like Dan Chudnov a whiteboard and Ed Summers a broader canvas for sketching out programming strategies in a journal format, that alone would instantly run circles around the other library tech publications out there. I think this is worth pursuing, and in true code4lib spirit, maybe it can push the boundaries of what is possible with a journal. For example, maybe podcasts and screen captures could be used in addition to text. Speaking as someone who can barely keep one blog active, has let another almost lapse into oblivion, and spends a lot of time cursing the whole notion of publishing these days. On the other hand, if you want to produce a version in paper and need it bundled with bailing twine... art
