Posts by DCBCauchi
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
Love it! yes, let’s work together to protect our taonga!
A syncretic Cult of the Book perhaps? Librarians, archivists, historians, artists, writers, editors, but above all readers.
(Just in case you were wondering, ‘readers’ includes all users of books. All of my painter friends have large personal libraries. I’m unusual in that I sometimes even read the words in mine rather than sticking to reading the pictures. I can't think of anyone who just uses the internet, but I could be wrong. And they're not just art books either. Painters tend to have eclectic books and wide-ranging interests.)
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Oh, and the thing about books published after 1990. People sometimes think that newer is always better than older and that development is a linear track from ‘worse’ to ‘better’.
Any halfway decent student of art history will tell you that the notion of unidirectional cultural progress is a myth.
Publishers, even high quality non-fiction publishers, have had to brutally cut costs to survive. Once upon a time, when you had your manuscript accepted, you could expect that it’d be carefully edited and proofed, have all its facts meticulously checked, and an index properly prepared.
(Authors who're a bit too used to this process can get a bit deluded. I've heard tell of an author who objected to any editing: 'But I'm an award-winning author, for my prose style!' It had to be pointed out that the award was for the prose style of the edited text, not that of the raw manuscript. A good editor should leave no trace, so even the author thinks that's what was originally written.)
Now, these are all highly skilled jobs (especially indexing) that can only be very poorly automated. Running a spellchecker is no substitute for proofing, and no author can adequately edit their own work. Automatically generated indexes are worse than useless.
What’s a poor publisher to do? There’s an old saying in publishing circles: ‘Fast, cheap, accurate – pick any two.’ If you want cheap and accurate, it won’t be fast, so most publishers go for fast and cheap. Cos it’s that or not publish the book at all.
And then there’s electronic vs print publishing. Various promoters want to push electronic publishing. It’s so cheap! It’s so non-linear and hip and shiny and new and progressive. And it’s how people want to read nowadays.
It’s also dodgy as fuck.
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Okay, so what we have here is a fairly clear description of the wholesale destruction of irreplaceable cultural treasures by barbarians. Now, as a group of intelligent, capable, concerned citizens, civilised people, what can we do about it?
Obviously, the first thing is to highlight the problem, let the barbarians know they can’t just quietly carry on, and take preventive measures to protect what’s left. Any librarians with ideas on how to do that?
Storage space is a real problem, one that can't be wished away, so is the cost of maintaining a collection that's hardly ever used. How do we preserve what needs to be preserved without crippling the institutions preserving them?
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to merc,
The police have way more legal right to enter your home or harm than the military does.
Haven't they just been given a whole lot of sneaky surveillance powers? Unwarranted powers snuck in without debate? Didn't I read something about that recently?
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Publishing’s a bit like dairy farming. Nowhere really any more are there small family-owned farms where cows wander round in open fields crapping all over the place. Instead, there are massive factory farms.
New Zealand has a long and vibrant history of small press publishing, in both literature and visual art. One that continues to this day (artists’ books, plug plug). Include an essay, slap an ISBN on it, and bob’s your uncle. It goes on to some database or other thing that goes around all the libraries and (I think) bookshops.
Bloody great mate. People get hold of you and want to buy the things. And they’re really easy to do. Zinefest (plug plug).
People go on about the internet, but one of the real wonders of our age is the revolution in cheap high quality colour printing. It enables things you simply couldn’t do before without huge amounts of dosh.
I plan to make heaps more books.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
I paid the access fees when I was a consultant, and now, having returned to fold, so to speak, have access once more – happy to get the odd book out for you.
Nice. And that is exactly what I meant by ‘ways and means’. I get books out for my friends, and vice versa.
I’ve had proper official access to a university library for the first time in a long time for a couple of years. The main benefit is being able to search journal databases for articles and then download the pdf.
Google books etc is ok, but it’s annoying. This is great. All those footnote refs you wished to consult? Well, now you can.
I thought society as a whole was paying for university research. I don’t understand why these articles aren’t freely available to everyone.
And re: council-funded libraries. I reckon the danger there is not so much limit on public access, but what they’re doing to the concept of ‘library’ and ‘collection’. I’m not sure, but they seem to rate books that have been on the shelf for a long time without being taken out (completely regardless of what the book is, or how many copies of it are anywhere) as ‘low value’ and things like internet hubs next to cafes selling coffee etc as ‘high value’.
Now, if all the libraries in the country manage their collections according to those kind of values for any amount of time at all, we’re fucked. Completely fucked. Imagine it.
Anyone remember when accountants took over the board of the National Library, and started eyeing up Turnbull's Miltons?
Bibliolatry (ha ha). Both my parents were librarians at one time. (My partner Rose Miller is still completely shocked at how I treat books.)
I spent a lot of time in the old Wellington Library as a kid, and more in the new as an adult. They have an awesome collection, built up over time by people with a real passion for it, on any subject you care to name. Well, had, anyway.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Oh, that it were so… Once upon a time I could swan into University of Canterbury library and sit and read for hours, now it seems ya need student pass cards and other security devices to open gates, etc. – Bah! Humbug!
I didn’t say it was easy! Ways and means...
Unlike back in the goode olde days, when I were a lad. Arrrr.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to DCBCauchi,
It’s a fucking crime.
Which part of 'disinterested seeker of the truth' is compatible with 'being an ideologue'?
Oh wait, that's right, they redefined the 'truth' to mean that black was white, ridiculed passion, and promoted 'irony' in its place. There are no things, only dynamic processes, and the rest of that evil bullshit.
Shall I tell you what I really think?
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Sacha,
Then pray explain what you think a “knowledge economy” is.
To be really honest, I can't be bothered going into it in detail.
Short version: one of those things that mean whatever people want it to mean. That is, a word with no clear referent. Easily manipulable. A politician's word. A weasel word.
That do?
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
That might have been the case for a hundred or so years between the abolition of mandatory state religions and the introduction of substantial government funding,..
Look again.