Blogfest: Is it navel-gazing or are we bringing serious discussion into view?

I thought of navel gazing when I started this post because (1) it is self-congratulatory to put in a link to someone’s praising a discussion I am part of, “While corporations are “brainstorming” to create guidelines on how to blog , when to blog or who should blog or is there any value in this blogging stuff, CEOs of three publishing companies Richard Charkin (MacMillan/Nature) , Karen Christensen (Berkshire Group), John Dove (xRefer) are discussing the future of reference books in Tim Coates post,” ((My excuse is that this too is an example of what goes on in the blogosphere, and those intrigued by the phenomena of social media might find it interesting to see how fast this happens.)) and because I have a GIIS conference call tonight and “Navel Gazing” is our joke panel. That came about because I suggested we do a panel about how to get into the U.S. market, something really and truly aimed at non-U.S. publishers. “That would show people we aren’t just talking amongst ourselves,” I think I said. “And what’s wrong with navel gazing?” Ed quipped.

Anyhow, my panel at Chinese University of Hong Kong, with Matthias Wahls of Brill, is behind me, and I have no further responsibilities at the conference, so I plan to relax a little – well, after I sort out my documents for the GIIS call. I could use a week simply to write up notes and ideas from the last couple weeks in China.

About the Author: Karen Christensen

Karen Christensen is an entrepreneur, environmentalist, and writer. She is the owner and CEO of Berkshire Publishing Group, a research associate of the Fairbank Center at Harvard, a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations, and founder of the Train Campaign. She was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Press, Her Substack newsletter, The Way We Live Now, has over 12,000 subscribers: www.karenchristensen.substack.com.

One Comment

Tim Coates 2007-04-13 at 10:17 am
Karen,
Thank you for the mention. I hope this debate about reference books and other reference sources will continue: I am going to make a posting criticising publishers for not promoting specific reference works to the public enough. Good libraries participate in the marketing of general book publishers by holding stock and making it available. But there isn’t enough public promotion of major works of reference: for example who would know that UK libraries now offer free access to the Oxford English Dictionary, nor what it is? In that case I think OUP should do more…. and so on.
Incidentally we have a new pastime in England as we watch our sailors in the Persian Gulf. It is not navel gazing but naval gazing. Tim