As I was getting into CEO dress this morning, ready to talk about copyright and valuation and acquisitions, I started laughing. My colleagues here don't realize that I am an author, too, an editor of encyclopedias, and an environmentalist. And an idealist, who really thinks that publishing can and should do good. What came to mind
Not long ago I was idling away an evening with the 2003 Heronswood Nursery catalog. This is a famous catalog that no longer exists (nor does the nursery, as of May, when new owners W. Atlee Burpee & Co. closed it), and I'm sorry I threw away the other issues I had. They're probably collectors' items
I thought I'd share this wonderful advertisement Marcy found in a copy of Scientific American from 1896. The focus on "genuine merit," excellent production values, and the "thousands of special contributors from all over the globe [who] have devoted their best talents to the preparation of this marvelous condensation of all the world’s knowledge" certainly resonates
When I started blogging, almost two years ago now, my charming son Tom commented, "weblogs are so 2002." Maybe they were, but they seem to be alive and kicking in 2006. But according to blog maven Debbie Weil: 2007 will be the year of the multimedia blogosphere. If you don't have video, podcasts, photos, screenshots and
When doing an interview or making a presentation, I used to worry about not knowing enough about whatever I was supposed to be talking about. (I had an hour on an important London radio program when my first environmental book was published, and will never forget the host's flipping through the book and throwing me a
As I remembered, this is an exceptionally good conference for networking. I think people working in film and television are a bit more outgoing than publishing people, and they're definitely looking for fresh ideas and approaches. The tone, though, isn't completely at odds with academic conferences: people who do history film making are clearly committed to
Hey, I was wrong! Scott Plutchak was on a panel about Open Access and was shrewd and insightful and balanced. Curiously, he too used a religious metaphor when talking about people who are OA believers. The key point he made was that the librarian’s responsibility is to use the money s/he’s been allocated to support the
I appreciate the people who blog conferences, in the sense that they sit in the sessions and record what’s said, questions asked, answered, and dodged. Not my way of working, so apologies if that’s what you’re hoping for. Conferences sessions get me thinking, and all too often my mind heads off in some new direction because
En route to the Charleston Conference, an important U.S. event, it occurs to me that I should write something about the American Collective Stand, which has made our international conferences go so smoothly. I was introduced to Janet Fritsch and Jon Malinowski at an American Library association conference two years ago, and we did our first
It's hardly surprising that I should find myself meeting people who work for the BBC. Global media, right? And a nonprofit corporation--that's also a good fit with Berkshire Publishing at the moment, and with the kind of publishing we do. It's interesting, though, to find out that the BBC suffers from the usual corporate ills: bureaucracy
