The Equalization Effect of Digital Publishing

Established mainstream authors like John Updike are furious with Google for scanning books into the public domain and they're angry with publishers that choose to sell electronic editions of books -- any book.

We argue authors like Updike are angry because their specialness in publication is being ravaged by the equanimity and the equality of the digital publishing, print-on-demand, business model creeping into the book world.

Where once these "Big Name" authors were King Makers with power and influence -- everyone can now play on the same ground as them as the playing field is leveled and leavened in favor of the everyday and the accessible.

You create power and wield it when you can narrow access to minds and to the control of thoughts.

If everyone in the room with you -- and even those out in the world at large -- can go toe-to-toe with you to compete for the hearts and ideas of an ever-widening readership, your star shines less, your book advances dwindle, and your awards and certificates are diminished as the power is equalized.

Be wary of anyone claiming electronic publishing is bad for reading -- and when you see that sort of strange protest -- look for the threat to the backend profit the protestor is making behind your back.

Celebrating Static Pages

There is nothing wrong with creating a plain text, static, non-MySQL webpage that serves as a personal online portal for identification and being.

Information does not need to move and wiggle and have comments in order to be important as the ARClog blog argues:

Arguably, blogs appear to have eclipsed what was once the domain of the published journal article. While I still believe in the viability of the published article as a communication vehicle and as a demonstration of one’s ability to succeed in the venue of traditional disciplinary publishing, for many academic librarians - particularly those new to the profession - that may no longer be the case. And if blogs were ever to replace scholarly journal articles as the gold standard for those on the tenure track, published journal articles would likely languish even more.

The power of the world is in the living expression of thoughts and in the association of meanings -- and the frame around those ideas must never matter.

A cave painting is just as valuable as a hieroglyph as is a crayon drawing as is a printed page in a magazine as is a personal web page that has been indexed by the search spiders, but not updated, for the last five years.

Celebrate the static page by recognizing the value in the reverence for the creation of the human word in any form.