Blind Mellendrama

Mellendrama is a hashtag on Twitter to describe what can only be termed as the ongoing saga of Edwin Mellen Press (EMP) versus, well, anyone who has anything remotely unkind to say online, protections of free speech or well established case law supporting opinion articles be damned. The other post title I came up with was “John Cougar Mellendrama”, but in Blind Melon’s only hit song, “No Rain” (a staple of my generation’s high school music and famous for its dancing Bee Girl video), there’s a lyric I can’t resist for this post.

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain,
Ya don’t like my point of view,
Ya think that I’m insane.
It’s not sane, it’s not sane.

I’ll just leave it at that.

If you want the short version of what has happened, avail yourself of this Canadian Broadcasting article that briefly outlines the lawsuit by Edwin Mellon Press against McMaster University and librarian Dale Askey over a less-than-kind blog entry Askey wrote in 2010. (They dropped the suit against the university, but not against Askey.) If you like a detailed timeline loaded with links, check out John Dupuis’s rapidly expanding post which chronicles the whole affair. And if you want to see someone have a field day with this situation, then TechDirt is the place to go. Really, they dissected it and it’s a joy to read.

The latest salvo is a ‘cease and desist’ letter sent to Scholarly Kitchen, the blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing. EMP actually sent two letters; one for a blog post and another for a comment to that blog post. Scholarly Kitchen posted the letters they received; here’s the one for the blog post itself.

(I did not ask permission to repost these images, so SK give a yell if you want me to take them down. My apologies in advance if that’s the case.)

In case you’re wondering what kind of horrible things were written, the magic of the internet allows you to go back in time and see it for yourself thanks to the Internet Archive. Furthermore, the comment in question is #5. Go on, give it a read. Meanwhile, the trackbacks to the current Scholarly Kitchen post continue to grow as the word gets out regarding EMP’s latest move.

This activity comes in sharp relief to a statement within the press release in which EMP drops their suit against McMaster University on March 4th.

“The financial pressure of the social media campaign and pressure on authors is severe. EMP is a small company. Therefore must choose to focus its resources on its business and serving its authors.”

Pair this with a statement given to The Chronicle of Higher Education on the week of March 29th, three weeks later.

Mr. Richardson could not be reached for comment on Friday, but in an interview this week he told The Chronicle that his lawsuit against Mr. Askey would not be the last in his fight to protect his reputation as well as the reputation of the press and its authors.

“It’s going to develop and develop,” Mr. Richardson said. “It’s a little bit of a cyclone, and it isn’t quite clear where the eye of the cyclone is going to form. But the eye could be over the practice of people using the social media to anonymously bully other people.”

This would suggest to me that this is just the tip of the cease & desist/ libel/defamatory legal action iceberg. While you might be thinking about how non-anonymous the blog authors have been so far in this saga, their first (and thus far, only) newsletter dated October 2012 suggests that where they are headed. (You can read their newsletter from their website by mousing over the surprisingly named Newsletter tab and clicking on Current Newsletter link.) This bit was at the bottom of the publication.

The first link goes to a 2007 post with four comments on it. My guess is the “anonymous bullies” are the posters being referenced to with the second link that takes you to The Chronicle’s forum pages. (I found it much faster to find the forums they were referencing by Googling “mellen press reputation”. Seriously, it’s the top two results. But you can search for “Edwin Mellen Press” in The Chronicle’s forum search box and get the same results.)

There are multiple threads on the press, some of which date back to 2007. Posters on the forums have usernames, which is the next thing to anonymous when it comes to message boards. Is this where the next series of letters and lawsuits is headed? I would guess yes on the basis of the information available right now.

This story isn’t without a twist, however. Roy Tennant posted the discovery of Edwin Mellen Press by way of a pseudonym registering DaleAskey.com, DaleAskey.info, DakeAskey.net, and Daleaskey.org back between October 2011 and May 2012. A Google Document put together by Dave Pattern also shows that the Press had registered “TheMcmaster-mellencontroversy.com/net/info/org” addresses as well back in March 2012. I can’t even fathom a guess as to why either was done. Nope, can’t think of anything.

Overall, it’s been commented that this whole story reads like a case study of the Streisand Effect. In trying to squash the negative press, Edwin Mellen Press has elevated it to a front and center issue that can’t be ignored by librarians, academics, and other publishing entities. To me, the most logical series of events on where it goes from here is this: less reviewers will be interested in evaluating their titles for fear of any kind of reprisal. Less reviews means less opportunities for publicity and exposure in journals and magazines that people use for collection or curriculum development. Less opportunities mean less sales as people never hear or read about the book. Eventually, it’s the end of the business.

I have to admit that this is the kind of drama that I like to watch unfold on the public stage. First, it doesn’t involve me (although since I linked to the offending posts, who knows if there is a letter that will fly my way. I doubt it but that way this case is shaping up it is not out of the realm of possibility.) Second, it can only get weirder from here on out unless they drop their lawsuits and tactics. The academic librarian community is only so large and they work with faculty all the time when it comes to adding titles to the collection. Wayne Bivens-Tatum gives the best spin on this possibly:

I wonder what damages a publisher the most: someone writing a critical blog post, or a series of lawsuits and threatened lawsuits that target a number of academic librarians, which then go public and anger the very librarians who buy (or now maybe won’t buy) so many of the publisher’s books? I guess we’ll find out.

There is a undeniable ripple effect that is emanating out of this and only Edwin Mellen Press can control how large the waves get. At the rate these waves are increasing and intensifying, the only thing I can say is, “Surf’s up.”

Tips for Blogging in Libraryland

As this month marks my blog’s four year anniversary, I thought about the lessons that I’ve learned since I started writing here. For those thinking about adding their voice to the online librarian community, there are certainly no shortage of ways in which to participate. Over the weekend, I jotted down some of those musings that I think will help those starting out or thinking starting a blog. So, without further ado, here we go.

Pick a Name

And for the love of God, pick a better one than mine. While I have grown to truly love the name over time, it really started out as a clever play on words but still doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. A compliment from a friend encouraged me to keep it but, really, take some time in choosing a name. Bonnie Powers was recently writing about her blog name love/hate (her blog’s name is Bring Your Noise) so it got me re-thinking about my own title.

In a quick non-scientific survey of librarian blog titles, a good number of them fall into the "[noun] librarian”, “[adjective] librarian”, or “[adverb] librarian” category. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that (although there are some doozies out there) and there are other library related names (think “biblio”, “libris”, and anything book related), but just take some time to pick out a name. Also, perform some due diligence by doing a quick Google search for any names you want to try out to see if anyone else has used it.

Whatever you decide on, just make sure it is an accurate reflection of you. You will be telling a lot of people the blog title name so you do keep that in mind as well. You may be stuck with it for a very long time.

Pick a Blogging Platform

Do your homework and consider your blogging platform options. Sites like Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal (do people still even use that anymore?), and Typepad offer an array of options both paid and free. You want to find a blogging platform that meets your needs.

For myself, I use a free WordPress site (obviously) and write my blog posts in Windows Live Writer (a good solid blogging program and less buggy than the WordPress browser interface). It has served me well for these four years and I will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.

If you decide to host your blog on your own website, that does change some of your options here but doing your homework will find you the right fit.

Write What You Know

It’s a devilishly simple sounding sentiment, but it can be deceptive. This isn’t saying that you should be limited in the breadth and depth of the topics you want to talk about, but an acknowledgement that some subjects will take more time and research to arrive at a coherent blog post. For example, I could write a library eBook post nearly off the top of my head based on what I know as well as remembering recent blog posts and articles addressing the article. If I was to attempt to write about AACR2 and RDA, I’d need to do background work so that I had the faintest of clues as to what I was talking about it. Even then, I’d probably have to focus on the most general of topics around it (such as whether to use it or not) rather than the nitty gritty cataloging details that make me reach for the whiskey bottle.

With that in mind, the quotation “you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts” springs to mind. Anyone can write an opinion piece on anything in libraryland but presenting a logical and factual persuasive argument is a whole other ballgame. It’s the difference between “AACR2 sucks, RDA rules” and “RDA is the future of cataloging for these reasons…” I may not be a cataloger, but it doesn’t mean I can’t learn as much as I can before weighing in on the debate in a meaningful manner. Honestly, you’re a librarian. The research aspect should be second nature.

Even then, no matter what topic you are writing about, do make allowances for corrections or edits. I’ve made mea culpas in the past and I certainly will make them in the future. There is nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong so long as you fix the error. Learn from these mistakes or missteps and move on.

Find Your Voice

As anyone who writes will tell you, it is an ongoing process that takes months, years, or even a lifetime to achieve. For the sake of simplicity, I’d say it is finding the writing style that most suits you. This is about tone, word choice, sentence construction, and cadence. Anyone could dissect my blog and find the words and phrases that I use over and over again as well as how I structure my sentences. Those aspects are a reflection of me as a writer and a thinker.

As I see it, it’s a translation of my personality to the computer screen. When I write like I would talk, think, or feel, the words come freely and naturally. When I try to make the text a bit fancier or with more flourish, I sputter and get bogged down. It reminds me of the studies about the brains of people when they are lying; they have to work harder since they are inventing the story as they go. When you aren’t true to your style, diction, or temperament, it’s going to be a struggle. Write as the person that you are for people can connect to that in terms of authenticity.

Links, Links, Links

This could also be called “show your work” or “cite your sources”. If you make a reference to another website, provide a link to it. If you got an idea or thought from somewhere else, provide a link to it. If you are talking about a particular issue or topic and there is a good explanation for it, provide a link to it.

I will admit that providing a link is a pet peeve of mine. I hate reading blogs that make a reference to an article, website, or another blog post and there isn’t a link provided. If you are going to take the time to write about something, don’t suddenly take some sort of magical internet “higher ground” and refuse to link to the offending/provoking article because you don’t want to encourage people to visit the website. That’s just completely asinine since it sends the mixed message, “I think this is important enough for me to comment on, but I don’t want you to read it and make your own decisions.”

As much as it irks me, I will admit that there are times when I don’t want to provide a link to something that I consider distasteful, unworthy of direct citation, or simply link bait. It puts me in a very bad mood as I balance out my own pet peeve against the loathing I feel for the article in question. Ninety nine percent of the time, I’ll swallow my disgust and link to the offender. For those rare one percent, I try to at least provide a breadcrumb trail for people to follow to get to the article. I might not link to it directly, but I’m not going to completely deny them the chance to read it themselves and make their own decision. Link as much as you can to cite your sources and references, but make provisions for when you can’t bring yourself to do it.

Edit When Possible

Before I hit Publish for the majority of my posts, I go through and do an edit. This isn’t a long drawn out process, but one to find the regular errors in spelling (usually words that are spelled correct but not in that context), my sometimes creative grammar problems, and my often “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” sentence construction issues. It also helps with organization of the post, allowing me to re-organize points, alter the cadence, or even eliminate unnecessary sentences and paragraphs. It’s not the finest polish I can offer, but it’s enough to take the easy mistakes out of the posts. The time you invest in your posts will show in the final product that you publish.

Be Brave

“Blog fearlessly” is a short mantra I say to myself before I hit the Publish button on a post that I think will generate some discussion or controversy. It’s a tough moment when you can feel the doubts creeping back and the “don’t rock the boat” urge pushing against the back of your mind. Some of the topics will elicit an emotional response or provoke a critical reaction. Be prepared for pushback, disagreements, and (in very rare cases but it happens) character assassination. My best advice is to roll with it: stand firm on the points you can prove or the opinions that you hold, concede the points you can’t, correct the mistakes you make, and try to foster the best dialogue you can. I’d also say pick your battles, but that’s never been a strong suit for me. If anything, it may help you finely tune your own positions as well as be a learning experience to the variety of viewpoints out there.

Promote, Promote, Promote

So, your blog post is up. Now what? Given the cacophony of the online librarian world, if you want to get your post notice you’ll have to do some publicity for it. Most of my traffic comes from Twitter, search engines, and other blogs that link to various posts. Google Reader tells me that I have over 1,700 subscribers and it shows in the number of syndicated views I get for my posts. In addition, I have a Facebook Author Page that helps me share my posts.

When I post something new, I set up some automatic tweets for the next day at different times (for different time zones) and share it on Google Plus (for whatever that’s worth); my Facebook page will automatically post the new entry. From there, I thank people for Retweeting, answer any comments on the Facebook or Google plus posts, and answer blog comments when I have something to say. When I was just starting out, I also posted to my blog on LISNews in order to increase the number of people who saw my writing.

Some people might balk at self promotion, but I believe it’s the best way to get as many eyes as you can on your blog post. If you’re not going to toot your own horn, who else is going to?

What else?

That’s not so much a topic heading as a question left for you, the reader. What else is there to know or consider when blogging in libraryland? Add a comment if you have a question or share from your experiences.

Beg, Borrow, Steal

On my social media outlets the other day, I happened to catch a link to a post on Lifehacker entitled, “Why I Stopped Pirating and Started Paying for Media”. As you can guess from the title, the author talks about their personal journey to legitimacy. In reading about their own experience, I got to thinking about my own dance with copyright, media, and the shady side of the internet.

Back in college in the late 1990’s, the big thing in the dorm computer network was the peer to peer (P2P) service Napster. It was in its heyday and I, like many of my peers, took advantage of it. I wasn’t one of those people who downloaded everything and anything they could find just for the hell of it, but I did download tracks I heard on the radio that I liked. I had a fondness for remixes and mashups which weren’t generally weren’t available on a CD so it was perfect for finding those kinds of music tracks as well. I still bought music so that I could have the liner notes and the physical CD itself, but I was able to try out different artists as well. (Those mp3s are long gone now, but I still have the CDs from that time.)

After Napster went kaput, I used KaZaa for a short period of time. The big difference between the two programs was that KaZaa offered P2P video files as well. I was still looking for mashups and remixes but I could also find videos for whatever my interest was at the time. Graphic war footage, pornography, funny video clips, you name it. The bigger issue with KaZaa was the prevalence of malicious viruses as well as purposefully mislabeled files intended to troll the viewer/listener. Hearing the virus alert go off got old very fast just as opening up a music or video file and finding something else. The luster wore off quickly and I stopped using KaZaa after a few months.

I didn’t really think much about copyright or ownership at that point in my life. I knew it was wrong, but not wrong enough to stop what I was doing. At the time, there were no digital music alternatives. iTunes had not arrived on the scene and Amazon was still selling books. The market that exists today was something that people spoke of breathlessly at conferences and industry trade shows. I never tried to justify it to myself that I was doing no harm, but that the harm I was doing was minimized since I only downloaded and never shared my files with others. (Yeah, I was that guy.)  I know that doesn’t absolve me from guilt or blame, but it was enough of a mitigation to ease my conscious at the time.

After KaZaa, I completely stopped using P2P networks. I haven’t touched anything like since the early 00’s, not even a bit torrent. In that post P2P time period, I also stopped buying music or movies for the most part except for the occasional (and exceptional) artist or movie here and there. I would say that the two events are related but I will concede that I wasn’t going to movies or listening to the radio much either. After I bought my first iPod, I did get back into purchasing music but on a limited basis. The majority of my music still dates back to the pre-iTunes era as well as my movie collection. Overall, the drawbacks outweighed the benefits.

Fast forward to the present day.

Lately I’ve been noticing a lot more anti-piracy public service announcements (PSAs). It gets my attention at first because I loathe the term “piracy” for its inherent inaccuracy, but I’ll concede that “unauthorized file sharing” isn’t as sexy a term. Although, if you called it by the latter, it would certainly be less glamorous than the people who relish in the notion of being a pirate. Not many are going to take up the title of “sharer” (sharerer?) as it doesn’t have the same mystique as pirate.

I recently saw one of these PSAs before DVD episodes of the TV series Justified that I had borrowed from my library. This giant emblem would pop up on the screen with a dire warning about how I could go to jail, be fined, lose all my friends, and die alone if I copied this disc. Ordinarily, I’ve learned to tune out the FBI warning and other emblem related television warnings. But this warning then proceeded to give me a rundown of how it was protected internationally followed by the same warning in all of the official languages of the United Nations. Worse, it’s completely unskippable so that I have find a way to amuse myself through these two unrefundable minutes of my life. Since it magically knew to do this each time I started up my DVD player, these life stealing increments added up to the point where I became very sympathetic to people who download media illegally to avoid this time theft.

I also heard announcements on commercial radio urging people to call a number or go to a website to report media piracy in their area. The announcement spends more time telling people how to contact them than compelling reasons why they should do it other than (to paraphrase) it’s bad. It didn’t mention anything about a reward so I guess they are hoping for listeners to act out of the goodness of their hearts or (more likely) revenge on people who have wronged them or spiteful frame-ups intended to give someone a hard time. Nothing quite like a little McCarthy-like “rat on your friends, family, and neighbors” strategy to endear themselves to the public, but since I guess you can’t do worse in the public relations department after suing thousands of consumers over the course of years for very little return. Even then, this is hunting goldfish rather than the internet pirate website whales.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one to feel this way, but my overall impression of copyright, intellectual property, and swirling vortex of issues around those two issues can be summed up in one word: unsatisfactory. Personally, there isn’t much quality television out there and even less quality movies that demand to be seen on the big screen. I’m willing to wait to television series or movies to come out on DVD and either borrow them from a friend or from the library. Even for the series that I’m following closely, there is nothing pressing that I need to watch right this moment. The price point is not sufficiently low enough to tempt me to purchase it for that instant gratification. It’s not to say that I haven’t been tempted, but the temptation is very fleeting.

Professionally, it feels like dancing through a landmine field. I am trying to steer people to the legitimate track of properly authorized and compensated copies of digital media, but society and business seems to conspire against this ideal. The social acceptance of media copying have lead me to the hardly surprising conclusion that people are copying the music and movies that they check out from the library at home. Over the course of my library years, I’ve even had the unfortunate experience of intervening when people were brazenly ripping CDs onto their laptops at the library. Some honestly didn’t know that it was a copyright infraction while others picked up on the fact that they could copy those CDs but in the privacy of their own homes. When it comes to eBooks, it’s tricky to guide people away from the ease of P2P downloading when the so called “friction” of eBook lending turns the question of borrowing into a overly long complex and extremely contextual answer. In trying to respect the owners of copyright, I end up showcasing all the madness that they have brought down on themselves in order to enforce it. It does nothing to encourage compliance nor engender respect for the concept or the laws supporting it.

Some may argue that librarians are not the stewards of copyright or even “the copyright police”. If you are someone who believes that, do me a favor and keep that stupid opinion to yourself. Librarians will not get a seat at a future copyright reform table if they abandon all forms of current enforcement. While I’m not advocating roaming the streets or even the library itself to patrol for infractions, the simple act of not intervening when infringement is found surrenders our moral high ground as custodians of other people’s work. How are we going to maintain their trust if we as information professionals make it clear that we intend to look the other way? It does not bode well for a future in which intellectual property rights are becoming increasingly important to individuals as well as businesses.

There is another end to my dissatisfaction with copyright; I can’t claim that I’m still perfect in this matter. I will look for legitimate ways to get digital media, but sometimes those outlets don’t exist. Some of the music tracks I find on YouTube don’t have a means to buy them on iTunes, Amazon, or the artist’s website. I have used one of the many Youtube to MP3 conversion sites out there to obtain a music track that I could not otherwise obtain. Perhaps some might find this to be hypocrisy on my part and I’m willing to concede that. I would say that while this is an action of last resort as a mitigating factor doesn’t make it completely right, but the lack of any legitimate sources left me with either using a convertor or not listening to the music at all. It’s not an ideal tiebreaker, but I rationalize that the artist would rather that I enjoy their music than let it go unnoticed or unappreciated.

With these things in mind, I await the next round of copyright and intellectual property reform. While I look forward to it, I also fear it. History has shown how the business interests have driven the protections beyond the original intent of the Constitution as well as years beyond the lives of content creators. The balance has tipped to the point of outright interference with creativity and innovation. I hope that it can swing back towards the interests of the people while giving ample provision for creators. Copyright is heading towards that moment, but I dare not guess when that moment will happen. I can only hope that it is soon.

Library Internet Filtering and the Courts

In the news this past week, there was a short report about a library that had settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the use of internet filters to block “occult” materials. The short version (from both the news story and the court’s consent order) is that an adult had asked the library to unblock websites that related to searches regarding Native American spiritual practices and traditions. At the time, the library had opted to filter out websites that fell into the category of “occult” and “criminal skills” (whatever that means) as well as the usual suspects of “adult image”, “pornography”, “proxy anonymizer”, and “viruses”. (Not sure who gets to decide what fits into those categories, but I digress.)

After the time she was brushed off by library management and before she filed the lawsuit, the filtering software provider contacted the library and informed them that some of the blocking was overly broad (shocking, I know) and that other organizations had raised concerns about their inclusion.  At this time, the library was offered a chance to revise the categories they wanted blocked; they choose to drop “occult” and “criminal skills” from their filtering software. The purpose of the lawsuit was to seek a permanent injunction against filtering those categories as well as damages and fees. In arriving at a consent order (a voluntary agreement between both parties), the library is prohibited by a federal court to expand filtering beyond the categories it currently blocks unless required by state or federal law. The suit is over and the file is closed.

This should all seem straightforward, right? A library made a mistake in the way they filtered their internet, they were taken to court, and now things are as they should be (or as best as they can be, considering they are under the thumb of mandated filtering policies), and this person now has access to Constitutionally protected speech. But for me, the story doesn’t quite end there.

A couple thousand miles away in the state of Washington, Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District had wound its way to a federal court last year. Some might remember this case from its Washington Supreme Court ruling which held that its library internet content filtering (includes refusing to unblock Constitutionally protected speech for adults) policies do not violate the free speech protections contained within the Washington state constitution. In shifting to the federal level, the ACLU plaintiffs were pressing the case as a violation of their First Amendment rights. Last April, a federal court granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the library on the grounds that the content filtering policy and the refusal to unfilter computers for adults was not a violation of the First Amendment. The ACLU declined to appeal the judgment and so the ruling stands.

So, as I see it, what we have here is one federal court that has ruled that an expansive filtering policy is not an undue burden while another federal court has expressly prohibited the expansion of filtering policies beyond those required by the law. My question (or more wonder, I should say) is why the Missouri library didn’t use the Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District ruling as a cornerstone for a defense against the case. In terms of timelines, Bradburn’s state ruling was on May 2010 and their federal ruling was on April 2012; the lawsuit was filed in January 2012 and the settlement was March 2013. In looking at the timeline, this means that there was a ruling in place that the library attorneys could have used as part of their case.

Now, I will freely admit that I’m not a lawyer; I did attend law school for a year but that hardly qualifies me for in-depth legal analysis. But from what I did learn is that in arguing a case you look for other identical or similar cases to bolster your side by showing legal precedent. Here, Bradburn would have been an excellent similar case where a District Court (the same venue as the Missouri case) made a decision in favor of library filtering policies. Coupled with the majority opinion from the Washington Supreme Court, to me it would seem like it would provide a lot of ammunition in favor of library filtering policies. But, instead, the library opted to settle and consented to a court order against discretionary expansion of filtering. But why?

Perhaps the time and cost of a lawsuit was enough to induce a settlement. Maybe the removal of the filters in question made a trial moot. While I’ve been able to track down the original complaint and some of the other documents, I’m probably missing some other information (as well as legal training) that would make this picture make sense. But, right now, I’m left wondering how future courts will riddle out library filtering practices when two similar federal courts have differing outcomes.

Mawwiage

The word “wedding” is a magical word.

When uttered, it immediately brings forth to mind a special day where a happy couple are surrounded by their family and friends. The beauty of the ceremony, the joy of the union, and the potential awesomeness and/or awkwardness that is the reception are all invoked by those who have ever accepted an invitation. Popular culture has given us stories and images of lavish affairs, loving exchanges, and the happy couple riding off into the sunset.

It is also a magical word as it acts as an event cost multiplier. Three tier cakes magically change from $150 to $500, banquet hall rentals magically shift from $900 to $1400, and simple entrees magically double in price. It’s small wonder that the average wedding cost in the United State is just north of $25,000. To put this in perspective for myself, this is about three times what I paid for my car back in 2007. (Sadly, I wouldn’t get three cars because New Jersey auto insurance rates are adjusted to stay slight below “blackmail” levels at amount that is commonly known as “completely screwed”.) As soon as the word “wedding” comes out while making appointments to visit potential venues, you can hear the faint chorus of cash registers go off in the distance.

On top of that, my fiancé and I seem to trying to do this on Hard Mode. We’d like a small wedding with roughly thirty people. That doesn’t seem too tough, right? The venues we’ve looked at so far either have a fifty person minimum or a Byzantine catering price menu that has so many options I feel like I need a guide. This seemingly innocuous dilemma is really just a frustrating “pick your poison” decision point.

As anyone who has been married before can tell you (and this is not my first rodeo, as they say), increasing the guest list can be a social tightrope act through mine laden family and friend territory. With the current list, we have the “absolutely essential people” plus an iron clad “sorry we do love/like you but we didn’t invite you” explanation. In moving beyond that list, the debate for those seats begins to loom larger as the potential for hurt feelings increases. Your wedding then becomes a focus point of short and long term grudges and (as the horror stories I have heard go) you spend more time on soothing people who weren’t invited than on decisions that will affect the people who are attending. It’s a social quagmire that we are trying to avoid.

The average banquet menu doesn’t offer much solace either. You start out with a simple price per person, but then there are the options. These multitude of a la carte items are really a nickel and diming guilt trip trap set by the caterer. Sure, you love your family and friends, but don’t you love them enough to add a champagne toast? Tiny mac ‘n cheese appetizers? Veal might be cruel, but would be crueler not to offer it? All of these tiny monetary mousetraps have costs like “$4 a person” which doesn’t seem so bad until you start doing the math. Suddenly turns your $45-a-person meals into a budgetary death spiral. And that’s before gratuity and sales tax. 

All this roams the background as the anxiety of finding a place that has dates available pushes forward. We’d like to get hitched in October of this year which apparently is going to be an issue in itself. Not because it is only seven months away, but according to one wedding vendor we’ve talked to October is “the new June”. I guess we have arrived in time to experience some sort of wedding date rebellion where one time of year has become so cliché so that people must take the opposite season. Since we are late getting into the game here (we were engaged on Valentine’s day), the choice of dates has dwindled considerably.

I do have faith that we will be able to find a place and make it work. Though the preparation and planning can be a drag at times (like right now), these are still all fun decisions to make. When the day comes, the days of stress and running around will slip away in the magic of the moment. I’m looking forward to that day, whenever and wherever it may be.

But I can’t help but think of the wedding planning advice I’ve offered couples over the years, both solicited and not. Like all advice, it seems to be something I will give to others but not practice myself. It’s a one word piece of advice and perhaps the best and least stressful thing a couple can do for their wedding:

Elope.

State of the Blog: Year Four

This month will mean that four years have slipped by since I put fingers to the keyboard to start a blog. I am hitting this anniversary at an odd point in my writing life since, well, the blog is not exactly a priority at the moment. While I’ve had cycles of writing and not writing before over the course of the last four years, this one has pushed the blog to near back burner status.

Over the years, I’ve had a couple different approaches to writing here. I’ve had frequent updates, longer essay posts, open threads, and probably some posts that don’t fit any of those categories. Overall, I’ve mainly kept it focused on library issues with the occasional personal post. That’s probably why I haven’t written much in the last month since the kinds of things that hold my interest for writing these days are far, far away from libraryland. I’m engaged to get married in the fall, my interests in country and ballroom dancing have grown as I’ve gotten better at them, and video games feel more rewarding (whether it is achievements in World of Warcraft or the thrill of battle in Team Fortress 2) as a leisure activity. When presented as a choice, spending time blogging tended to lose out in the recent past.

In trying to root out my writing ennui, I feel a distinct lack of inspiration that I used to get from the libraryland blogosphere. If I was to guess at a point of origin, it’s about when Will Manley disappeared off the scene. His daily posts and lively discussions were a good pulse on current topics and I miss them to pieces. Moving forward in time from that point, I still have people on my ‘must read’ list but they seem to be writing less these days as well. Even then, there are still excellent bloggers out there (some of whom I’ve grown to adore), but nothing they are saying wants me to set aside time and type up my thoughts on their post. I just nod, maybe share somewhere in my social media web, and then move on. There are times when Google Reader just becomes an exercise where I choose between skimming and clicking on Mark All Read. 

As I write this, I am realizing that this is perhaps the first time in a long time that I haven’t been in the midst of a bunch of projects, presentations, conference, and whatnot that had kept me tethered closely to the library world. I look at the notecards on my project board (divided into two sections, “NOW” and “FUTURE”) and it hasn’t changed in the last couple of months. I have a talk for a library science class in May and a note to remind me to check in with John about EveryLibrary… and that’s it. In the last three years, I would have had three or four ideas or projects in the each section. Perhaps I pushed myself too much in the past (I can remember some of the looks I got when I told people how much I was doing at any given time) and this is the inevitable burnout that was destined to happen. It’s something I’ll need to figure out over time.

(Funny enough, after writing the above paragraph, I actually wrote down a few I had forgotten and added them to the board. The big moment will be trying to figure out what to do with them. Since I’ve put up the board, I’ve kept every notecard I’ve posted on it, whether it panned out or not. I’m toying with the idea of making all of those notecards available to anyone who would want to pick through it and use one of them. If I’m not going to use them, they might as well go to a good home. -A)

I can’t say that I’m done blogging forever (so some people reading this can put their party hats down now), but I feel that this blog will be entering another era of change in terms of tone and content. I hope you’re willing to come along for the ride, no matter where it takes us.

Happy 4th of the Blog.