tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63541415687786035882011-08-31T19:46:39.851-04:00Polymath Paradise is devoted to the exploration of publishing in the broadest sense possible. This site looks at things I find of interest: the preservation, organization, and dissemination of information; literary criticism; publishing as a practice and art; marketing as a sociological phenomenon; and whatever else catches my eye.Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-31487934040516244002010-05-12T14:25:00.001-04:002010-05-12T14:25:28.321-04:00

  "Art" by Yasmina Reza first appeared in Paris in 1995.  Shortly afterwards it was translated into English for the British stage and turned up at the Royale Theatre (now the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre) on Broadway on March 1, 1998.  The cast was stellar for this three-person play, performed without intermission.  The six-month Broadway run included Alan Alda, Victor Garber, and Alfred Molina, all

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-78871784276386563502009-10-13T10:39:00.002-04:002009-10-13T10:49:10.249-04:00

I attended the conference described in this article at Inside Higher Ed. It is absolutely worth reading the comments for those interested in the hard choices confronting academic libraries in today's Google era. I couldn't help but offer some thoughts in a lengthy comment that I reproduce here for those who care about the future of libraries to consider.I attended the Ithaka conference and

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-51306821287147434262009-07-01T15:29:00.002-04:002009-07-01T15:33:00.939-04:00

This is cross-posted at New Haven Review here.When I was a child, I was absolutely stupefied by my father’s ability to complete the New York Times Sunday crossword. Mind you, he was not a competitive puzzler, one of those types today who now bundle themselves off every end of February to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which, after 30 years at the Marriott Stamford in Connecticut, was

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-44931144471204381662009-07-01T15:22:00.002-04:002009-07-01T15:29:23.821-04:00

Donald Brown, writing at New Haven Review, asked the following at the end of his post here:So, a question to any long-standing or native New Haveners reading this: what doyou consider to be definitive aspects of New Haven … the kinds of things oneshouldn’t miss while living here? Or: what’s a change you’ve seen in your timehere that had some effect on you?How could I not answer about the

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-367625692101868502009-06-07T12:32:00.004-04:002009-06-07T13:09:31.712-04:00

One of my co-group bloggers, poet and teacher, Alison Moncrief has offered a very thoughtful response to Louis Menand's New Yorker review of Mark McGurl's The Program Era, in which Menand offers, among other things, his understanding--apparently limited--of what students who enter writing MFA programs are expected to have accomplished.I won't rehash Alison's response, except to note that she

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-26435269824969116152009-06-03T16:03:00.005-04:002009-06-04T11:14:21.910-04:00

Readers here will find a very nice summary of an April 4, 2009, "Library 2.0" conference at Yale University. There my New Haven Review colleague and Yale instructor, Donald Brown nicely summarizes points made by the conference attendees. However, it is not surprising to see some of the issues glossed over by those who spoke (or perhaps simply not recorded by Don). Don also offers his own points

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-18183978931694443802009-06-03T15:43:00.005-04:002009-06-03T15:59:45.163-04:00

For years I’ve known of the achievements of Octavia Butler who carries the distinction of being one of the few, if not only, African-American, female writers in the otherwise all-too-white and once upon a time all-too-male genre of science fiction. Butler’s reputation, moreover, is stellar. She cleaned up in science fiction awards for her novella BloodChild landed a Nebula for Parable of the

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-6081774042033252972009-01-20T18:03:00.005-05:002009-02-10T09:53:02.781-05:00

A ReviewMonster Blood Tattoo, Volume 1: Foundling (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006)Monster Blood Tatto, Volume 2: Lamplighter (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008)Oh, the damage Harry Potter has done! The tale of how J.K. Rowling, struggling single mother, produced in 1997 the first in a series of seven young adult fantasy novels that shattered nearly every publishing record is a story so well

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-20568352516931551882008-05-21T13:26:00.006-04:002008-10-30T16:13:17.173-04:00

About a week ago, I joined friends in New Haven for a Friday night meal. Their daughter was in town, back from college, and over the course of dinner conversation, I asked if she had any professors who were distinctive, who stood out from the others. She immediately described two faculty who were notable for the passion of their presentations and the degree to which they immersed themselves in

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-13094479676575657962008-05-02T15:40:00.005-04:002008-05-04T12:06:13.889-04:00

Earlier, I had written about the fruitlessness of teaching students how to write literary criticism. And in the two weeks since writing that post, I haven't changed my mind. But not teaching students how to write literary criticism is not the same as refusing to teach them how to do literary criticism.In fact, when it comes to the art of unraveling a literary work--of dissecting it, if you will--

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-5674214996007647532008-04-23T11:58:00.006-04:002008-10-30T16:39:04.591-04:00

When I started my doctoral studies in literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center, the English department nestled in the top floors of the gently sloping and thus aptly named Grace Building, which looked benignly down upon Bradley Park behind the New York Public Library. In my first years as a graduate student, I received free tuition and had a stipend that paid some living

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-55734476392045419132008-04-22T13:49:00.005-04:002008-05-02T15:40:15.563-04:00

At the home of Mark Oppenheimer, one of the editors of New Haven Review, for which I serve as publisher, we had a conversation about writing literary criticism. Context for the conversation was the course in journalism that he will teach next semester at Yale, which makes sense given his credentials as a journalist. He noted that he much preferred teaching nonfiction writing courses of this

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-40518974026826129272008-03-04T14:21:00.002-05:002008-03-04T14:29:44.547-05:00

During my tenure as a director business development for a digital conversion vendor specializing in libraries, I was surprised to learn how great the need and interest was among academic institutions to convert selected parts of their school archives. Of particular interest were yearbooks and student newspapers. There was a strong interest as well in school publications, commencement and sports

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-69376582333903883232008-02-11T10:27:00.000-05:002008-02-11T12:59:00.920-05:00

I've also begun to take on some public relations work, assisting another professional in the writing of press releases and, I hope sometime in the future, engaging in "story pitching," which is simply the process of getting journalists to take a closer look at a story for eventual publication. In the course of doing this work, I've been learning quite a bit.One interesting point that came up

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-50122332713372005392008-01-29T09:57:00.000-05:002008-02-11T10:27:26.720-05:00

I'm in the middle of dealing with a project to develop a brochure on behalf of a summer camp. In preparation for this task, I decided to do a little research. After, all, why reinvent this wheel? I decided to comb the Internet to see samples, using the terms "summer," "camp," and "brochure" on Google and restricting my search to PDF files only.Oy vey! What a disaster. The majority were

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-67101197380822110092007-12-25T22:44:00.000-05:002008-01-01T13:19:25.583-05:00

So last night I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance. He had a small problem. To wit, he used images from another published work for a book that he had just published. The images in this case were all famous works of art, all public domain. His question was how much ought he worry about using the images from this previously published work, which was still in print and therefore in

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-79180256826896268732007-11-15T11:42:00.000-05:002007-11-15T11:47:49.558-05:00

About two months ago, a friend with whom I play tennis mentioned an article that had appeared in the local business paper. It recorded the advent of a new literary journal in my hometown of New Haven. It was tentatively named the New Haven Review of Books, and she thought it appropriate to share because two years earlier I had tried the idea of just such a publication out on her. My reasoning

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-23317476770790210392007-11-14T11:53:00.001-05:002007-11-14T11:58:45.028-05:00

As I’ve described elsewhere, commercial microfilm products largely comprise content from libraries or print publishers (such as newspapers or periodicals). Just a day ago, I had a phone call with an institutional contact about a proposed microfilm venture. In the course of our conversation, I reviewed several key issues affecting products of this nature. A summary of some of these should

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-23449106711313915642007-10-12T10:52:00.000-04:002007-10-12T12:00:39.760-04:00

Previous Post: Microfilm Publishing Primer: Rumors of Its DeathPrevious Post: Microfilm Primer: Why Microfilm Publishing Still Pays…in More Ways Than OneIn the course of sniffing out new collections for publication at Primary Source Microfilm, I stumbled across a record in Columbia University’s online public access catalog describing its Federated Press collection. I had no idea what this

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-24510937400999928402007-10-12T10:43:00.000-04:002007-10-12T12:02:16.774-04:00

Previous Post: Microfilm Publishing Primer: Rumors of Its DeathThe purchase of any good or service requires an agreement on the need for it between the seller and the buyer. Microfilm publishers and customers are no different in that regard. The substance of that agreement rests on the following reasons. Microfilm is a preservation medium, capable of lasting hundreds of years with proper care;It

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-89486976973529956932007-07-02T10:34:00.000-04:002007-07-02T10:58:15.781-04:00

University Presses are remarkable, in some way, for how utterly behind the times they are. This little item was brought to my attention regarding Ohio State University Press. The item concerns the decision to take selected backlist titles, digitize these, and put them on the Web for free. This seeming innovation, however, is hardly new at all and pales in comparison to the plunge National

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-45484975141506325132007-03-20T15:32:00.000-04:002007-10-12T12:01:34.982-04:00

I’ve worked in commercial microfilm publishing for nearly a decade, developing products in that medium for consumption by researchers. In 1998, I joined Primary Source Media, which had been founded in th 1960s as Research Publications. The change from Research Publications to Primary Source Media presumably foretold the rapid decline in commercial micropublishing among libraries as they switched

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-30083093079030188262007-01-09T17:08:00.000-05:002007-01-23T11:33:01.254-05:00

Several publishers already recognize that the most promising buyers of electronic versions of their back issues are institutional in nature, and those institutions will most likely be libraries. Driven by the needs of their patrons, public, academic, corporate, and even secondary school libraries "channel" research by raising the visibility of sources that the World Wide Web and search engines

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-80623346172754156672007-01-08T13:35:00.000-05:002007-01-23T11:41:54.898-05:00

As I've described in a previous post on business models for back issue digitization projects (BIDPs), serial publishers have begun to explore a variety of ways to monetize their backfiles. One such way is to sell their content "by the pound," if you will. There are several by-the-pound scenarios. While institutional subscriptions to the New York Times are available to public, academic, and public

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-60379108103762401752007-01-08T12:47:00.001-05:002009-12-22T11:57:32.812-05:00

Untily recently, publishers who haven't digitized back issues of their publications, back issue digitization projects (BIDPs) have seemed more than little more than a royal headache with an uncertain return on the investment. More often than not, too many publishers operate in relative ignorance of their digital options and even their monetization opportunities. There are a number of options

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-56999570201778677132006-12-28T15:28:00.000-05:002007-01-12T15:28:46.298-05:00

No matter where I turn on the Internet, I can't seem to get away from ads offering to help me find high school chums and college buddies. But this is just someone monetizing the ways we already use the Internet to locate folks who, while they may not have interests in common with us, at least shared a common experience. These reunion services, in fact, differ little from MySpace and other social

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6354141568778603588.post-92015919543233773622006-12-06T11:38:00.000-05:002006-12-06T13:40:34.022-05:00

Bitonal images force computer scanners to treat that dot or point per inch, as set by the resolution, as either a black or white dot. Bitonal images are ideal for text for several reasons.1. "Blackened" text, particularly at a high resolution, is easier for an OCR engine to recognize. Text in a grayscale format (see next entry) has a "blur" effect around the edges of the text, making it more

Polymath Paradisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04204603726915138659noreply@blogger.com0