Against the Grain
Volume 19 | Issue 2 Article 37
April 2007 Library Marketplace -- Booksellers Who Blog John D. Riley Eastern Book Company, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Riley, John D. (2007) "Library Marketplace -- Booksellers Who Blog," Against the Grain: Vol. 19: Iss. 2, Article 37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.5077
This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. “content is king;” whoever controls the con- has married its books and journals with As I See It! tent controls the way it is used and paid for. the underlying economic data on which from page 79 I am not sure that this is true any more. And they are based and tools that enable the it certainly is a cultural attitude that inhibits user to find, download and model data in collaboration permits multiple overlap- publishers from taking a fundamental look at a way that would simply be impossible ping descriptions. The example always their business models. in print; used is that of a photograph of a puppy, It seems to me that the key to the future of Knovel is an aggregator of engineering which could be described as “puppy” and • the scholarly journal is to build functionality reference material published by a wide “cute,” and could be found along either around the basic content. Readers are faced range of publishers. The whole database axis. with more content, and less time to use it. That is deeply indexed both by keywords and What Has This to Do With content may be freely available from reposi- by data values and properties. Data, Scholarship and Research? tories. So readers want tools that analyze and physical and chemical properties, tables structure content in ways that make it useful and graphs are held in such a way that the I am profoundly skeptical of the idea that to them. Publishers should add value to what user can undertake complex engineering users will create a better index of scholarly they publish by adding workflow tools. CSA calculations in a matter of minutes — cal- information on the fly than a publishing system Illustrata enables searching for charts, graphs culations that might take the best part of a that works to a taxonomy honed over many and illustrations in articles. The Royal Society day using paper-based information. It is years by scholars. However, the formal index of Chemistry has started to index images, table widely used in corporate markets, where is slow to change, and does not react to changes and compounds in its publications for search its value lies in enhancing productivity. in disciplines very quickly, or to new areas of and download. Publishers have to adopt and knowledge. Tagging is immediate. If tagging • Alexander Street Press publishes da- adapt these technologies to their publishing, tabases in the humanities — especially becomes second nature to researchers, the while maintaining the effectiveness and author- index can evolve in real time. Can publishers music, women’s’ studies and history. It ity of the peer review process that underpins sees folksonomies as a resource to update use folksonomies to complement conventional scholarly publishing. indexes? Yes, but only if tagging is widespread and improve its indexing on a continuous and intensive, so that new index terms become My personal view is that publishers have basis, and its use of Web 2.0 techniques widely used and gather authority through use. much to do to understand and use these new to build communities of interest, illus- Folksonomies comprise a resource for publish- technologies. The content itself is still impor- trate that this technology applies as much ers. Provided that they are subject to a proper tant, but will almost certainly be less valuable in the humanities and social sciences as review process, they can be of considerable in the longer run than the functionality they in science, technology and medicine. value as navigational aids to the literature. add to that basic peer-reviewed content: sup- Readers are looking for ease of use and User input makes better products! porting datasets, taxonomies, deep indexing effectiveness: not just convenience, but ef- and linking to other relevant resources, search- ficiency, interactivity and applicability. They There are some features of Web 2.0 that are ability, tools for downloading, analyzing and already being used by scholarly publishers: want to be able to apply the tools that come manipulating data, facilities to build commu- with the product to their own work. This • RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in- nities within the discipline that extend beyond is not just about saving time, but also about cludes blogs, news feeds, and podcasts the journal article, etc. There are already good enhancing productivity. It is the creation of – a collection of Web-based services used examples of what can be done: convenience, and the productive use of time, to provide frequently updated informa- • the Organization for Economic Co- that will differentiate publishers from reposi- tion. Readers register for a feed. The operation and Development (OECD) tories. service presents the reader with content that is new since the previous time they checked. • One type of RSS is the blog. Blogs are already commonplace. Many companies — not just publishers — are using them Library Marketplace — to find out what their customers really think, and to feed this information back Booksellers Who Blog into product development. In the journal sphere, they can point readers to content Column Editor: John D. Riley (National Sales Director, Eastern Book Company) and invite discussion about it.
he number of passwords that the average what. The only personal codes I don’t have the best passwords are the hardest to remember librarian must have at his or her finger- to write down to remember are: My social or figure out — it’s rather thatDr. Cazier has Ttips has grown by leaps and bounds in security number, my home and work telephone actually demonstrated this in an empirical way recent years and there is no end in sight. This numbers, and my ATM PIN. I also can usually that can’t be ignored. is a fact of life and we must find a way to recall my main email user name and password In one study, Joseph Cazier and Dawn manage them better. I suspect there are many and my library ILS username and password but Medlin used a real data set of customer pass- people in other professions facing a similar I use these everyday and I have these written words from an e-commerce system to analyze challenge. IT system administrators and bank down in the same place I have all the other the strength of the passwords. They were able managers and well, just about anyone who codes I’ll never remember, because I believe to crack a majority of the passwords in a rela- shops or pays bills online with any regularity it is my responsibility to make sure that if tively short period of time.2 In another study will find themselves collecting a hodgepodge something bad happens to me, that someone by the same authors, password choices were of passwords to recall. can get in there if necessary. analyzed by gender and trends for password The experts often say that you should never As a librarian and faculty member at a development were discussed.3 write down passwords. Excuse me? As of this university, I am not held to the same strict If you think you are alone in using your writing, I have 97 unique (almost) passwords security standards as people who work in the children, grandchildren or pet names as — 34 of them are for travel and shopping private sector. I have heard some interesting passwords, think again. Apparently the most sites, 23 of them are for credit cards and other stories about how strictly passwords are man- popular constructs for password creation personal finance and ID purposes, and 40 of aged out there in the include these categories: family names; fan them are specifically library work-related. “real” world and while names, such as sports teams or entertainment To this latter category I add regularly as it makes me shudder characters; fantasy aspects, including sexual we increase the number of databases and (and wonder); allusions (remember the commercial with the e-journal platforms. Therefore, that advice I can respect guy on the train trying to quietly tell the per- is completely unhelpful to me, as there is their need for son on the other end that his password is “big no way on this earth I could possibly keep more security boy”?) and then finally, cryptic combinations, up with this many secret codes, no matter in some cases. which is what is considered the best practice But so often, for development of passwords. In addition, the companies are categories of “Faith,” “Place,” and “Numbers” moving the li- figure prominently in the way people develop ability back onto the individual, so not to have passwords.4 Library Marketplace to take the heat. Why is it a problem to use these kinds of from page 81 With identity theft such a serious problem, passwords? They are easy to guess and the what are we to do? In order to explore this topic people trying to guess them are using many column on “sleepers” in used bookstores. You with more rigor, I decided to do a little research. clever ways to get at your passwords. Besides will be surprised at how much some seemingly I found a number of articles in the popular lit- running software programs looking for com- common books are selling for. erature about the way passwords are developed mon passwords (which is one method) another and what the best practices are, but this did not Bibliophile Bullpen they recently listed all disturbing but growing method is referred to satisfy me completely because some of the as “social engineering.” Social engineering is of those “unlisted” 800#’s for customer service advice was the same old thing — don’t write at places like Amazon. the term used when sensitive information is them down, and make them unique and hard to obtained simply by asking for it — sometimes Bookstore Tourism (http://bookstoretour- crack.1 Ok, I sort of know this intuitively, but directly but other times under the guise of some ism.blogspot.com/) What a great site! Larry it is too difficult to do this, right? We are all other inquiry for which the victim doesn’t Portzline’s passion for books shows through lazy about the way we develop our passwords, understand the real purpose. in every post. Recent article included one on but does it really matter? 5 the founding of some new “Book Towns” and a In an article soon to be published, Cazier But then, I met someone who changed and Botelho report on a study they conducted discussion of the merits and demerits of writing my thinking entirely. A colleague of mine in the margins of one’s own books. recently in a metropolitan area. They set up at Appalachian State University has done a table in front of a large financial institution And last, but not least, Publishing Insider, some really interesting research that captures in a downtown area. Presumably, individuals the blog of Carl Lennertz at Harper Collins. the essence of the problems we face with the working at such a company would have re- His site is notable for its “insider” approach world of passwords. Dr. Joseph Cazier has ceived a modicum of security training concern- and also for its great set of links to even more several scholarly articles already published ing passwords and the like. The researchers blogs. The universe of book and literary blogs concerning password security issues and in his did not hide where they were from or what is an important way to stay in touch with the most recent study he has demonstrated some they were doing — they identified themselves real thing, books. disturbing trends in the behavior of every-day as university researchers and said that they And just for fun, check out these book citizens that points to the real need we all have were conducting a study about passwords. related film clips on YouTube: “Introducing for being more careful about how we construct They asked people if they wished to fill out Le Book,” “Signed 1st Edition,” “March of the passwords that serve as barriers to our most a survey and offered them candy, and also a the Librarians.” sensitive personal information — our bank chance to win a free dinner at a local restaurant Special thanks to Kevin Hanover at Da records, our email accounts, our financial and for completing the survey. They then repeated Capo, Christine McCarthy at Merriam- health records, and so on. the study in front of a major hospital (another Webster, Stephen Bozich at H.W. Wilson, Dr. Cazier is certainly not the first person institution where employees are assumed to Bill Kane at Alibris, Rolf Janke at Sage, Jon to explain this to me, least my systems col- have a higher than average understanding of Clayborne at Elsevier and Adam Chesler at leagues at the Library feel slighted for essen- security issues). They also repeated the study the American Chemical Society for their help tially telling my coworkers and me the same with a population of students. and suggestions. thing. It’s not that I didn’t already know that continued on page 83 82 Against the Grain / April 2007