lunch-with-dimitra

My Favourite Picture Books

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:37:06 +0100

Early this month, I learned that November is Picture Book Month and Picture Book Idea Month. This made me think about my favourite picture books, and two or three titles in particular. I decided to tweet one. And then I thought, Why not tweet a favourite picture book each day of the month? So that's what I've been doing (follow @dimitra_c or see the list, to date, below).

I love picture books. I don't read as many as I used to, particularly a few years ago when I had to review a lot of picture books as part of my job. I still read them to the children in my life on a regular basis, and the children's section of any bookstore is almost always the first place I visit.

I think it's ironic (oh gosh, am I using that word correctly?) that I love picture books so much even though I have a tendency to overlook the pictures and focus on the text. I often have to slow myself down and look—really look—at the pictures.

Two books written by authors who are also illustrators helped me to appreciate what pictures can bring to a story, and the different ways they can convey information, emotion, the passage of time, and more:

Picture This: How pictures work by Molly Bang
Writing With Pictures: How to write and illustrate children's books by Uri Shulevitz

But it's reading to and with my goddaughter and her brother—and other children—that really taught me to pay attention to the pictures. They point out things I don't notice, make connections, find inconsistencies, and ask questions (oh the questions…). I have sometimes glanced at their faces while I'm reading, or just before we turn a page, and I see their eyes flickering all over the page.

The books on my list all made an impression when I first encountered them and have stayed with me ever since. They moved me somehow, or made me laugh. And they stand up to repeated readings (though I must admit there are a couple here I haven't read in a while...).

I'm not sure I'll be able to come up with enough titles that meet these criteria to continue tweeting until the end of the month. The first eight or so came easily, off the top of my head, but I've had to do some thinking since. There are dozens and dozens of wonderful picture books that I like very much, but only the ones I love should be on this list.

My Favourite Picture Books

I Have an Olive Tree by Eve Bunting, Karen Barbour (my all-time favourite)
Come On Rain! by Karen Hesse, Jon J. Muth
Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor, Peter Parnall
Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss (my favourite book to read aloud)
I Love My Bear by Jules Feiffer
The Perfume of Memory by Michelle Nikly, Jean Claverie
Who Built the Pyramid? by Meredith Hooper, Robin Heighway-Bury (from Candlewick Press, one of my favourite publishers of kids' books)
Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg
Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathman
Sheila Rae the Brave by Kevin Henkes
Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco
Click Clack Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, Betsy Lewin
The Boy, A Kitchen, and His Cave by Catherine K. Contopoulos
Poems for the Very Young selected by Michael Rosen, art Bob Graham
If the World Were a Village by David J. Smith
Red is Best by Kathy Stinson, Rob Baird Lewis
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, John Shoenherr
Weslandia by Paul Fleischman, Kevin Hawkes

PS Most if what I know about editing children's books I learned in May 2004 at a two-day seminar sponsored by the EAC and taught by Debbie Rogosin, then an editor with Kids Can Press. Thank you Debbie!

Links

Picture Book Month
http://picturebookmonth.com/
Picture Book Idea Month
http://taralazar.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/piboidmo-official-sign-up-starts-today-right-here-right-now/
Picture This
http://www.mollybang.com/Pages/picture.html
Writing With Pictures
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Writing-Pictures-How-Write-Illustrate-Uri-Shulevitz/9780823059355-item.html

Plain language + POD + Baroque opera = professional development

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:16:10 +0100

As a freelancer, anything that helps me develop skills, meet new people, and learn new things counts as professional development. And I've enjoyed lots of professional development over the last two weeks. Here are the highlights:

Plain Language: Building Results
http://www.editors.ca/branches/toronto/seminars/plain_language%3A_building_results.html
This full-day EAC seminar was as good as I expected it to be. I'm not often asked to write or edit anything specifically in plain language, but I wanted to know more about it. I always thought that because of my experience writing and editing for children and teachers, I already knew a lot about creating text that is clear and accessible to all. It turns out that I do—and I don't. The bottom line in plain language is the same as the bottom line in anything I work on: remember your audience and your purpose. Everything stems from knowing who and what these are.

Other lessons

Plain language is about more than just the words; it's about structure, organization, and design. All of these together contribute to a document's clarity, accuracy, and accessibility.
Plain language is going to take practice. I understand the principles, I recognize a lot of the techniques, but I'm not going to become good at it until I do it—a lot.
If you are ever at a seminar or workshop and, while talking to other students during the break, you think "oh, I should get his/her email address later to ask xxxx," act on that thought RIGHT AWAY! Put down your drink, get a pen, either wait for a break in the conversation or interrupt politely, and get that address then and there. Otherwise, the person might leave before you get a chance to ask again...

Print-On-Demand for Beginners
http://www.editors.ca/content/print-demand-pod-beginners
This half-day EAC seminar was a little more elementary than I had hoped—or maybe I just know more than I realized! Like all seminars and workshops, it was a great opportunity to meet people, hear different points of view and experiences, and collect resources and references. As one editor said to me afterwards: It's all so stimulating! It certainly is.

Other lessons

Now that I've learned a bit about computer languages and computer programming, I find that I WANT to know what goes on "under the hood" in a software application, if only a little bit.
Here's a program idea for EAC Toronto: everyone brings their e-readers so we can talk about, touch, try, and compare them. We're all starting to work on material that will be read on a screen, but how many of us have actually done so? Forget the specs—let's play! And let's share what we've each learned about, and with, the devices we are familiar with.

Treehouse Talks: Because Great Minds Don't Think Alike
http://treehousetalks.com
What a fantastic event for a McMaster Arts & Science grad like me, or anyone with varied interests and a love of knowledge and learning! A Treehouse Talk (named after the organization that sponsors them) features 3 speakers on subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I heard a physicist speak about the nature of time, a business coach speak about personal branding, and a musician speak about Baroque opera.

The third talk, by soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin (of Baroque ensemble I Furiosi), was my favourite. After introducing the Baroque period and the basic elements of Baroque opera (e.g., voice types), Gabrielle guided the audience to create the outline for an opera about… Buddy and Pedro, the bonded male penguins at the Toronto zoo! It was fun and funny… and I FINALLY "get" the Magic Flute! (It mystified me when I saw it several years ago. The music was beautiful, but I just couldn't follow the story—and now I know why!) Watch as Gabrielle guides us down the Boulevard of Baroquen Dreams (don't you love the title?) here: http://vimeo.com/32145231.

Appel Salon: Wade Davis
Anthropologist Wade Davis has just published Into the Silence, a book about the first British expeditions to reach the top of Mount Everest. It was surely no accident that the library scheduled his presentation just a few days before Remembrance Day; the second World War had a tremendous impact on most of the men who went on these expeditions. Wade's talk also illustrates the extensive research and scholarship that goes into writing a non-fiction book, the role of serendipity in life, and the value of politeness and patience. Watch Wade Davis at the Appel Salon:
part 1—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKOggeLUAuU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
part 2—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqosjIP1znE&feature=related
part 2—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzirJBbhTgc&feature=related

Here's where I'll be next week. Maybe I'll see you there?

Wednesday, November 23 Code Meets Print TO: Reading is Social

http://www.meetup.com/CMP-TO/events/39478252

Saturday, November 26 Wordpress for Beginners

http://ladieslearningcode.com/events/

Note: My apologies for the lack of hyperlinks above. The software and template I'm using for my site refuse to display the links today. I am REALLY looking forward to that Wordpress seminar... : )

Don't Want To Finish That Book? Go Ahead, Put It Down

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:45:26 +0100

Last week, I returned a non-fiction book to the library that I hadn't finished reading. Earlier this year, I started a novel but put it down, for good, after a couple of chapters. I used to feel bad about doing that. I used to feel as though I had to read a book all the way through to the end, no matter what. Two people convinced me otherwise (though it took a while for their advice to sink in).

The first was my grade 10 geography teacher, Mr. Atkinson (I honestly don't remember his first name, if I ever knew it). He stood at the front of the classroom one day and assured us, vehemently, that it was okay if we didn't read every book from cover to cover. We could read one chapter, or two; we could read the parts we were interested in and leave the rest. I don't remember what prompted his speech, nor do I remember his exact words, but I do remember the passion and certainty with which he spoke. I also remember feeling both relieved and liberated. Not feeling like I had to read everything I picked up from cover to cover made me more likely to pick up and sample different things.

The second was physicist, writer, and educator Ursula Franklin. I once read an interview with Franklin in which she shared her advice on how to "get through" all the reading there was to do in university, and I think she was speaking particularly about the reading required at the graduate level. Her advice, roughly, was this: read some of each book—the back cover, the introduction, the author's biography, the foreword or preface—then read everything that's been written about the book and the author.

I remember being shocked by Franklin's advice. It seemed like cheating somehow. Can you really understand and talk about a book without having read it all yourself? What if everyone who writes about the book misses the point in the original, or misquotes it? What if there is a less popular idea somewhere in the book that no one writes about or comments on, and that you would never know about if you didn't read the book yourself? Of course, in the case of classics, both of the latter are unlikely, and the option of reading the original is always available.

Over time, I've come to appreciate the value of Franklin's advice. Sometimes you really don't need to read the whole book to understand and apply the main ideas. Sometimes what has been said about or done with the ideas introduced in a book is more important than the book itself.

Back to the book I returned to the library. The topic was interesting, but I didn't really want or need to read a whole book about it. And the writing was a little… well, I'm not sure how to describe it. I want to say dull, but that seems unfair and perhaps inaccurate. My enthusiasm for the book just waned. I kept choosing to read other things instead, and after two renewals, my time with the book was up. I certainly learned something from the chapters I did read, and I can always pick the book up again in future if I want to learn more or have more time.

Upcoming books sales
I spent an hour or so browsing the tables and boxes at the University College book sale this past weekend (it's on until Tuesday). This is one of four book sales that take place at the University of Toronto each fall. There are two still to come:
Trinity College book sale October 20–24, 2011
St. Michael's College book sale October 25–29, 2011

Never been to a University of Toronto book sale? Go! It's worth it. There are books on every subject at great prices.

Here are three of the titles I bought:
The Days of Christ's Coming, a beautiful advent calendar, ©1953, with paintings by Fritz Wegner and story told by Dorothy L. Sayers (!!)
Inside Language: A Canadian Language Reader, for all the samples of good writing in different genres (Prentice-Hall Canada, 2000)
Let's Eat!/Allons Manger!, a simple two-colour bilingual picture book for a friend's son (Kids Can Press, 1982)

On Moderating a Panel for the First Time

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:12:05 +0100

Last month, I moderated a panel discussion for the first time. The topic was queries, the panellists were fellow editors, and the audience were members and friends of the Editors' Association of Canada. The whole process was more fun, more work, and stressful than I had expected it to be.

Here are 4 things I learned about organizing and moderating a panel discussion:

Be prepared
A panel discussion is a conversation—you can't "prepare" it beforehand the way you can a presentation, lecture, or speech. But you can, and must, define the topic and identify the themes and questions you want panellists to address.

I started by thinking a lot about the topic myself, talking briefly to some fellow editors, and searching for articles about queries online. I spent over an hour composing the initial email message I sent to potential panellists, where I described the topic and some of the specific questions and issues I thought the audience would want to hear them talk about. I had a half-hour phone conversation with two of the panellists individually, to get to know them better and to see what they had to say about the topic in general.

I used what I learned from all of these activities to compose and organize a dozen open-ended questions and prompts to be used the night of the panel, as well as some "if-time-permits" questions. I circulated the list to the panellists a few days before the event, so that they would have a chance to think about their answers and comments. If a particular question was directed at one or more specific panellists, or if there was a particular story or idea I wanted a panellist to bring up in response to a question, I said so. And while we weren't tied to the sequence—the conversation might lead us through the questions in a different order—I grouped the questions by theme so that we could keep the conversation going around one before moving on to another.

Was all of the above really necessary? I don't know, but it was certainly helpful, both for me and for the panellists. I didn't have to think about what I was going to say or worry about whether we would have enough to talk about; I could focus on listening carefully and reacting appropriately. And the panellists weren't surprised by any of the questions and had specific, detailed answers to share.

Encourage storytelling
I once attended a workshop on negativity in the workplace. Thirteen years later, I can still remember two of the stories the presenter used to illustrate specific points. I wanted to encourage and make room for the panellists to tell stories and share anecdotes. I listened for stories in my conversations with them beforehand. I included prompts for relevant stories or anecdotes in my questions. I shared my own stories.

Stories stick.

Wait
After the panel, someone in the audience came up to me and commented on how well and how smoothly the conversation had flowed. I was pleased, but also relieved. From my vantage point on stage, there had been a couple of awkward and seemingly endless silences. My thoughts at the time were far from silent:

Is Laura getting ready to say something? Should I follow up on the comment made by Alan 5 minutes ago, before Jennifer and Elizabeth jumped in? Or should we move to the next question? Oh god, they're all looking at me… it must be time to move on… quick, someone say something! Agh!

Each time, I managed to just wait until the way forward became obvious. At least once, when I thought it might be time to move on, a panellist jumped in with a new thought. He or she just needed a moment to formulate that thought. What had seemed like too-long pauses to me were ordinary and necessary pauses for both the speakers and the audience.

Just ask
Over the summer, I attended a great panel at the Design Exchange in Toronto. Afterwards, I asked the moderator what advice he could give me, since I was about to start planning presentations and panels myself. His response: Just ask—think about people you want to hear from and just ask them if they're willing to come and speak.

Asking questions throughout the process was invaluable. Is this a good idea for a panel? Would so-and-so want to be a panelist? Should we talk about xxxx?

You don't know until you ask. So ask!

Resources

- Read a report about the panel discussion here: http://www.editors.ca/content/program-report-monday-september-26-2011. EAC members can download a podcast of the panel here: http://www.editors.ca/members/podcasts/index.html.

- This is a guide for moderators of conference panels that I found very useful (though I was a little overwhelmed by the time I got through Preparation—ack, do I have time to do all of this?—and didn't read the rest): http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/01/30/how-to-successfully-moderate-a-conference-panel-a-comprehensive-guide/

- Stories are one of six principles that help ideas stick, according to the authors of Made to Stick. You can read the first chapter here: http://www.heathbrothers.com/madetostick/chapterone.php.

I Love Type!

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:39:25 +0100

I recently watched the feature-length documentary Helvetica, about what is likely the most ubiquitous typeface in our environment (on signs, packaging, products, and so on). In a little booklet tucked into the DVD case, the filmmaker writes about how he got the idea for the film, how he travelled around the world to interview type designers and film examples of Helvetica in different cities, and how he was surprised at all the attention his film garnered when it came out. Who knew a film about typography would be so popular?

I'm reading a beautiful new book called Above the Fold: Understanding the principles of successful web site design by Brian Miller (© 2011).

I recently came across a short PBS video about type. I recognized one of the designers interviewed from Helvetica. And I was most interested in the way another one of the designers interviewed creates texture with type. This was new to me.

Finally, I just learned that one of my favourite typefaces, Optima, was used in the National September 11 Memorial. This excerpt from an article in Before & After magazine illustrates some of the features of Optima letterforms and the different effects produced by using caps, caps and lowercase, or caps and small caps.

What I Bought at Word on the Street Toronto 2011

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:12:27 +0100

Local News by Glen Downie (Wolsak and Wynn), because I really enjoyed his first collection of poems

Compositions: Notes on the written word by Naomi Beth Wakan (Wolsak and Wynn), because I like reading about writing more than actually writing (and because I got a free pick when I purchased the above!)

The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer (Spiegel & Grau), an author I've never heard of and a genre I don't read very often, because I heard the salesperson describing it to someone else. Handselling in action...

Celebrating Christmas: Christmas Decorations (Creative Teaching Press) and Dr. Seuss's ABC because it's good to have extra kids' books lying around to give away, especially at Christmas

Here's a Little Poem: A very first book of poetry collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Candlewick Press), because I LOVE collections of children's poetry and Candlewick Press

DK Children's Illustrated Bible stories retold by Selina Hastings, illustrated by Eric Thomas and Amy Burch, because the price was fantastic and we can always use extra books for Sunday school

5 back issues of different magazines: Spacing, Education Today, Ryerson Review of Journalism (one of my favourites), Alternatives, Muse

two fridge magnets (one to keep, one to give away)

freebies:
Canadian Children's Booknews, the magazine of the Canadian Children's Book Centre
Great Reads: Kids (Birth–5 and 6–11), lists of books recommended by Toronto Public Library staff

Computers, Non-Fiction, and Events at the Library

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:24:39 +0100

I've been learning how computers work, thinking about who writes non-fiction, preparing for a panel discussion on September 26, and discovering editing-related events at the library.

How Do Computers Work?
HTML, CSS, XML, ePUB, Java, PHP, CMS. The list of programming languages and software for an editor to be aware of is daunting. As a freelance editor, I haven't yet been asked or required to use any of the above, and I can't decide what, if anything, to start learning in earnest.

What I really want to know is how computers work in general. What happens in my computer and how do computers communicate with each other? Exactly what does the driver I have to install for my new printer do? How do the extensions I see at the end of URLs (e.g., php, jsp) relate to and affect what I see and can do on the screen? The more I understand how computers work, the better I'll be able to see the whole picture. I don't need to write Javascript, for example, and I probably never will, but I need and want to understand what it does and how in order to communicate with the people who do write it.

An anecdote: I was talking to a digital publisher this week, and I asked, So what happens—how does your vendor turn the files you send into an ebook? And she said, Magic.

I want the long answer.

Where to begin? I'm not a fan of self-study; I prefer to learn from people and with people. So I spent two hours this week with my friend Peter Boutakis, inventor, entrepreneur, and web developer. He explained the basics—in terms I could understand—and gave me enough background to investigate further on my own.

One thing I learned from Peter is that programming languages are like any other kind of language—if you don’t use it, you lose it. Peter doesn’t do a lot or programming himself these days. He struggled a bit to write some very simple programs to illustrate the difference between a static language like HTML and dynamic languages like PHP and ASP; he had to look up some of the commands. This reinforced my belief that there’s no point in learning a specific language or program until I really need to. If I’m not going to use it right away, I’ll probably forget a lot of what I learned by the time I do use it. (Another anecdote: I took a very basic introductory course in Illustrator and Photoshop when I first started in Publishing, but have never used them since and remember nothing about doing so.)

I also read an article that I first came across earlier this year. It's called "What Should an Educated Person Know about Computers?" and it was written by computer scientist and university professor Brian W. Kernighan. Brian spent 30 years working at Bell Labs and the last 10 years or so teaching undergraduates in non-technical fields (e.g., history, literature) how computers and communications work. In other words, he teaches exactly the kind of class I wish I could take right now!

I don't understand anything well enough to explain it to anybody else, at least not yet. But I'm fascinated.

It’s not magic, but it is magical.

Resources
What Should an Educated Person Know about Computers? (pdf)
Nora Young interviewed Brian W. Kernighan on Spark earlier this year.
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg—One of my favourite non-fiction books of all-time.

Non-Fiction Writers: Male or Female (And Does It Matter)
Several weeks ago I noted that every non-fiction book I seemed to be reading was written by a man. Was it my imagination? Was there a larger trend here? I decided to check.

I've kept a reading journal for the last five years, roughly, so I went through it, found all the non-fiction books (for adults), identified the authors as male or female (where possible), and tallied the results. Here's what I found:

Female (1 or more) 27    38%
Male (1 or more) 33    46%
Male and Female (2 or more)       8    11%
Unknown   3 4%

Most of the books I've read lately have been written by men, but not all, so my impression wasn't entirely accurate. And the data show that overall, the numbers of male and female authors are about the same.

There is, however, a very clear difference and pattern in what men and women choose to write about. I've read a lot of books about writing and design over the past five years, and almost every single one of those has been written by females. The books about technology, science, business, and math? Most were written by men.

No conclusions can be drawn from such a small sample, naturally, and I'm not sure it's worth the time and effort to investigate this further. No doubt, someone else has.

But what about the editors of these books? I always read the acknowledgements, and I'm sure most of the editors thanked are women. I belong to an organization, the Editors' Association of Canada, whose membership is predominantly female. When I look around the room at any EAC meeting, seminar, or conference, I can sometimes count the number of men on one hand. At a dinner with fellow editors recently, only 1 of the 15 people at the table was male.

My first thought: it doesn't matter. Or does it? Do men and women edit differently?? And what about gender equity. We care about gender equity in education, law, medicine, and engineering. Why not editing?

A Panel Discussion about Queries
I’ve got my first program for an EAC monthly meeting! On Monday, September 26, editors with experience in different fields will discuss queries to authors. Details will be posted here next week.

Coming Up at the Toronto Public Library

Peter Pan, Pirates, Mermaids and Fairies An exhibit of children's books and art to celebrate the 100th anniversary of J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy.
September 10 to December 3, Lillian H. Smith branch

A bookbinding bee A live demonstration of bookbinding, artist talks, and a hands-on session.
October 1, Dufferin/St. Clair branch

Award-winning author Arthur Slade talks about becoming his own publisher through e-books.
October 20, Lillian H. Smith branch

Creative Reactions to the End of the World
On October 6, at the Mississauga Central Library, astrophysicist William E. Harris will talk about the ways artists and writers have responded to what we've learned about the universe over the years. This is the first in a series of lectures—some in Mississauga, some at the University of Toronto—sponsored by the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science (RCI).

Curation as a Public Service

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:13:05 +0100

In my ongoing exploration of curation, I recently read the perspective of a digital marketer and interviewed a museum curator. Here's what I learned:

In "Become a Content Curation King," Sean Canton (chief creative officer at an advertising, web development, digital media, and brand consulting firm) describes what a successful content curator should think about and do. But the more interesting part of the article, from my perspective, is the discussion that precedes the list of tips. According to Canton, curation as sorting and organizing information on the web is not new; bloggers have been doing it for years. The difference now, he says, is the mass adoption of social media. According to NYU Professor Clay Shirky, curation on the web is "also about synchronizing a community." According to Canton,

"It's the "community" part that's at the heart of the whole curation movement and the most powerful element when it comes to curating content as a way of drawing traffic and attention in your marketing efforts. Just as a carefully-curated museum exhibit is sure to draw like-minded people together, carefully-curated content on the web has the potential to attract (and/or build) an online community of people who are into the same stuff."

I shared this idea with the museum curator I spoke with last week. While she agreed that museum exhibits seek to build a sense of community, the people they bring together are not necessarily "like-minded." She used the Bata Show Museum as an example. The museum is devoted to a specific and mundane object, the shoe. But there are many different narratives around the shoe, and many different ways to look at it: as fashion, as history, as textile, as production. The people who visit the museum see shoes in different ways and are almost certainly not like-minded.

Museums do not seek to appeal to like-minded people—they try to appeal to all people, or at least a broad range. The curator I spoke with said that, when planning exhibits, one of the questions she and her fellow curators and programmers ask themselves is, What value does this bring to the public? The curator seeking to build a brand online and the curator seeking to share and describe a collection, or create an exhibit, on behalf of an institution are doing some of the same things, but certainly not for the same reasons.

However, not all online curators are building a brand. Indeed, in "Accessibility vs access" writer Maria Popova (whose work I've referred to before) eloquently describes the role that online, or information, curators can play in bringing to light text, images, and video which, though they may now be accessible, are never accessed because so few people know about them.

"Information curators are that necessary cross-pollinator between accessibility and access, between availability and actionability, guiding people to smart, interesting, culturally relevant content that “rots away” in some digital archive, just like its analog versions used to in basement of some library or museum or university."

I wonder...
- Who do/can information curators work for, or are they all running their own sites?
- Is there such a thing as a virtual museum? (not an extension of an existing museum, but a museum that exists only online)

Curation Nation in a nutshell
If you don't have time to read Curation Nation, the book I mentioned in an earlier post, the 9-minute presentation by author Steve Rosenbaum at the 2010 Pivot Conference gives a great overview of the book's thesis. A video of presentations from the conference will begin to play when you click here—scroll down to find the video screen and jump to 15:15 for the beginning of Steve's presentation.

Thinking About Web Browsers

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:12:56 +0100

originally published August 31, 2011

I've used Safari as my web browser ever since I bought my computer five years ago, but it's time for a change.

Over the years, I've amassed a lot of bookmarks. I'm pretty diligent about organizing my bookmarks (e.g., starting new folders for new projects, archiving folders when projects are completed) and I occasionally go through folders to delete links that I haven't visited in a long time or that are broken.

Using folders has worked quite well for me because I think in a very linear and hierarchical way. My biggest problem to date has been the inability to sort folders alphabetically (a minor annoyance for which there is a workaround). Now, however, I'm beginning to find folders cumbersome. In the course of my online reading and research, I'm finding sites or articles that I want to use for multiple purposes. For example, I want to include a link to an article in a future e-newsletter, keep it as a reference, and e-mail it to a specific person I spoke to last week. Where do I put the bookmark so that I can find it again each time I need it?

The latest version of Safari has something called a Reading List, where you can park web pages to read later. Great, I thought, maybe this will help—maybe I can put things in the Reading List until I've used them in the short term, and then move them to a folder. Well, I can... but it's not all that helpful. Even if you're diligent about moving things out of the Reading List as their purpose changes (or deleting them if you don't want to keep them), you can still end up with a long list arranged chronologically. Sometimes I can remember when I looked something up, roughly. More often, I remember something about the title or the topic, or even how the page looked. (Come to think of it, Safari lets me "flip" through the web pages in my search history. Perhaps I should remember to use that feature more often.) The Reading List may be handy for personal use—as a repository for pages you want to revisit for fun and leisure, whenever you have time—but it's not the solution to my problem.

No, to solve my problem, I need to be able to tag bookmarks with keywords: e-newsletter, curation, reading comprehension, web search strategies, and so on. There are many social bookmarking sites that will let me do just that, but I don't want to put my bookmarks online (do I?). Ideally, I want a web browser that supports tagging or an application that will work with my browser to let me add tags.

I found and installed the trial version of an application called Webnote, which seemed oh so promising. But my ability to access Webnote from my browser seems to disappear each time I exit Safari or shut down my computer, I'm not sure which. In either case, the application doesn't "work." (To the technical editors and writers reading this, maybe the next time I see you we can go through the installation process on my laptop. With your experience, I bet you'll spot right away what I'm doing wrong or what the instructions haven't made clear.)

Next week, I'm talking to information consultant and web search expert Gwen Harris. Maybe she'll have some advice for me about web browsers and tagging. Do you?

Great books about how browsers work
Google has produced two fantastic "books" about web browsers, with illustrations from two high-profile illustrators.

The Chrome Comic Book is illustrated by comic book guru Scott McCloud and focuses on how Google Chrome was developed and how it is better than other browsers. Yes, the book is essentially an ad for Chrome, but it's incredibly informative and easy to read. I learned a lot about how browsers work in general. And Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is one of my favourite non-fiction books of all time.

20 Things I Learned About Browsers & the Web is illustrated by Christoph Niemann. Twenty short chapters, one for each "thing."

I call these "books" (in quotation marks) because they're not printed books, and they're not digital books—they're books laid out as for print, but posted online. It seems odd. Why create and post pages and spreads? Why not design these as items to be read online—or does Google expect more people to print them?

Up Next in Dimitra's Interview Queue

the curator of Out of Sorts: An Exhibit on Print Culture & Book Design (Design Exchange)
an information consultant and web search expert

an editor with social media savvy

The Back-to-School Issue

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:12:49 +0100

originally published August 23, 2001

As students prepare to go back to school, many of us are also starting something new professionally. And what's the first day of school without at least a mention of "what I did on my summer vacation"? Below, some poets tell us.

An Editor by Any Other Name
I've begun perusing job ads regularly for the first time in many months. I am finding few jobs for editors per se, but many jobs that involve editing to different degrees. I am also finding ads for "new" jobs, such as content strategist, content manager, or information architect, which require many of the same skills and attributes used by editors. A content strategist, for example, could well be described as a developmental editor for websites.
I don't know which one of these jobs I might want in the future. Instead, I'm thinking about the types of materials I want to work on and the audiences and organizations I want to work for. I'm also going to keep looking for editors who aren't called editors and learning more about what they do. And I'm still interested in talking to editors in different media, e.g., video, sound, film. If you know anyone, please forward their contact information!

For fun: visit the wikipedia entry for editors (disambiguation). What would you add to the list? What would you change?

Editors in Transition
Many of us are mid-career editors in transition. We are looking for work after a contract has ended, moving to freelance work after many years in-house or vice versa, embarking on a degree or certificate program, editing in a different industry, or going into a new career. (One such editor wrote about her experience in the most recent issue of the newsletter of the EAC Toronto branch. In her article, she summarized the new technologies and programming languages she has had to learn about, at least a little bit, after being laid off. The newsletter is only available to members, so I can't post a link.)
I'll be asking you how things are going over the next few weeks and months. Maybe you can share your journey with others at a future EAC meeting?

Poets via Post
A charming collection of postcards sent by poets this summer. Includes a postcard from my favourite poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, and a postcard from Srikanth Reddy that you will probably appreciate more if you know anything about Jacques Derrida (which I don't).

A Proposal for Changing the Bestseller List
In Publishing's Wrong Numbers, Washington Post columnist Michael Dirda explains what's wrong with the bestseller list and suggests one simple change to make things right: allow writers to appear on the best-seller list only once. His arguments make a lot of sense, and though I can see why some publishers might balk, I don't share his pessimism ("None of this is going to happen, of course.") Do you?

Next Up in Dimitra's Interview Queue

Lunch with an online editor

Coffee with a longtime copy editor for newspapers (now retired and coaching writers, I think)