What I would envision is something occupying a space in between a
traditional print journal and the diffuse collection of blog entries and
IRC chats etc. that makes up our communities current communications.
It should be much easier, take much less time, to write an article for
"Code4Lib Journal" than for a print 'scholarly' journal. Part of the
goal here would be to get practitioners contributing to communication
and shared knowledge building---many who don't now publish in
traditional journals, partly because it's seen as too time consuming.
There would be a very quick turnaround from submission to approval to
publishing on the web open access. Failed projects and projects in
progress would definitely be welcome topics. Algorithms and pseudo-code
and other technical information would be highly encouraged, so people
don't have to be re-inventing from scratch what others are willing to share
---> And so people can find out about what's going on that others
are willing to share. Because:
Unlike the diffuse cloud of blog posts etc. now, these will be somewhat
polished products and collected in a centralized place that's easy to
find. While those of us who are _in_ it (which is me only recently) may
not realize it, it can be very difficult for newcomers to gain access to
the collective knowledge of our community. You have to know where to
look, you have to know who to talk to, you have to be socially connected
to our network. And if you haven't been following along since the
beginning, you have to spend a whole bunch of time finding and reading
old blog entires and talking to people on IRC to even figure out what
people are talking about. Eg., until the OCLC award, it was a
investigative project of it's own to even figure out what Umlaut was,
and info in the world (instead of in our heads) is still somewhat
sparse. It doesn't need to be an investigative project to figure out
what interseting things people are up to and what one can learn from
them. (I can talk about how our community can be seen as a 'young boys
club' too, but that's going to be a controversial statement, so maybe
let's not talk about that).
So anyway, I see a "Code4Lib journal" improving some of these things,
that's why I see it as useful. Occupying a space in between printed
scholarly journal and http://planet.code4lib.org. I definitely see it
being electronic-only, open access, non-profit and non-budgetted, much
less formal than a typical scholarly journal, quite a bit more formal
than a blog entry. Maybe even less formal than First Monday, but that's
a good comparison. If it helps people get tenure or whatever, that's
fine, but that's not the goal.
As far as technological infrastructure: I think a WordPress blog has
the minimum that would be needed. It's got persistent URLs and an RSS
feed. So, sure, there are other things that could work even better,
perhaps experimental things intended for e-journals. But I don't want to
let technological ambition end up being a barrier. Most of us are
capable of setting up a WordPress installation, and we know it would
work, without too much attention. I don't know about those other things.
They'd be fine with me if they worked and there was someone who wanted
to volunteer to install/manage them too. But seems to me there isn't
that 'if' with something simple like WordPress. Keep it simple, and
it'll happen. Make it complicated, and we'll get bogged down in details
and run out of volunteer labor to do it. :) [Tech infrastructure can
always be upgraded if we create a successful project].
Jonathan
Ryan Eby wrote:
> Well I don't think there was any real interest in having a journal on
> the level of an actual publisher. It seemed more on the alignment of
> something like First Monday but with even less structure/schedule.
>> From what I remember, which may be wrong, it was more of a collection
> of community output and not a competitor to any existing items. It
> would be more informal like the anthology project, though I could see
> some people then taking their work and republishing it elsewhere more
> formally.
>
> Again maybe I'm mistaken but I don't think anyone was planning on
> actually starting a full-fledged journal on Elsevier or the like. Just
> expanding already great blog posts or internal papers into something
> that could benefit the community. I think it was discussed on this
> list so the archives should probably share more.
>
> I thought there was a page on the wiki but can't find it now.
>
> Eby
>
> On 4/11/07, Paul Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Rather than create something new, is it worth looking at ways to
>> align this
>> need with existing infrastructure at Ariadne, D-Lib, etc?
>>
>> Maybe even get some of those evil vendors to underwrite some of the
>> costs,
>> in the name of nurturing market innovation, etc?
>>
>> Or is the need actually already filled/fillable by sites like
>> code4lib.org,
>> tdn.talis.com, etc, and all of our individual blogs?
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
