Responding to Mark Jordan:

> but I don't think that audience should be the people you
> describe above (who a colleague of mine calls "analogue
> librarians"). If there are any accidental techs (or potential
> accidental techs) who aren't already hanging out on venues
> like what code4lib already is (i.e., oss4lib, /usr/lib/info,
> and a host of email lists, IRC channels, and tech blogs,
> inside and outside of library land) then they'll probably
> remain happy with thumbing through the existing diluted
> journals that librarianship is plagued with, and also remain
> happy with the delusion (pardon me for saying so) that they
> are keeping up on what's happening out in the world by reading them.

There are (a whole lotta?) folks out here who don't peruse *anything* we pay
attention to, but who still produce code in libraries.  There are various
reasons why they don't watch: no time, stuff of interest is too scattered,
1.0-level coder, etc.  When I commented that those of us lurking here funnel
stuff back into our (and maybe other) institutions, I was thinking
specifically of funneling to those who do not watch.

(Not watching is not new.  Decades ago, I mentioned an article on
experimental "bubble" memory to a senior and respected programmer; the
response was basically "Huh?".  For those of you born after bubble memory
peaked: http://www.xs4all.nl/~fjkraan/comp/pc5000/bubble.html )

This might be the value of the formal aspect of a code4lib magazine or
journal.  Those who do not watch blogs, websites, etc. might spend more time
on something more formal when a citation is plunked under their noses.  And,
they may find a peer group.

Din.

Donna Dinberg
Systems Librarian/Analyst
Reference and Genealogy Division
Library and Archives Canada
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** My own thoughts, of course, not those of my employer. **