Britain's Reading Habits 1946

The following is an excerpt from an article called "Britain Off Duty" by Mark Abrams which appeared in World Off Duty: The Contact Holiday Book, published by Contact Publications Limited in August 1947. It analyses the recreational habits of the British public as revealed in the findings of the White Paper on the National Income (1947), along with a survey of 6,000 Girls' Club members by The National Association of Girls' Clubs.

According to the White Paper on the National Income we spent in 1946 £51 millions on newspapers and £26 millions on magazines. Most of this reading matter is consumed on a family basis, and if we relate the expenditure to the 13,500,000 families in the United Kingdom it works out at 1s 6d per family per week for newspapers and 9d per family per week for magazines. The former sum is sufficient to provide the average family with two papers on Sunday and two papers on all other days.    The magazine figure of 9d per family per week provides, in fact, something more than general family reading. The six popular family weeklies, Radio Times, Picture Post, John Bull, Illustrated, Everybody’s and Leader, have a combined weekly circulation of just over 10,000,000 and between them account for 2d out of the 9d. The other 7d goes largely on the popular women’s weeklies, such as Woman, Woman’s Own, Woman’s Weekly, Miracle, Home Chat, and on the magazines of the middle class—Listener, New Statesman, Punch, Economist, etc. If we translate the weekly 9d into typical figures, it comes out at one family periodical at 3d available usually for either another general magazine or another woman’s magazine.    During 1946 we spent, according to the White Paper, £27 millions on the purchase of books. Not all these books were for leisure reading; the figure includes school texts, technical books, reference books and similar utilitarian publications. If we take £25 millions as the total expenditure on recreational books, we are probably taking an outside figure. On this basis, for leisure purposes the average adult spends 14s per annum on the purchase of books. Buying books, however, is not a working class habit; most books are bought by the middle class and the average adult in this group probably spends as much as 30s per annum on books.    According to the big booksellers, most book buying is done by middle class women; it is heavily concentrated on fiction and its critical mentors tend to be the Sunday Times and the BBC. Their impact is shown in the following list of 1946’s best-sellers—Bright Day (Priestley), Cass Timberlaine (Sinclair Lewis), Private Angelo (Eric Linklater), Lord Hornblower (C. S. Forester), Then and Now (Somerset Maugham), That Lady (Kate O’Brien), A Woman of the Pharisees (Mauriac), The Cruise of the ‘Breadwinner’ (H. E. Bates). In short, most of this middle class bought reading is about or a little above the level of the serialised fiction in such American magazines as Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post.    But not all reading is done by buying books. The middle class woman reader heavily supplements her buying with books borrowed from the subscription libraries. What she borrows follows closely the best seller list with a little time lag and with some excursions into the ‘book of the film’.    Working class reading is based mainly on the public libraries and on the 2d a book libraries. Again the patrons are mainly women and their reading is concentrated on fiction. Their favourite authors (or rather authoresses) are the writers whose work is and was serialised in the popular British women’s magazines—Ruby M. Ayres, Ethel M. Dell, E. W. Savi, Leonora Starr, Berta Ruck, Barbara Cartland, Netta Muskett, Denise Robins. The working class girls covered by the Girls’ Clubs survey already referred to were asked what sort of books they liked reading. According to the report, in every age group, love and adventure take first or second place. In every age group from fourteen to eighteen . . . love stories claim the first place. Crime usually takes third place.    The content and quality of popular British fiction at all income levels is determined primarily by the fact that it is directed at women readers, and, in the words of one successful woman novelist, women, by and large, want reading to leave them ‘pleased, rested, interested, amused, inspired to a more living faith in the beauty of human affection’.

Britain's Book Reading Habits 1945

Here's a 1945 article from FUTURE BOOKS (Industry - Government - Science - Arts) Volume I : Overture, reprinted verbatim:

BRITAIN'S BOOK READING HABITS

“FUTURE” asked : B.I.P.O. answered : Who reads books ? More than half the public—53%.  Young people more than old.  Women more than men.  Middle class more than upper or lower. What are they reading ? Two-thirds of all readers say “FICTION.” Politics are four times more popular than poetry or religion. What will they read next ? Two-thirds don't know.  Most of them who do will go for the same type of book again. War books are declining, politics and social science are gaining in interest. How do people get their books ? Three-quarters are borrowed. Only one reader in five buys his book. “FUTURE” commissioned the British Institute of Public Opinion to survey the country's reading habits.  Two thousand people, selected in correct proportion as to location within the British Isles, income group, age, sex, occupation, so as to be representative of the public at large, were asked : “ What book are you reading at the moment ? ” “ How did you come across it ? ” “ What are you going to read next ? ” Their answers are tabulated in the next column.  The survey did not cover members of the Forces, in whose ranks is an important section of the reading public. Over half the people were able to name the book they were reading !  We cannot be sure about the other half.  They may in fact not be reading books at all—or only just not at the moment—or again they may have resented the whole business of being “surveyed.” Fifty-three per cent provided clear answers to all our questions, and from them it appeared that 35% of all readers preferred fiction.  This proportion is maintained among those who told us what they wished to read next.  Interest in subjects other than fiction covers a wide range : biography, war books, travel, technical books, politics and social science, religion, poetry, etc.  We were interested to find four times as many people voting for politics as for either religion or poetry. (B.I.P.O. classified the answers from the titles which people wrote down on the questionnaire.  There were no leading questions, but they draw attention to one unknown factor concerning the most prominent category “ Fiction ” : it was not possible to break down fiction, as would be desirable, into full-length novels as distinct from threepenny novelettes.) Most people who were reading a book at the moment knew what they wanted to read next.  The overwhelming majority committed themselves to a book of the same type.  The “ fictioners ” were most loyal. Interest in politics and social science seems to be on the increase, while war books appear to be losing favour.  (Presumably they will have a boom again in ten years' time, as happened after the last war.) Oh yes !  Three-quarters of all readers had borrowed their book—half of them from a library ; only one in five had bought his copy.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING AT THE MOMENT ?

AGE INCOME TOTAL Men Women 21-29 30-49 50 & over Higher Middle Lower % % % % % % % % % DON'T READ DON'T KNOW NO REPLY 47     49 45 35 43 56     37 34 53 FICTION 35 32 43 49 40 32 36 46 35 BIOGRAPHY MEMOIRS 3 2 3 3 3 2 4 5 1 WAR BOOKS 3 2 1 — 2 — 2 1 1 TRAVEL 2 1 1 — 1 1 2 2 1 TECHNICAL  ENCYCLOPÆDIA 3 3 1 3 2 1 5 2 6 POLITICAL SOCIAL SCEINCE 4 8 4 8 6 5 12 8 5 RELIGION 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 — 1 POETRY 1 — — — — — — — — MISCELLANEOUS 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 2

HOW DID YOU COME ACROSS IT ?

PURCHASE 20% LIBRARY 49% LOANED 25% OTHER 6%

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO READ NEXT ?

AGE     INCOME TOTAL Men Women 21-29 30-49 50 & over Higher Middle Lower % % % % % % % % % DON'T READ DON'T KNOW NO REPLY 66 69 64 58 67 70 54 61 72 FICTION 23 18 28 31 22 21 30 28 19 BIOGRAPHY MEMOIRS 2 2 2 1 1 2 4 3 1 WAR BOOKS 1 1 1 1 1 — 1 — — TRAVEL 1 1 — — 1 1 — — 1 TECHNICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA 1 1 — 1 1 1 2 — 1 POLITICAL  SOCIAL SCEINCE 4 6 3 4 5 3 4 5 4 RELIGION 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 POETRY — — — 1 — — 1 — — MISCELLANEOUS 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1

Advertisement Feature: A Plethora of Mezzanines

A friend of mine, JC, recently started selling her fun home-made earrings online, so I ordered myself a bespoke pair bearing my Saint Evelin avatar. I shall be able to wear them at conferences so that people from this parish might recognise me at a single glance.

I'm an earring now!

Eagle-eyed visitors to JC's Bizzarrea site may notice that I also appear on one of the prêt-à-porter designs. So you too could wear me dangling from your lug-holes!

Children in Need Staff Fancy Dress 2011

Mise-en-scène.

For the last four years, the staff at the library where I work have donned fancy dress for Children in Need. Last year I went as Cheryl Cole, and it was hard to know where to go after that. It was a last-minute rediscovery of my cloche hat last weekend that gave me the inspiration for this year's outfit:

Saint Evelin in the Office with the RFID Scanner. 

Geeky fashion notes: The cloche is a Primark job I picked up in a charity shop, with a feathery fancy from New Look stuck to the side to liven it up. The dress is one of my favourite charity shop finds, a gorgeous lacy number by Berketex. Most of the accessories came from Claire's. I struggled to find some suitably '20s shoes, in the end settling for a pair from New Look which look the part from the front but have a somewhat anachronistically high heel. I took a change of footwear with me in case the tall heels became wearisome, but as it was I saw them out. I also added a cardi (H&M) and a pair of tortoiseshell cats'-eye glasses from Claire's for a dash of vintage (if slightly anachronistic) library chic.

This year we raised £192.50, which, considering it was a reading week at our place, was a pretty healthy sum. More importantly, we had a lot of fun and plenty of home-made cake! 

Taking a few moments in our wonderfully efficient Sorting Area.

CPD23:18,19: A/V+

Succentorship without Sneers is filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Thing 18 of CPD23 gets all A/V on us, and as editor of the (seldom updated) website extravaganza that is A/V Woman Productions, I really ought to be up on that sort of thing. My friends and I were sticking mp3s of our radio show on there as recently as twelve years ago, back in the days of dial-up when one had to be particularly careful about bitrates and file-sizes. I would've cobbled together some audio for you today but I've lent out my microphone. As it is, you can enjoy (above) a quick screencap film I prepared at a pretty crumby bitrate. I did the above using VLC Media Player which is a far better media player than it is a video-capture device, but which serves my needs this evening. Were I wanting to do something a little more impressive and tutorial I would have to dig out something a little more flexible, but tonight this will suffice as lipservice to what is clearly a handy piece of A/V ammunition.

And so we come to Thing 19: a moment to reflect on how my life has changed since starting CPD23...

Without a doubt, this project has helped open up some of the perceived clique-gates that I once felt separated me from my library peers: I've received so many encouraging comments that have empowered me to skip over the troll-bridge and silflay in the verdant sæter of succentorship that lies beyond. With so many excellent CPD23 bloggers out there it became necessary very early on to start making use of a dedicated reader (I went with Google Reader, which was pretty good at the time, though I am not loving that inch of wasted space that accompanies the retrogressive re-design), and as I have begun to gently feel my way within the online library community, I find myself spending more and more time on Twitter as @SaintEvelin where I occasionally even have something to say. I still have some considerable way to go, I realise, but I wouldn't've made it even this far without the gentle prodding of the (19/)23 Things. 

CPD23:17 the_lost_art_of_lecturing.ppt

Action Points for this post: • Blackbored • 2x2" Slide Show Spectacular • The Fuzzy Logic of OHP • Whitebored   • PowerPoint Purgatory   • Prezi Précis • The AJP Method

Blackbored: • Blackboards are so 1820s • My handwriting has    yet to be deciphered • Dust and squeaks • Repetition of effort for    each class

2x2" Slide Show: • Slides are so 1970s • Technically difficult to produce • Require specialist equipment • This sort of thing happens

OHP: • Transparencies are so '60s • Soft focus, low light & filth • Difficult to handle (static;    inversion; sheets falling    off projector)

Whitebored: • Whiteboards are so 1990s • Glare • Ink everywhere • My handwriting... • More expensive and less   dynamic than blackboards

The Tyranny of PowerPoint: • Is to slides what    whiteboards are to    blackboards  • Naff clip-art !!! • Bullet-pointed hell

Prezi précis: (In collaboration with CPD23) Because animated clip-art wasn't quite annoying enough... ZOOOOOM!

The AJP Method: Because if what you're saying is worth saying, it shouldn't require any flashy gimmicks...

CPD23:15,16: Above and Beyond

I have been to two conferences in my library career, and it is fair to say that I would have been aware of neither were it not for them having been brought to my attention by @rachel_s_b. Quite how she finds out about them remains something of a mystery to me. In the case of the former, the fact that she was speaking at it probably had something to do with how she got to find out about it (though raises yet further questions), while the latter was, I believe, a chance discovery on Twitter.

The grapevine has not sounded like this for over a year.

I am not well-connected. My ear is seldom grafted to the grapevine. I joined CILIP over the summer and have received two or three A4-ish magazines from them (that I cannot recall the precise number is telling). I've flicked through them, but one could not call it reading. I have spent more time (three quarters of a bus journey) with the A5-ish little annual from CILIP's Local History group, which was altogether more inviting and had a lovely piece in it about the Godfrey Edition. I'm already looking forward to next year's, and find myself wondering what other group I joined and whether they'll send me anything as appealing. But generally I am not someone who is particularly drawn to such membership publications: I might flick through the National Trust mag if I remember, but the Unison publication is lucky to get opened at all. I am not a member of these organizations for their fine journalism.

Rather, I rely on Twitter to keep me posted of all the latest happenings, though there again I have some considerable blind-spots. Conference season remains something of an enigma. Luckily, I have some good friends to help me out.

Life would be simple if it weren't for Succentorship without Sneers.

So where these conferences come from is a bit of a mystery; and it's a nice surprise when the opportunity arises to actually go along to one. Having had two positive experiences, I am keen to seek out a third. I wonder what it'll be.

It might even be nice to speak at one one day when I'm all grown up.

This brings us, if we walk a bit once we alight, to Thing 16 of CPD23: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published.

I have not had published, and do not anticipate having published, any library-related writing. But you never know. I would be more keen to have a novel or a play published (were I to ever finish one that lasts longer than a minute), though that seems increasingly unlikely in a world where something like Unbound needs to exist. Of course, this here blog has a potential online circulation in excess of most library journals, so *sticks tongue out at library journals, wrinkles nose, and makes like a Sopwith Camel with hands*. I have built it, so perhaps they will come...

And this is the written medium: the one in which I am at my most cosy. Ask me to speak (unscripted) and you are unlikely to have anything so deftly engineered: rather you will be left with a string of semantic fillers and some garbled argument or other. Perhaps it's something to do with being an only child that I'm crap at live conversation, but, by whatever means, I tend to think more at writing pace than speaking pace.

This means that, unless I'm particularly switched on, or particularly full of facts on the matter, I am probably not the ideal advocate in a spoken debate or picket-line confrontation. I'm happier shouting at the radio than talking on it.

Good v Evil.

That's not strictly true. A friend and I used to write, present and perform a part-improvised comedy radio show, and it was great fun until we were thrown off for poking fun at the station's ramshackled infrastructure, mocking an SRN DJ, ironically suggesting that an occasional sponsor were evil, and describing the station controller as ruling with "an iron fist" (something which proved demonstrably accurate). The moral here is not that this is indicative of my unsuitability as an advocate (because I am likely to describe the WI in unfavourable terms or caricature CILIP's leadership tyrannical) but rather that I work better with somebody to hold my hand: the pressure is diluted somewhat, and I don't have to keep rambling away: there is time to marshal ones thoughts as the other speaks. The trouble then is that I don't speak at all: the conversation strays from the point I have been perfecting in my head; my wingman has the base covered (to merrily mix military metaphors).

But advocacy is not limited to local radio slots and confrontations with zealous, intransigent mayors. There are, doubtless, myriad opportunities for me to promote the bibliotechnic cause in print and pixel. Or I could even simply turn up to a campaign event and make a physical show of support. I have a small pocketful of excuses for why I haven't got involved in any of the Save Libraries activities (beyond the odd tweet of support and a petition signature). Here is a (somewhat fluffy) flavour of them:

The only public library of which I am a member is Manchester City. Even there, my status is unregistered and I have yet to pick up my card. My membership is predicated solely on access to the Naxos music collection. Membership of two academic libraries means that I have never felt a need to join a public library. While I make intermittent use of Sheffield City Library as a meeting-place, I am otherwise unaffiliated to the body and would feel a fraud protesting there. That it is an hour away from where I live makes attending the likes of a momentary 'shush-in' or similar something of an inconvenience. As for my local library, no cuts have threatened it, so I have not been called to that more convenient barricade.

 Dani Behr.

Here we see a hypocritical blend of irrelevance and idleness. To reduce it to its starkest terms: they came for the libraries and I did nothing.

Why do I do nothing? Because I'm idle; because I'm not a confident, out-going, go-getting, well-organized political machine and juggler of realms. Mine is not the coffee-morning mentality. I'm an armchair protester just as I am an armchair human. In some ways I blame something in my upbringing (probably in my schooling) that fostered the notion of a meritocracy that would seek for lights under every bushel: that the cream of me would rise to the top of society and be scooped off by the discerning observers of this Brave New World; in short: that I could sit here and eventually have somebody discover my wealth of talents and give me money for sitting here. I don't know who instilled me with this deception (possibly somebody who didn't want me to make anything of my life). In the same mental box is the sentiment which finds exaggerated expression in the words of Jarvis Cocker: "We were brought up on the space race / Now they expect you to clean toilets." My generation were brought up on the abortive race to Mars and were expected to work in telesales, but the principle held, depressingly, and helped generate a good deal of inertia in the graduated me of a decade ago. At that point many of my hopes had had their brains dashed out on the grim rocks of reality (see my post for Things 10 & 11 for a somewhat opaque depiction of the period, and my opening broadside for yet more gore), and this only served to further foster my disinclination to engage with the outside world. It does not seem unreasonable that my reluctance to man the frontier and fight for the right to library is an after-effect of this period of self-imposed insularity. But just as I eventually gritted my teeth and got a job; just as I got myself into Library School; just as I have made some inlanes into the wider library community: so must I do something, no matter how small, to assist in the opposition to those despicable forces that would seek to further overthrow the hard-won advances of the last 66 years (if not the last 666, such is the creeping New Feudalism of the Big Society).

Quack.

Perhaps I need to start small (tiny acorns and all that, eh?). In lieu of any confidence in my ability to harangue with my mouth, perhaps I should begin by writing some panegyric right here on my blog. That would make some kind of sense, would it not? And yet I rather fear that in such cases I would be preaching to the converted: Ned's old echo-chamber reverberating once more. Such thoughts, if extended to paranoid limits, can get one into some trouble: where does the chamber end? The readership of The Guardian seem just as cavernous. Even Skinner's audience in The Times sound a bit resonant. In that regard one can soon argue away the use of such pamphleteering as I might hope to produce. But in the absence of an alternative one must take whatever anechoics one can get. This blog may be a rather cavernous place, but I've sellotaped a bit of egg-box to the wall (above). It will have to do for now.

Project "Knit Wit": The Knitty-Gritty

And so it came to pass that on the Friday night just passed your dear besainted Evelin did take up the needles and begin to knit. 

Casting on did not come easily. An ambiguity in the instructions I was following led to several false starts and a knot to rival the most conniving of ear-phone cables. But after about half an hour's faffing I finally got the gist of it and soon had a needle full of loops upon which to play.

Knitting, by comparison, came easily. The greatest obstacle was in overcoming my tremendous reluctance to set free those carefully crafted loops: once needled it seemed a shame to slide them off again. But slide them off we must, for now we have new loops to call our children. 

A few more lines of this and I decided the moment has come to switch to purl-stitch. After all that knitting, purling seemed intensely fiddly. I'm a left-hander, but have been learning right-handed in an effort to stop my brain exploding from all the flipping of instructions it would have to do. But with the purl I began to think that maybe this was a bad idea. However, a few dozen purls later and I found the rhythm of the thing; it started to get easier, just as the knit had done, and before I know it I was purling away like some purly queen. 

...And really enjoying myself. Because here on my needle is some knitting. Real knitting. It's quite messy knitting, but it's my knitting! Knitted by me! It's quite a magical moment, as I start to feel curiously proud of my achievements. I knit this knitting! Me! Look: isn't it wonderful!

Ok, so it's a bit mis-shapen, and full of holes, but it's my first go, and it took me a while to learn the importance of concentration! The original wool ran out, which was something of a relief as it was a bit too fluffly for a beginner, I think, but now I'm on a second ball (introduced just as I began purling (you may notice that I have knitted more than I have purled)) which seems a lot friendlier. Clearly I need to practice some more and get a grip on tension before I start attempting to knit anything wearable. But I'm really looking forward to the prospect. I rather expected knitting to turn quite quickly into something of a chore, but so far it hasn't done that. Rather it's been quite a peaceful and engaging activity, and I'm keen to get back home and do some more. I think I shall keep going at this first effort until it gradually assumes the impression of a scarf.

Project "Knit Wit": Casting On

Inspired by this blog post by Rachel Bickley, I'd been trying to come up with some sort of New (Academic) Year's Resolution, looking for an Essential Library Skill I ought to hone. At this month's Library Camp I at last identified what that skill should be: a talent that no self-respecting librarian should be without: I resolved that I should learn how to knit.

Last time I knitted.

I must declare here at the outset that I am by no means coming to this project completely untouched by the woollen arts: I have knitted before, albeit more years ago than I care to recall (or "about twenty" in your English money). There were giants in the Earth in those days, and I was reasonably well-versed in the arts of French knitting and crochet. But my attempts at conventional knitting were limited to a few lines of jumper, and, ultimately, other hobbies intervened to the inevitable detriment of the British wool industry.

Consequently, I have a ball of wool knocking around the house. I also thought there were some needles somewhere, but I couldn't find them (save the one mis-shapen creature that lives in the kitchen drawer and sees the light of day only when cake comes out of the oven). So today I popped into Coles and got myself a pair of 4mm needles (that's an 8 on the SWG of my youth) which I have been assured will stand me in reasonable stead.

Last time I bought a needle from Coles.

So now I have a pair of needles and some wool, it's time I did something with them. So it is that tonight I will attempt to embark upon a length of knitted wool of some description or other. Who knows, it might even develop into a lovely scarf (albeit quite a mis-shapen one, doubtless full of holes). We shall see. I will, of course, be keeping the house informed of my progress.

CPD23:14 Building Cites

Our essay done, it's time to add our references. I must confess that I have never found it particularly taxing or unpleasant to compile a list of references. Every time I cite a source in my text, I add the details of said source to the end of my document. My Library School were kind enough to provide a number of examples of citations in the course handbook to illustrate the house style. I never lost sleep over punctuation, and although I felt that the house style for deployment of "et al" was a little extreme and potentially unhelpful to any would-be paper-trailer, and that the styles for websites were rather haphazard and inconsistent, I observed the prescribed conventions without a shred of guilt. Occasionally a non-standard source would present itself (usually as a deliberate measure by me to throw in something a bit whacky) allowing some invention on my part (a little joy peppering an otherwise mechanical process (though by no means unpleasantly mechanical)), and it became a superstition of mine to always end the list with a Wikipedia article (if only to demonstrate to the reader that there are legitimate reasons one might cite Wikipedia in an academic essay). It never felt like a chore.

I must admit also to being perplexed by the referencing panic which seizes many of the students that approach the desk here where I work. Perhaps fingers are severed for any comma misplaced; that's the only explanation that seems to fit the fear I've observed. Mind, some of the "How to Reference" leaflets I've seen  in these parts don't particularly help matters: they rather make a mountain of what is in reality quite a simple little mole-hill. You can put too many eggs into a Yorkshire Pudding. All it needs is a few worked examples, and the assurance that not everything will fit them.

And yet this climate of fear has somehow been created. An idea has come to be propagated that structuring a citation is a difficult task. If a body really cares about how your references are laid out, they will prepare a style-guide. Converting between two styles might be a bit of a faff, but a few ^Hs liven up even the darkest evenings.

I mentioned the importance of "the assurance that not everything will fit". If a style-guide lacks guidance for a particular type of material, that seems to me to be a problem for the style-guide and not a problem that ought to keep me awake at night. The point of a citation is to provide our reader with the means of locating the document in question. If the document in question is not of a sufficiently common type as to demand its own thoroughly worked example, I am somewhat of the mind that this gives me carte-blanche to make something up that will suit. To be blunt, there are more important things in writing than worrying about whether a citation meets a certain template.

But not everyone shares my laid-back attitude to the formalities of citation, and there are some out there who get in a real tizz about where to put a comma and what to italicize. Such people should get a grip citation management application.

CPD23 offers three tools for our consideration. One of them, Zotero, requires Firefox, so that's of no use to me, but perhaps of use to you if you use Firefox and the thought of cobbling together a reference makes your arse-cheeks pucker like a cartoon cat's mouth after a dose of alum. Then there's CiteULike, which isn't so much a citation management app as a citation-sharing community: a potentially useful tool for tracking down source material at the outset, then, but of less relevance in this particular scenario. And then there's Mendeley which does a bit of both but essentially generates citations from .pdfs in the same way that a CD ripper can generate tracklistings by comparing the file with an online database.

Just as a CD ripper's tracklist generator is incredibly flash and whizzy, and potentially quite a labour-saver, so the likes of Mendeley can whip up a bibliography in a flash, and switch between referencing formats in the blink of an eye. If switching between formats is something you have to do quite regularly, then a tool such of this undoubtedly has its uses (ideal for serial serial authors). One thing strikes me, however: it's great for journal articles (in .pdf format) but journal articles are one of the more common reference forms we encounter, and also one of the easiest to translate into a citation (very often the information is all there on the first page). Troublesome dateless books, and more obscure sources (unpublished materials, etc.) remain troublesome, and the citation manager can only be of so much assistance in that regard. Spoiled by automation, we might misplace the knack of reference-writing, potentially compromising our ability to improvise on those occasions when the machine fails us.

I don't anticipate creating all that many bibliographies in my future, and when I do I dare say I won't be using any special bits and pieces to do it. But then I'm a funniosity who couldn't care less if my references are scandalously styled, so long as all the pertinent information is unambiguously presented. The more finickity among you may feel a little more inspired.

Lose 500 Words Instantly!

There are many approaches to writing and this post will make no attempt to offer a perfect compositional methodology. But let us assume that you have, through whatever means you find most suitable, cobbled together a fabulous essay, albeit, infuriatingly, an essay that is longer than the word count. In what ways can we cut this thing down to size? This blog post attempts to answer just that question. Determine Your Parameters First, it is very important to ascertain just what the word count is. If you have been allocated a percentage leeway, now is a good time to do that calculation. So if your word count is 3000±5%, your actual word limit is 3150. That's 150 words salvaged without the slightest effort. It might also be worth investigating what penalties apply for essays that exceed the stated length. Assuming that such penalties are prohibitive, there will be more words to cut. Check the small print to establish exactly what qualifies in your word count, and make sure that you're only counting what is absolutely necessary.  In the case of this blog, everything counts. Every single word. There should be 500 of them. Losing Paragraphs Having determined precisely how many words we need to lose, it is time to start going through what we have written and chopping. I prefer to start from the beginning and work my way through to the end. There are several ways in which we can bring the word count down. The easiest, most bloodthirsty way is to lay waste to whole paragraphs. This will potentially knock hundreds off your tally. But it can also be the hardest method: nobody wants to chop off a whole limb, sacrificing a belovéd chunk of text in such a way. Still, the fundamental structure of your essay can probably continue to function without that flight of fancy about cheese (one wonders why you thought it a good idea in the first place). It may be that you felt cheese to be a fundamental part of your own personal relationship with libraries. We all remember with fondness our first Camembert, and many of us will have been given our first box on the way home from a childhood trip to the shops, oversized library books under our arm. Such associations die hard. I myself recall, with great affection, discovering my first Staffordshire Blue among the stacks of Tamworth Library. But as crucial as such associations may be to our own profound love for the library, cheese is not so essential to the question of how to reduce word count. Duckworth & Lewis (1998: 223) explain this phenomenon: "It often happens that Team 1's innings is interrupted and either prematurely terminated or resumed later to complete a shorter innings. When this happens the match officials try to arrange that both sides still have the same number of overs to face."  This is surprisingly pertinent to the issue at hand (far more than any cheese). Consider the following: "If during Team 1's innings the time for a total of 20 overs play is lost, Team 1's innings will be shortened by 10 overs and Team 2 will have their innings reduced by the same amount. With all other methods no revised target would be set in this situation" (Duckworth & Lewis, 1998: 223). Cheeky Chops With the previous paragraph there are a couple of tricks we might employ: we can craftily remove the space between the date and the page number for one thing, and magically our word processor drops another word from the tally. If we are getting really desperate, we might even abuse the hungry (and rather ugly) Harvard style and slip in a cheeky "ibid." in place of the second reference. Also good fun, and terribly naughty, is the ellipsis trick. Not only can we cut great chunks out of the quote with our "…", we can also hide some more words from the computer by dropping the space character from the gap: e.g. "the time for…20 overs" rather than "the time for… 20 overs" (the word count is effectively a space count, so any space removed is a word saved). This approach benefits from being commonly observed in the wild (it may even be in your lecture notes), unlike the really desperate (and unadvisable) removal of spaces after any punctuation (e.g. "really desperate,we might"), which may also be prohibited by the examining body's style-guide (a document with which you ought to familiarize yourself). Perhaps the greatest of all cheeky chops is the Great Appendix Dump. If the option exists for an appendix outside of the word count, and there's anything in your text that is remotely suitable for being sent to that particular oubliette, then get the hacksaw out. Tables are particularly suited to this as they can be especially word-hungry (another approach for the desperate is to take a screen-grab of the table and re-insert it as an image. If you're doing this you might at least have the courtesy to make the table a stunningly beautiful example of Tuftean design splendour). Less extreme is the simple task of going through and compounding any words that can take it: "word count" can become "wordcount". Don't worry if your spell-checker doesn't like a word like "wordcount"; spell-checkers are never very thorough. A quick Google gets over a million hits, and there's a citation in the OED from 1997. But if you find "wordcount" ugly, "word-count" is just as economical. Hyphens can also be slipped into well-trod clichés ("tried-and-tested" for example) if necessary, and common contractions such as "don't" and "isn't" may be casually employed at the cost of a certain sheen of formality. A War on Adjectives and Adverbs Now we move on to the real art of things. It's time to look at every sentence you've written and to excise every word that is unnecessary. This can be as painful as laying waste to whole paragraphs, as beautiful prose has great chunks of wonder ripped from it. There are no hard rules here. Just take each sentence and ask yourself: "could this be phrased in a more succinct manner?". The chopped version of this document should offer some suggestions. All this being achieved, you may well still be hideously over-count. Time then, to start the process again, this time all the harsher. Prose will bleed, but the result will be a concentrated pill of information goodness (assuming the information you squeezed into the essay was sufficiently good). Word Count: 1,081

Having produced an over-length essay, how might it be edited? It is essential to ascertain the precise wordcount. Consider any allocated leeway: if your wordcount is 3000±5%, your actual limit is 3150 (150 words salvaged near-effortlessly). Also investigate what penalties apply when exceeding stated length (it may be worth the trade-off). Check the small-print: establish what qualifies towards your wordcount, ensuring you only count what is necessary. For this blog, every word counts towards a 500-word limit.   Having determined how many words we are over-count, we can start editing what we've written. I prefer to start from the beginning, working through. There are several ways to reduce the count, the easiest being to excise whole paragraphs, potentially knocking hundreds off your tally. Nobody wants to sacrifice chunks of text in this way, but your essay can probably function without that flight-of-fancy about cheese. "…often…Team 1's innings is interrupted and…prematurely terminated or resumed later…[as]…a shorter innings…[with] the match officials…[arranging]…that both sides still…[face]…the same number of overs… If during Team 1's innings the time for a total of 20 overs…is lost, Team 1's innings will be shortened by 10 overs and Team 2['s]…reduced by the same… With all other methods no revised target would be set…" (Duckworth & Lewis, 1998:223). There are various tricks we might employ with the above: remove space between date and page-number; abuse Harvard style with a cheeky "ibid."; make capricious use of ellipsis… Not only can we cut chunks from the quote, we can also hide words from the computer by dropping the space character from the gap (e.g. "the time for…20 overs"; an approach commonly observed in the wild, unlike the really desperate (and unadvisable) removal of spaces after any punctuation (e.g. "really desperate,we might"), which may also be prohibited by the examining-body's style-guide): the wordcount being effectively a space count, any space removed is a word saved.   Perhaps the greatest cheeky chop is the appendix dump. If permitted an appendix outside the wordcount, suitable body-text may be exiled to its oubliette. Word-hungry tables are particularly apt (another approach is to insert tables as images, though perhaps have the courtesy to render it a stunning example of Tuftean splendour).  A less extreme method is to compound words: e.g.: "word count"→"wordcount". Don't let your spell-checker concern you in such actions: Google gets over 1,000,000 hits, and OED has a citation from 1997. If "wordcount" offends, "word-count" is as economical. Hyphens can also interleave well-trod clichés ("tried-and-tested"). Common contractions (e.g.: "don't" and "isn't") may be traded against formal sheen. All other avenues pursued, one should consider each sentence in turn, excising unnecessary words. Can the sentence be phrased more succinctly? There are no hard rules, but this document should offer some suggestions. The above completed, you may well still be hideously over-count. It is time to start the process again, this time all-the-harsher. Prose will bleed, but the result will be a concentrated pill of information goodness (assuming the information you squeezed into the essay was sufficiently good). Wordcount: 500

CPD23:13 The Really Big Society pt.II

In the last (somewhat rambling and ranty) episode, we (or rather I) decided that Wikipedia was a glittering example of society in microcosm. More mechanically, it's the most famous example of a [[Wiki]]. Others exist, of course, and not all of them are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (though an astounding array use their WikiMedia software and so look as if they are). Here's one I visit a great deal. But Wikipedia is the only one to which I've really contributed in any meaningful way, having first edited there in 2002. [[Here I am ranked 3848th in a List of users by pages created]] from 2009. I'm presumably even lower now, having made no significant contribution since 2006.

I voted for this to be the Wikipedia logo in the great vote of 2003.
It came third but is now used for the MediaWiki software application.
(The original plan was to vary the image in the brackets.)

My contributions to Wikipedia dried up through a combination of lack of time (thanks to new work commitments), and some cynicism regarding the way the original anarchic organizational model was gradually being reconstituted into a vertical system of hierarchical editing privileges. But in spite of my lack of involvement, the project has done quite well for itself. This first TV appearance for the project, in August 2003, (the cause of some excitement at the time) seems a long way away now:

You can also read the accompanying article at CNN's website.

Wikis are, by their nature, databases, which is why they seem to lend themselves to encyclopædic projects. But they needn't be so disciplined, and may be as chaotic as any website. In effect, they are a blog-style proforma whose log-in details are shared with visitors. But as a collaborative tool they have one critical drawback:

Edit Conflict: Succentorship without Sneers
Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it.

Yes, while you were busy making improvements to my copy, someone else was being busy too. And now look what's happened. Now you will both rush to try to merge your two versions, and another Edit Conflict is likely to ensue. If only there were some way of collaborating "live" on a page so that you could both see what each of you were doing.

There is such a thing. [[Real-time collaborative editing]] (RTCE) exists and is with us now (indeed, with IRC and chatrooms it always sort of existed, albeit in not such a sophisticated way as with this latest generation of tools). The most famous version is Google Docs, though my first dabblings were through PiratePad: a rather nifty collaborative environment which includes a chat window alongside the main document. Google Docs, by contrast, is a somewhat more elaborate suite of utilities that takes its cue from Microsoft Office. There's even a basic little drawing package where you can work together on little doodles. It's all rather magical out there in the clouds.

Clearly, Wikis and RTCE are brilliantly useful ways to remotely collaborate on material (or even to locally collaborate). They're also great fun to watch, as various bits of document buzz in and out of existence, and people like me write and delete rude words like "BUM".

Next on the CPD23 agenda is Dropbox, which is simply an online repository where you can store and selectively share files. It's 2GB of webspace for the cost of an email address. Given that I already have some webspace, I am not as much in awe of Dropbox as some. If I'm sending something small, I would still be inclined to use email; if I'm sending something bigger than a few megabytes I would likely prefer to pop it on my own webspace, where I knew where it was. That said, the speed and simplicity of Dropbox's desktop public folder (akin to a public folder on a shared network) makes for far less faffing around than operating an FTP client or (as friends of mine often do) uploading to a file-sharing website. In this regard, then, Dropbox could well replace my previous models of file distribution.

Here's a fun by-product of the Dropbox model: Dropbox is really just webspace, just like the webspace you might have with your ISP. Given that everything you put in your public folder has a URL attached to it, one can fill a public folder with HTML files (and associated graphics). In other words, it is possible to host a website from Dropbox.

I can find nothing in the terms and conditions that prohibits such use, and the immediacy of the public folder again trumps the comparative complexities of FTP as a means of uploading web material. For the novice web author this represents a fantastic opportunity to start playing around with HTML: an unintended consequence of a simple but effective tool. So while I'm learning how to knit myself my very own Lund jumper, those of you who've never written the magic words "a href" could be learning how to knit yourself your very own website.

Jeg vil have denne jumper!