Caveat Lector

I am reliably informed that the institutional-repositories issue of Library Trends will be delayed some months. Such is professional publishing. The delay is not, I believe, the fault of the issue editors; further deponent sayeth not.

I also heard something so wild about Roach Motel that I’m not even sure I believe it (which is, I hasten to say, the result of a skeptical mind rather than any lack of credibility on the part of my informant). I’ll be able to verify (and share) when the issue comes out. If it’s true (and seriously, people, this is wild), it’s a real testament to the power of an early OA preprint.

Occasionally an uncomfortable shiver travels up my spine at the thought that Roach Motel really may change the IR game—may, in fact, already have done so. I mean, yes, of course I wrote it to do precisely that—but hell, I never thought it would work. Who listens to repository rats? Even rats who have sharp-edged rhetorical flourishes and aren’t afraid to use ’em?

It’s not all good. I embarrassed one good person doing her level best to run a good IR program, and I’ve apologized profusely and sincerely for that in private. (The only reason I haven’t done so in public is that my sense is that the person in question would rather the problem die quietly, if possible.) The published version of Roach Motel will eliminate the cause of embarrassment… but that doesn’t remove the damage the preprint did, or my culpability in letting it happen. I also made a bonehead-undergraduate error of attribution that I’m still ashamed of (and yes, Dr. Jacobs, that one’s fixed). And lastly, the bit about prophets and honor and their own country is much, much too true for my comfort.

Even so… I said some things needing saying, and they were read, and the way we’re talking and thinking about IRs is changing, and I think I’m content (pace the solecisms retailed above) with my small part in those changes.