The Book of Trogool

I'm still at Science Online 2010 and will have observations on it later, but first I'd like to acknowledge and celebrate a resource that has been absolutely crucial to my professional career—and indeed, to my profession.

Open Access News, under the able direction of Peter Suber and Gavin Baker, has for years been the single best source of smart information and informed opinion for open-access advocates. Both Peter and Gavin are taking their shows on the road, and while OAN will continue, it won't be what it was.

OAN has been my first info-stop as long as I've been a librarian. I will miss it sorely. It has been absolutely crucial in stemming the tide of FUD and outright lies coming from certain parts of the publishing industry, not to mention the ocean of ignorance and misinformation among faculty and even some corners of librarianship.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Gavin. I hope you are enormously proud of what OAN accomplished. I for one am in awe of you both.

I can't fill those shoes. OATP, for all its virtues, can't either. I do feel, however, that I ought to throw my hat back into this particular ring. So while I started Book of Trogool intending to firewall it off from open-access debates, I have reconsidered that decision. I'm not much, but I'm something, and we still need something—lots of somethings—to fill some small part of the gaping void that OAN's departure is leaving.

I don't know exactly what form this will take; I may start another tidbits series, or I may try my hand at the kind of calm, no-nonsense commentary that Peter and Gavin were so amazingly good at.

For now, though, I'm just announcing that for whatever I'm worth, I'm back in the OA blogging game.