Rifling through my remaining files, I recently came across an informal working paper I had drafted 50 years ago while working for the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University in Bloomington. At the time, I was employed as a social sciences editor but beginning to get really hooked on being a poet on the side, along with the entire small-press literary scene. This came in a break in my newspaper journalism career, which also figures into the considerations.  

One of my challenges at the workshop involved getting our field research findings out to a diverse audience of researchers, public officials, and politicians. Traditional publishing avenues were becoming prohibitively expensive for our enterprise.

What I saw as the challenges in a changing publishing world at the time seems truly prescient now as well as often naïve. The paper, “Thinking Thru the Future of the Realm of Publishing,” has been greatly eclipsed by the Internet, which wasn’t even on the horizon, as far as we knew.

Some of the problems, such as lack of compensation for intellectual property and vulnerability to piracy, seem larger than ever.

And there are still the challenges of establishing a readership and the related costs.

~*~

As I wrote:

There seems to be, at least as far as newspapers are concerned, a kind of decreasing level of literacy. This seems to be reflected in the declining reading scores reported over the ‘60s & early ‘70s in the SAT exams & other measures of reading abilities.

Perhaps this is nothing new, but in practical terms, as a measure the American adult illiterate — that is, incapable of reading the comics or Ann Landers with any degree of understanding or skill – it remains a challenge. Perhaps insurmountable.

On the other hand, the knowledge explosion is leading increasingly to the phenomenon Ortega y Gasset dubbed “the learned ignoramus” — the situation where individuals may be very deeply & narrowly trained in a field of technical specialization, but may also be very ignorant of other disciplines.

As an example of this phenomenon at work today, we can consider this: That two decades ago, a broadly-trained baccalaureate degree could be the threshold of the generalist — the PhD, the mark of the specialist. Today, the PhD is the threshold of the specialist, & the realm of research may lie far beyond his vision or understanding. In other words, perhaps, the minuteness of scholarly research today is so diverse & specialized that little of it fits into broad, theoretical concepts.

Are we at a point in which our investigations resemble a plant that has been given too much light, too much water, & too much food? Such a plant becomes weak & spindly, & collapses.

While that comparison may seem too strong, consider the problems of trying to keep abreast in one’s own field. There are far more journals in the social sciences, or in even political science or economics, than any researcher or scholar could possibly keep abreast of. How many journals are there on administration, urban problems, and police, that would affect even our own area of investigation?

I raise these two points because they do interact: the broadly- based, literate range of media would appear to be shrinking:

1. a) The range of specialized knowledge gets further & further away from their abilities to report;
2. b) The time required of specialists to keep abreast of their own specialties would decrease the time they have to spend with the more generalized, & hence more interdisciplinary, range of publications;
3. c) The increasing costs of publication & distribution would weed out the more marginal, but still significant, publications in this range. (The real money in periodicals publication in the last decade has specialized mags, focusing, for example, on skiing or coin collecting — areas with a potentially specialized market for advertisers.)

~*~

The costs, especially of labor & paper, have escalated sharply in recent years, resulting in outrageously expensive book costs (at least in the traditionally published & distributed volumes): journal costs for libraries & institutions are something that a number of Workshop personnel have commented upon. The situation of hard-bound volumes & high-priced journals facing libraries is one of “rip off.”

[As for individuals?]

~*~

Simultaneously, libraries have been forced to install photo-copying machines as a means to prevent the mutilation of their collections by users with razors & other means of lifting pages for home use.

The entire library system is based upon user cooperation & consideration, which appears to be breaking down in many situations. In other words, if the theft rate & volume loss rate of some collections continues unabated, the library as a source of photocopy material may be in danger.

~*~

On the other hand, the existence of photocopying equipment introduces a threat to authors, editors, & publishers. Authors have faced readers who proudly proclaim that they have the writer’s work – in Xerox form. The author, of course, receives no royalty from these readers, despite the reader’s praise.

~*~

My, those photocopiers seem so benign compared to so much of the Internet!

Stay tuned for next week’s continuation.

~*~

That said, you can find my works in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain them.

The role of a writers’ group will elicit a range of responses.

Some find value in having a core circle that intensely critiques each participant’s ongoing work, while others – I’ll include myself – see that as limiting if the others are clueless about your style and vision. It’s the unpublished version of blind leading the blind.

Still, I have been greatly assisted by opportunities for weekly or monthly open reading sessions, starting with the Stoney Lonesome poets in Bloomington, Indiana, and picking up with the Café Eclipse evenings in Concord, New Hampshire; young poets who met at Barnes & Nobel in Manchester, New Hampshire; Isabel van Merlin’s Merrimack Mic coffeehouse nights in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Somehow, I didn’t feel that kinship in the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.  Later, a monthly group known as Writers’ Night Out in Portsmouth, introduced a wide range of writers, both beginning amateurs and seasoned professionals, spanning fiction, non-fiction, poetry, advertising and public relations, script writing, and playwrighting. We never knew exactly what the mix would be, but it was always stimulating and we never felt a sense of competition, as far as I could tell. The tips and insights we shared could be quite useful. That’s where I first heard of Smashwords, for instance.

There were other stints where I was truly solo. I was never part of the Iron Pig group in the Mahoning Valley, for instance, though my artist then-wife had her gallery groups.

Baltimore had a large writers’ group that never quite jelled for me, though we did have a marvelous evening with Tom Clancy just before the release of his first movie. His honesty did offend some of those present, though I found it refreshing.

More recently, it’s come in the monthly open mics at the Eastport Arts Center, where spoken word usually alternates with music.

~*~

The arts center does offer inspiration on other fronts, too, including the Sunday afternoon presentations through winter, plus concerts, plays, the film society, and even contradancing.

The arts center is one reason our community stands apart from many others. We had nothing like it in Dover, nearly 30 times the size.

My original expectation of dilettantes and artist wannabes was quickly dispelled. A key post-Covid Stage East production, for instance, was two one-act plays – Beckett and Cocteau. And some of the best chamber music and jazz I’ve heard anywhere has been here. So we get a good dose of deep work.

But lately I’ve been hearing stories of some of its founders, some of whom have died since my arrival. One, for instance, had worked closely with theater great Tyron Guthrie. You get the picture.

The full history still needs to be written. Not that I’m stepping forward.