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Re: Trends in poetry reading
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From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:24:23 -0500
My only comment is:
1. Studies are often shown to be flawed in that they start with a set of assumptions and then confirm them.
2. Urban readers in general are less likely to be polled and therefore not captured in the ubiquitous data that purports to tell the whole picture. A problem since recent studies suggest that African Americans and Hispanics will be the majority in the country in 30 years. I'm more likely to get polled by a political organization than one seeking to understand my reading patterns.
3. What is published is not necessarily an indicator of what is preferred. As with other discussions here at CCBC I i've cautioned that what corporations assume customers want is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the truth - which has translated into low sales. A book of hard emotional poetry buried without a marketing budget will likely not find an audience. A book of poetry informed from a privileged or suburban or even overly literary vantage point might suffer the same fate even with marketing. Causing book publishers and book sellers to assume there is no interest.
Funny how what goes on in real life often doesn't get picked up by a marketing survey. And now it is worse, with more people untethering from landlines, or moving frequently and out of reach.
But lastly - talking Google's millions of scanned books is a bit tone deaf. As I and quite a few of my colleagues on this listserv saw Google scan our commercial (copyrighted) books without permission and until "called on it" published them in their entirety. In once case I saw sales of a book drop precipitously as readers could just pull it up on the net for free.
So while the ability to "search" Google may seem like a good thing - the company seems to have its own agendas not always in line with ours. More often it's "ask first", deny second, then litigate until the injured party is out of funds. But that's a 1984 argument for another day.
Just saying - Even at MIT we caution students that rote adherence to inflexible data absent of qualitative assessments will can often yield inflexible and often incorrect conclusions.............Christine - Nerd in Residence and ad hoc Jedi Devil's Advocate attempting to restore balance to the "Force"
On Apr 14, 2014, at 12:03 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
> Still trying to get some additional empirical perspective and insight on the topic of children and poetry. One of my perennial concerns is the extent to which passion and conviction can overtake perspective and objectivity. T
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Received on Mon 14 Apr 2014 12:25:12 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:24:23 -0500
My only comment is:
1. Studies are often shown to be flawed in that they start with a set of assumptions and then confirm them.
2. Urban readers in general are less likely to be polled and therefore not captured in the ubiquitous data that purports to tell the whole picture. A problem since recent studies suggest that African Americans and Hispanics will be the majority in the country in 30 years. I'm more likely to get polled by a political organization than one seeking to understand my reading patterns.
3. What is published is not necessarily an indicator of what is preferred. As with other discussions here at CCBC I i've cautioned that what corporations assume customers want is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the truth - which has translated into low sales. A book of hard emotional poetry buried without a marketing budget will likely not find an audience. A book of poetry informed from a privileged or suburban or even overly literary vantage point might suffer the same fate even with marketing. Causing book publishers and book sellers to assume there is no interest.
Funny how what goes on in real life often doesn't get picked up by a marketing survey. And now it is worse, with more people untethering from landlines, or moving frequently and out of reach.
But lastly - talking Google's millions of scanned books is a bit tone deaf. As I and quite a few of my colleagues on this listserv saw Google scan our commercial (copyrighted) books without permission and until "called on it" published them in their entirety. In once case I saw sales of a book drop precipitously as readers could just pull it up on the net for free.
So while the ability to "search" Google may seem like a good thing - the company seems to have its own agendas not always in line with ours. More often it's "ask first", deny second, then litigate until the injured party is out of funds. But that's a 1984 argument for another day.
Just saying - Even at MIT we caution students that rote adherence to inflexible data absent of qualitative assessments will can often yield inflexible and often incorrect conclusions.............Christine - Nerd in Residence and ad hoc Jedi Devil's Advocate attempting to restore balance to the "Force"
On Apr 14, 2014, at 12:03 PM, Charles Bayless wrote:
> Still trying to get some additional empirical perspective and insight on the topic of children and poetry. One of my perennial concerns is the extent to which passion and conviction can overtake perspective and objectivity. T
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Received on Mon 14 Apr 2014 12:25:12 PM CDT
