In its continuing examination of library blogs, HotStuff 2.0 has added a visualization of emotional content.

Here is the current visualization for Libology:

How to read the information, from HotStuff’s description:

1. The overall scatter of words in the ANEW list are shown as small blue dots. This is shown simply as a guide to indicate the overall shape (as per the previous image that resembled the map of Australia).
2. The average emotional content of each blog post is shown as a small green cross. This is a calculated by looking for all occurrences of ANEW words in the blog post. The average position is then calculated. Therefore, if a blog post contained lots of strongly negative content, you would expect the green cross to be towards the bottom-left.
3. The average emotional content of all the blog posts is shown as a larger red cross. This is calculated as before, but is the average for all of the content on the blog. Therefore, if a blog contained lots of posts with strongly positive content, you would expect the red cross to be towards the bottom-right.
4. Word usage frequency is indicated by the transparent circles. This gives an indication of the type of words being used on the blog. Larger circles indicate that words with the same pleasure & arousal values have been used more frequently.

The red X falls in the Neutral Pleasure, Medium Arousal section, but definitely far enough towards the right to suggest that there is Positive Pleasure at work as well.  This seems about right, as I don’t tend to go negative all that often (and when I do I try to remain constructive), and my writing voice tends to be more formal, leading to a Neutral/Medium tone.

I haven’t seen anything on the HotStuff site that makes me feel that there is a grand truth in their categorization of various library blogs, but they are doing some really interesting experiments that provide glimpses of what is there.  I recommend checking out their listings for the library blogs that you follow.

And the title of this post?  Well, I had my Myers-Briggs Type – INFP – as my automobile’s license plate for several years, so this seemed to be the way to go.

found through Walt at Random

Publisher Confidential is a creation by the Unshelved crew that strives to convey to publishers what libraries wish they would know.  It consists of brief statements illustrated with the familiar Mallville Public Library staff.  The booklet is being distributed to the BookExpo America (BEA) mailing list, so a lot of publisher’s representative will see it and hopefully take heed.

Some of the selections I especially like upon first reading:

• Start your periodical with Vol. 1, Issue 1.
• Unusual packaging creates problems.
• In the book, tell us how to pronounce the author’s name.
• Free Ebooks from the shackles of D.R.M.
• Not all fonts are created equal.

There are many more… and all are worth reading.

via the Unshelved Blog