Siberian BAM Railway Guidebook

[Robert Beard]

First of all, let me say that I greatly appreciate Mr. Yate's apology and am
very happy to know that his posting was a matter of expediency rather than
intention.  Actually, I suspected that all along and hope that we remain
personally cyberfriends despite my rather sharp reaction.  My concern is
purely a professional and not personal.  I obviously read the advert since
the book sounds immensely interesting even to me and I will certainly take a
look at it.

Maybe I overreacted to one reading of the 'announcement'.  I understand that
the line between announcements and advertising can be rendered exquisitely
fine.   However, I've looked at it again and the posting still strikes me as
less a simple, objective book announcement than a publisher's release with a
bulleted list of "features" all focused more on ordering information.  I
would dearly love to see my new book promoted (apparently SUNY Press, too,
worries too much about objectivity to stoop to such activities).  I think it
should be announced over all language lists but I still question whether my
publisher should have complete control over the content of the announcement.

To try to pull something positive out of this, maybe we should develop some
sort of policy on the content of book announcements, develop a means of
attracting even more as LINGUIST has done, maybe look for a review editor
who could solicit short succinct reviews from people who are reading
relevant books anyway.  Internet is the ideal means of sharing information
about new books but I would like that information controlled by we'uns, as
folks out this way put it.

--Bob


>I'm afraid I have to disagree about this. I rather getting information
>about books that I may not have heard about otherwise. I saw nothing
>particularly commercial about this posting.
>
>Scott, Japan
>
>
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Robert Beard                              Bucknell University
Russian & Linguistics Programs            Lewisburg, PA 17837
rbeard at bucknell.edu                              717-524-1336
Russian Program   http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian
Morphology on Internet        http://www.bucknell.edu/~rbeard
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