Fam­ily med­ical emergency.

Update, Nov 7 2006: It’s dif­fi­cult, espe­cially when there are loved ones gravely ill, to find the time to pay the bills and feed your­self, let alone opine on ephemeral pub­lic affairs or join in with the self-​​created world of aca­d­e­mic discourse.

I had the oppor­tu­nity to attend and present what turned out to be a slap­dash talk at a fas­ci­nat­ing con­fer­ence in Chicago these last three days, but in light of fam­ily stresses I’m afraid it played out less as an oppor­tu­nity and more as a dis­trac­tion from Real Life. I will try to recount and respond to the many fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tions I had — it’s my pro­fes­sional respon­si­bil­ity, of course. It’s what I do for work, this conference-​​attending, this col­le­gial engage­ment and gen­tle inter­dis­ci­pli­nary aca­d­e­mic prod­ding, this insis­tence on thought­ful­ness among my col­leagues and bet­ters in the world.

But inso­far as I need to be away from work to care for fam­ily, it will be a while before I’m able to thought­fully respond and recount here. In the mean­time, Im hope­ful that some of my new cor­re­spon­dents might stum­ble along to my blog (Google will send them). So let me add some links to pre­vi­ous work that still applies, and that may help frame things I’ve said for those I met in per­son these last days, who in most cases I’m sure are not reg­u­lar blog readers:

• “Wind and Chaff and the Laugh­ter of Yokels”
• a link to a per­ti­nent dis­cus­sion of par­tic­i­pa­tory culture
• “How much for a sub­scrip­tion to history?”
• “Dig­i­tize This, Library Boy”
• a won­der­ful exam­ple of col­lab­o­ra­tive republishing

There are oth­ers. I’m busy, I’m ragged, but I’ll be back.