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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 27 August 2010
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Nice article in today's Independent (mainly about the Collector's Club Symposium which took place yesterday)
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/michael-mccarthy-going-cuckoo-over-new-nats-books-1801806.html
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 02 August 2010
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Also, for those that missed it the first time, it's probably worth adding this link to a feature article on NN by Richard Mabey, from the guardian in March this year.
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/14/new-naturalist-books-richard-mabey][/url]
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 27 August 2010
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(Philosophical conundrum in the same vein as does a tree that falls in a wood that nobody hears actually make a noise...does a Forum where there isn't a posting for 10 days actually exist? Hmmm, don't know, but it is a sad sort of place. Don't understand why this forum isn't better used. Still....)
Anyway, not really NN in the papers but Peter Marren summing up the year's best books in Nature and Environment in today's Indy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/best-nature-and-environment-books-for-christmas-1837713.html
He's spot on about The Running Sky, although ends up somewhat underselling it to my mind. Head and shoulders above any other book I've read this year.... Andrew Motion's book of the year in the Grauniad as well I think....
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Forum Member
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Hengus (11/12/2009)
Does a Forum where there isn't a posting for 10 days actually exist? Hmmm, don't know, but it is a sad sort of place. Don't understand why this forum isn't better used.Like you, I was rather surprised at the TOTAL lack of postings to this Forum over the last 2 weeks. I'm sure there's no lack of interest in the NN series and there will be many members who choose to read the posts but are quite happy to remain as "lurkers" - I've no issue with that, it's true of practically every on-line Forum. If you click on the link titled "Members" at the top right, you can see that there are more than 1,600 members of the Forum and many have accessed the site in the last 2 or 3 days. Perhaps one reason for the declining interest is that HarperCollins, or rather those with the responsibility to manage the forum, seem to have lost interest themselves - they last logged in on 1st December and have only posted twice since 28th October ... and then only to outline the publishing schedule for next year. I accept that the role of administrator is not to populate the forum with new messages and threads, but so many of the questions that have been addressed to them have been ignorred. For example, as far as I am aware, they never responded on the availability of extra POD dustkjackets for those who have requested them, whether the Monographs would be available as PODs, whether the heavily discounted leather Dragonflies on eBay some weeks ago were genuine, etc. OK, this is not intended to be an angry rant against HC - after all, they had the initiative to establish the site and Forum in the first place - but in my opinion, if this forum is to prosper then we need an active engagement from HarperCollins. Taking this opportunity to wish all members a very Happy Christmas - after all, I doubt there'll be any other posts to reply to! Bill
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 27 August 2010
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And all the 2009 NN titles get a mention in the Grauniad round up today...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/12/natural-history-wildlife-books
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 07 June 2010
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| Hi..first of all , a happy and peacefull christmas to all . secondly I would like to say that i totaly agree that the situation of members not writing in this forum has been jointly caused by members and collins alike. I firmly believe that members have lost interest because of several things that are pointless to dwell on because some others will obviously disagree with me here and i'm not here to raise an argument. This site is for the enjoyment and hopefully to further knowledge for many of us collector/naturalists here. I have been a member of this site from early days and have always been grateful to Collins for it, so what i am going to say i hope Alex and others from Collins will understand i hope, but i feel it has resulted in some lack of interest here. It is my firm belief that many have lost some trust in Collins over the leather saga. some were as "Sold out" then magicaly reappeared ! leading to the question of exactly how many were printed. "Dragonflies" being the most notorious case. Collins stated that the remander unsold copys after a short period would be NEVER sold and kept by them , When the continuation to bring a "Leather" out on every new title was decided..hey presto! like magic they appear and so do others that were "sold out" previously. Several and i say clearly here..several members asked Collins... what is going on? and there has NEVER as far as i am aware been an answer from them to this question. Because of this i know personaly of several collectors that as they put it "cant be bothered to post anything or ask anything in here", so hence only come here now and then. I hope by saying this i have not upset anyone ,thats not my intention, but it is an open forum and i'm saying what i feel is a factor which has contributed to lack of interest. micky
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 27 August 2010
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michael5 (13/12/2009)
Hi..first of all , a happy and peacefull christmas to all . secondly I would like to say that i totaly agree that the situation of members not writing in this forum has been jointly caused by members and collins alike.
I firmly believe that members have lost interest because of several things thatare pointless to dwell on because some others will obviously disagree with me here and i'm not here to raise an argument. This site is for the enjoyment and hopefully to further knowledge for many of us collector/naturalists here. I have been a member of this site from early days and have always been grateful to Collins for it, so what i am going to say i hope Alex and others from Collins will understand i hope, but i feel it has resulted in some lack of interest here.
It is my firm belief that many have lostsome trust in Collins over the leather saga. some were as "Sold out" then magicaly reappeared ! leading to the question of exactly how many were printed. "Dragonflies" being the most notorious case. Collins stated that the remander unsold copys after a short period would be NEVER sold and kept by them , When the continuation to bring a "Leather" out on every new title was decided..hey presto! like magic they appear and so do others that were "sold out" previously. Several and isay clearly here..several members asked Collins... what is going on? and there has NEVER as far as i am aware been an answer from them to this question. Because of this i know personaly of several collectors that as they put it "cant be bothered to post anything or ask anything in here", so hence only come here now and then. I hope by saying this i have not upset anyone ,thats not my intention, but it is an open forum and i'm saying what i feelis a factor which has contributed to lack of interest. micky
There's more than an element of truth in this. It has certainly left a VERY bad taste in the mouth of a lot of people, something which the publishers bizarrely seem entirely ambivalent about. When it comes down to it, nobody likes to be lied to. And we were. Brazenly.
Having said that, there is far more to the lack of involvement here. I can't put my finger on it, but for whatever reason people really do not want to get involved. If you look at the number of members, in relation to the number of postings, you can see what I mean. Perhaps the real truth of the matter is that this (the New Naturalist community) is actually a lot lot smaller bubble than some of us believed it to be. But if I was a publisher, I would want to nurture and encourage that community...both directly through sales, and indirectly by keeping the brand alive and refreshed. That includes supporting the 'collecting' side of things too. Imho, they aren't doing that well at all. But ultimately you can't force people to come out of lurking mode and put 'pen to paper'. That's why (again, if I was the publisher) I'd be putting new topics up here regularly, and answering queries on a daily basis, and not simply using it as a means of advertising your latest special offer. Taking us for granted? Some might say that. Me? I couldn't possibly comment ;-)
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 17 March 2010
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| As someone who has tried to start fairly open ended threads on here about collecting the NNs, I am surprised by the fact that while there are many people registered, there are very few repeat posters. Discussions on here do have a tendency to degenerate quickly and prompt really quite dismissive, bordering on rude responses from one or two resident posters. I have no idea why there is that slightly unfriendly tone, you don't tend to see it in other forums, but then this is the only book collecting forum I have joined,. I hope to continue to try and join the discussions and prompt some great New Naturalist collecting anecdotes from the huge body of knowledge that people will have on here. But if we could please make the tone friendlier. I really don't think the lack of participation has anything to do with Collins.
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 27 August 2010
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Jackbus (14/12/2009)
As someone who has tried to start fairly open ended threads on here about collecting the NNs, I am surprised by the fact that while there are many people registered, there are very few repeat posters. Discussions on heredo have a tendencyto degenerate quicklyand promptreally quite dismissive,bordering on ruderesponses fromone or tworesident posters. I have no idea why there is that slightly unfriendly tone, you don't tend to see it in other forums, but then this is the only book collecting forum I have joined,. I hope to continue to try and join the discussions and prompt some great New Naturalist collecting anecdotes from the huge body of knowledge that people will have on here. But if we could please make the tone friendlier. I really don't think the lack of participation has anything to do with Collins.
The issue with 'tone' is a chicken and egg one....if only a few people write messages then the tone is disproportionately theirs. I know you got upset by something I wrote, but I don't actually think the tone is unfriendly on here at all...the short sharp written word is often very easy to misinterpret. One thinks someone is unfriendly and then one starts to read everything of theirs as unfriendly....it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Surely what's really 'unfriendly' is that nobody uses it....until a couple of days ago there was 10 days without a single posting! With the number of registered users there really 'should' be tens of messages every day and a couple of new threads added every day or two. I know forums with a tenth of the membership which have 10 times the number of messages as this.
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 17:55
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| OK.........I have tried to get some discussion going back in late November especially about my 'bargain' N/N no:77 'The Soil' that I purchased for £24.99 in hardback with unfaded D/J a few months ago but I did not get the response that I hoped for! I hoped that several other members would come up with some stories of their own 'bargain' finds to hopefully inspire the majority of us less well off enthusiasts to find those utter bargains that appear all too infrequently! It was meant to inspire some people to get & look for a valuable book for a few quid OR come up with any possible pitfalls that there may be whilst undertaking this task (such as misdescribed books)! Come on..........with 1600+ members there must surely be at least 20 of you who have a story about this sort of find that you wish to share? Look forward to all your replies..........Lee.
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