John Miedema

Walt Crawford has written a thoughtful piece on slow reading in the March 2010 issue of Cites & Insights. I am honoured that Walt highlighted some of the important themes that I have discussed at this blog and in my book. He also refers to a number of other related writings by T. Scott Plutchak, Will Richardson, and Steve Lawson. Well worth reading.

Walt is not new to the subject of slow reading. In my research, I ran across an article called “Contemplation and Content: Getting Under Their Skins” in the March 2005 issue of EContent. While most web pages are written for fast reading, this author recommended writing web content that is memorable, thought-provoking, and resonant. He observed that the various slow movements are a testimony to people’s desire to get away from content overload and investigate beneath the surface. Writing this kind of content may be just what is needed to retain readers. The author, of course, was none other than Walt Crawford.

Walt gently (and fairly) pokes at my tendency to move content and delete posts. For what it’s worth, yes, I was the author of slowreading.net. Early on, my content moved around a few blogs, but most of it has been transferred here, http://johnmiedema.ca, my permanent home on the web. The URL will remain the same even if my blog name changes from time to time. It’s true that I delete blog posts, though that practice seems to be diminishing with time (no promises). Overall, I am happier with the content of my blog over the past several months. Perhaps I have found my voice.

My most recent book project, I, Reader, is still cooking fiercely. I have double the thought energy for it now that I have completed my MLIS. I intend to work this book out slowly and carefully. Count on plenty of book reviews and related series here at this blog in preparation for that book.