I hesitate to share with you my first impressions of the new Globe book portal; "communities editor" Peter Scowen, responsible for maintaining the site, has already gotten a reputation for being a little cranky. Perhaps he will forgive me, and the rest of you will indulge me: here is what I think.
I like very much how easy it is to find the site. Its standing address, "/books," is intuitive. There is great value in this practicality. When I am searching multiple library catalogs online, I appreciate being able to type in a school's address followed by "/library." I think that everyone involved at the paper has worked hard to direct traffic to the site. You can reach it from the bar along the top of the Globe's main page; you no longer have to click and click again for book coverage under Arts. That said, if you happened to be in the Arts section, there is only the main bar and selected content taking you to Books. I cannot get the icon in the left column to work for me. I think, ideally, no one wants a divorce of books from Arts. (The reduced coverage of books in the print edition is also not moving to Arts. I cannot tell: we had a storm last night, and there is no print edition this morning. Then again, it seems like my papers are delayed when it is overcast. Grumble, grumble.) Perhaps, if we are all moving towards more reliance on content online, there will be more of a connection between Books and Arts.
Primarily, I read Books for the reviews, and I think these are represented by the eleven notices -- I count -- listed in the left column of the Books portal. There is other content here, interviews and comments, and it would help me if this was all a little more clearly demarcated, but I am heartened by the additional "Daily Review" included. (That makes twelve at any one time?) This will not be filed by one person on weekdays, so this will not be a novelty act. The current piece is very good, indeed.
But none of this would be worth our trouble if all we got was an extra daily review. I am most anticipating Martin Levin's blog. His first "Shelf Life" does not disappoint, but it will take at least a few weeks to determine whether Mr. Levin's voice establishes itself, regularly, at the heart of this new enterprise. "In Other Words," the other blog, is devoted to introducing material this time around, and so I have no idea what Mr. Scowen and James Adams have in mind. Old departments, like "New In Paperback" (great to see you, Jack Kirchhoff) and "New In Children's Books," are in the right column, and I think there is an excellent opportunity to expand these features. It would be great to see again "First Fiction," and I would even welcome back "Crime Books" as an old friend. But what about, occasionally, other departments like "Poetry" or "Life Writing" or "Music" or, dare I suggest it, "Academic Books"? I imagine that the departments could, quarterly, summarize what has emerged in various areas, perhaps corresponding to sections at a bookstore. (Remember those? Bookstores?) As it stands now, if I want to know, definitively, what has been released in areas that interest me, I rely on RSS feeds from online bookstores. Could not this portal take over this function, without a retailer's bias?
My other suggestion would be some content that might, itself, gain a rabid cult following. Could we find something like Warren Clements' old "Challenge"? How about a literary crossword? There are other ways, beyond an online book club, to build community.
The bottom of the portal invites you to submit questions to authors. I think, combined with the podcast readings at the top right, this signals a desire to try to create virtual book launch events. I have to admit that this holds little in interest for me. I hope the multimedia section evolves into a series of discussions between two or more people. Now, I will not compare Globe Books to other literary sites because I do not read other literary sites. But I do make great use of podcasts from The New York Times and NPR Music. When done properly, this content makes listeners privy to some very interesting exchanges. Traditionally, Book sections talk at us; that is okay: I am used to lectures about books. But if the multimedia content adds anything to my experience here, it will be because I can hear Mr. Levin talk to Wayne Johnston for twenty minutes, and I do not care, particularly, whether or not Mr. Levin uses questions readers have submitted. Why not have Mr. Levin and Mr. Scowen debate a book now and then?
I guess the searchable archive, delayed until next week, will be useful, but the center column, top, is currently clogged with lists of bestsellers. I always appreciated knowing what Heather Reisman was going to put on sale next week, but I thought having the lists at the back of the old Books section was some acknowledgment that most of us just glance at them. I do not think they need such pride of place, especially with the skinny middle column so crowded by the right and left. That, in the end, might be my biggest problem: the Globe template. I do not browse the Globe and Mail's website; I go there looking for something specific. If I am expected to stay in the Books portal for any length of time, like I do at Canoe or CNN or SI, I hope it will get easier for me to poke around. Perhaps I just need to get used to it. Then again, as I suggested before, I think I visit regularly only sites with dynamic content. If you too are like this, and they need us to go often there to increase the number of "impressions" made by their on-line ads, there had better be a way for recycling old content, too. How about bringing up some old reviews? When an author or a topic is in the news, perhaps we can rely on the portal to republish online some relevant comment from past Books.
So, then, I guess this all ends with a tentative thumbs up from me. The Books section online will never replace a "magazine" of sorts I could carry around with me all week, but what this new iteration will be will become clearer at it finds its legs and prepares itself for prime time. I could not yet say, honestly, that it is now something I would check out more than once a week, but I am open to it. I find that I have my laptop out in the evenings in the way I used to have a paper or magazine on my lap. Perhaps all this is inevitable, after all.
