- William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Quoted in Boswell's "Life of Johnson"

Over the last decade or two, a grotesque habit has grown up in the academic and government communities which I very much hope technology and good sense may now combine bring to crashing halt. This is the unthinking, almost Pavlovian proclivity of crowning each conference, usually well after the fact, with what some might call a "book". May we consider this together for a moment now, since there really are some lessons to be learned from this practice, which, I am afraid, is continuing unabated and largely unexamined? The lessons have to do with sustainable behavior, in several ways, so hence do have a place in this meeting.

It is, I am afraid, quite likely that this commentary is not going to find a particularly receptive audience in this conference, since many of us here have in the past participated in such heedless enterprises not just once or twice but possibly on quite a large number of occasions. That said, it is only fair of course that I be among the first to step forward and to admit that I too have engaged in this sort of dalliance, and indeed have felt my breast (and my Vitae) swell with the pride of authorship as yet one more signed piece by yours truly hits the street.

These 'books' or what have you are by their intention in most instances innocent enough affairs, at least in theory. After all, when ten or a couple of hundred purportedly (and sometime, actually) informed and bright souls are brought together specifically to consider some important issue of the day (a presumption which is not perhaps always quite merited), and when they by dint of the rules of the meeting are required to make written submittals, what could be more natural than the idea of bringing together all this mass of materials in a form so that others -- less fortunately souls who were not able to make the trip to Paris, Lagos or wherever we had our conference -- will be able to profit from the proceedings?

Fair enough in theory, but what is the reality? If not all the time, well, at least most of the time.

First and most striking. These piles of paper are loveless affairs. They may use up paper and may have a binding, but by no test that I can imagine can they be passed off as 'books'. As a whole they have no integrity, no imagination, no wit, and no soul. There is no author, there is no responsibility, there is no commitment anywhere in sight. One more faceless, feckless enterprise of our out-souring mechanical age.

Second, they are inevitably patchwork affairs, where some poor hired hand is obliged to take the entire mass of the meetings documentation -- without either selection, any real editing or any other form of editorial care, every single submittal (no matter how poorly written or uselessly argued) -- and simply force it all to cohabit within a set of covers. Willy-nilly.

Before computers got so smart, one could at least take some satisfaction from the rustic look of the whole sad job. But these days with the hardware and software that are at hand, the whole thing can indeed begin, nefariously, to resemble a real book. (In truth, we were all better off before; at least we had a chuckle.)

Until recently, these inane compendia (or whatever you chose to call them) had another salient characteristic, and this was that they almost invariably offer cold fare. Appearing a year or more after the event, by the time they finally do make it in print and reach us the mail they inevitably are more surprising than welcome. (The word processing revolution is cutting down on this lag, though possibly to no one's real advantage given what they are.)

What happens to these unwanted behemoths? Well, some get lodged via some mechanical prior arrangements in libraries and reference centers (hopefully to lie quietly in the archives, undisturbed and undisturbing). As to the poor student or citizen who might actually stump up the money to buy one of these things in the hope that it will help them in some useful way, I can only send them my heartfelt condolences. There were better places to look.

One great thing that does happen as a result, though, is that we, the authors, always pick up the final product as soon as it hits our desks, and scan through it rather eagerly. But we do this only once. Then, when we see that our immortal words are indeed there for the world to see, we may -- but only may, since we are so busy -- actually look up one or two others pieces, though of course if we were that interested luck would have it that we already had gotten our own copy of it a year or two earlier.

Well, if that is all there is to it, why then do they ever get published at all? There appear to be two sets of explanations for it: you may wish to think of them as, supply and demand.

First, they represent a protective, bureaucratic, public relations gesture on the part of the conference's sponsors. "We spent all that money, they ate all our food and drank all our wine, so now we better have something to show for it". And here you have it: the 'proceedings of the conference'.

That for supply, but there is also the demand side and here is where we here come in for our portion of the responsibility. We let them do this out of a combination of a certain greed, mindlessness and sloth. Publishing a paper, even in such a primitive setting, is none the less one more publishing credit. More innocently, we feel too that by making such a paper available and then letting our hosts publish it, we are somehow 'doing our part'.

On the other hand, we are well aware that this is not our best or most complete work. We are also probably aware that whatever we may share with the meeting has its place in some settings, but probably not that of the more or less arbitrary company that showed up for that meeting on that day or week

And here is where the concept of sustainable development comes in.

First of all, these things use up trees, for which there surely are better uses. So, we shouldn't let them do it with what after all is our work.

Second, they tie up the time of (usually young people) who are made to labor over them for weeks or months, and in the process -- given the uneven quality and the sheer bulk -- not only learn nothing but over this time become just that little bit more skeptical concerning the seriousness of not just this but of all the work that is going on under this heading.

Third, they confuse… by dint of their bulk, their lack of selectivity, and their mindlessness. So they have no real reason for being.

Before I take this any further, I suppose that I must give a sign of apologizing for my brashness here… sort of. It is, I am afraid, quite likely that this commentary is not going to find a particularly receptive audience in this conference, since many of us here have in the past participated in such heedless enterprises not just once or twice but possibly on quite a large number of occasions. That said, it is only fair of course that I be among the first to step forward and to admit that I too have engaged in this sort of dalliance, and indeed have felt my breast (and my Vitae) swell with the pride of authorship as yet one more signed piece by yours truly hits the street. But all this is the past, what about the future?

What is attractive about a virtual conference such as this is that by its very nature it does not require this sort of resources intensive 'summing up'. The product of the meeting is right here for any and all to see, evaluate and possibly use as they see fit. All of this at no cost in terms of trees, packaging, and transport (with all its built-in unsustainability).

Of course one could actually go ahead and do it. And if it were done on a properly selective basis with all the care and professionalism that must go into producing a 'real book', even if it is really no more than a collection of divers articles and chapters -- well that too might have its uses. But since the whole works are already out there for all to see, that old Pavlovian reflex is no longer needed.

Each of us too could possibly do our bit. What about if at least some of us here decide that in the future we will not allow publication of our work in forms such as these, unless we were sure that they passed our own (though!) tests of usefulness? Well, that would be an example of sustainable behavior in our daily lives. And isn't that where we finally must start?

Almost four hundred years ago Francis Bacon put his finger on it when he wrote: "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."

All things in their place. N'est-ce pas?

P.S. I would dearly love to cite here a list of some of the worst examples of this abuse, including ones with articles or sections that have my name on it. This however would hardly make me any great friends in the institutions that from time to time do call on my services. Fortunately that is not necessary, since each of us will have our own examples of such mindlessness, which I now invite you to check, just in case I have it all wrong.