As I was cleaning out my bookshelves to give some books to my school’s library, I encountered stacks of reprints of law review articles. In the olden days, sending reprints was a regular thing. We would order extra reprints of our articles and then send them postally (!) to colleagues, often with a short personal note.
When I was going through my bookshelves, it was very sweet to see such reprints from friends and colleagues.
I confess that I mostly don’t miss the reprints. I prefer to read things on a computer screen and I’m glad to avoid the ecological and financial costs of hard copies.
I really appreciate Texas Aggie Peter Reilly’s service of collecting and circulating people’s blurbs of what they’re up to. It’s a convenient, efficient, and ecological way to share our work in our own voices.
Too bad there are no handwritten notes. Oh well.