Change is good, and other tricky theories. (Editorial).(Editorial)

I tend to like the first-do-no-harm rule that you sometimes hear physicians intoning. In magazine publishing, however, refreshing the readers' eyeballs about every five years or so is considered a pretty good idea. This is not change for the sake of change; this is progress. So I'm told.

I've received a lot of suggestions from American Libraries readers over the past few years for how we ought to change the magazine. "Why don't you publish it in a different shape every month?" someone once suggested. (You know, a heart for February, a turkey for November.) Another suggestion--probably from someone attending information school--was that we change the name of the magazine to …