Those Parisians are just so hip. Residents have been asked to submit their own garden plans for Les Halles. The top five plans will be created on a Second Life island. The BBC News article doesn’t say what the island name is, but the sponsor of the island is a residents’ association named Accomplir. The submission deadline is June 1, so things should be looking lush by then.

This seems like a great way to get patron (especially student) feedback on a planned library renovation, or a way to create good PR for an ongoing project: Take a sneak peek at your future First Life through Second Life! I don’t know much about terraforming in Second Life, so I don’t know how literal the representation could be. Anyone more knowledgeable out there who can comment?

I like strolling through poster sessions at conferences. I can get a birds-eye view of the sorts of projects happening in libraries. The ACRL Conference poster sessions suggest assessment is the order of the day. An article at “Inside Higher Ed” picked up on this trend, covering a conference panel on assessing information literacy instruction. It describes the First Year Information Literacy in the Liberal Arts Assessment project (FYILLAA), which grew from a collaboration of eight Midwestern universities and is now used by 119 colleges. The article notes that groups developing assessments are not always paying attention to each other’s efforts.

While it’s important that the educational community agree on standards, and the article references ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, it’s appropriate to handle assessment differently. The article references two of the well-known instruments: the Educational Testing Service’s ICT Literacy Assessment and Kent State University’s Project SAILS. Teresa Neely describes each in her book Information Literacy Assessment. Project SAILS, developed solely for ACRL’s standards, is for “programmatic-level” assessment. It measures incoming college-level students’ skills and long-term improvements. The ICT Literacy Assessment builds on ACRL standards along with others. It differs from most other tools in that it is “simulation-based,” assessing multiple aspects of ICT competencies by “requiring test takers to use basic technology as a tool to arrive at solutions” rather than posing multiple choice queries. Librarians working on information literacy assessment can get a good overview of what others are doing, including specific examples, from Neely’s book.

Conversation in my office this past Monday:

Patrick: Good morning.

Jenni: Hi, how was the [ACRL] conference?

Patrick: Good. No Friday Fiction I see…

Jenni: What?

Patrick: You didn’t post a Friday Fiction piece on the blog last week.

Jenni: Sure I did. I had already posted it when you e-mailed me about whether it would appear.

Patrick: That was the week before last.

Jenni, staring blankly: Oh. Um. Huh. You’re right. I’ve lost an entire week.

So, in the spirit of the hectic life of the librarian (or the library publishing editor), here’s another piece from Jennie Inglis that just about sums it up!

Read All the Time

“Oh, my gosh,” she said. “I have to be on the Reference Desk in five minutes but my monthly report isn’t finished.” The committee meeting was that afternoon; the SACS report was due that night, as well as the revised vision statement. Later, when a patron said, “I wish I was a librarian so I could read all the time,” she turned away, her fists clenched.

An introduction to our Friday Fiction Series and Jennie’s bio can be found on our first Friday Fiction post.

The ACRL Conference was a sort of coming-out party for Guide to Reference, even if the debutante is still getting dressed. A monitor in our both displayed a loop of screen mock-ups, managing to catch the eyes of passersby. They wore a puzzled expression though. I took to saying, “Do you remember Guide to Reference Books?” In most cases, a flash of recognition appeared, but reciting names of editors past was the reliable clincher, “Balay . . Sheehy . . . Winchell.” One librarian recalled ideas of Constance Winchell in her Preface about the “forms of it.” I want to find that because I think it might apply to ideas of format in reference publishing today. Another librarian said that she worked at Columbia University with Eugene Sheehy, editor of Guide to Reference Books. She recalled how he came early to the library at 6:30 a.m. to work on the project before hours. Surely, Guide to Reference is that the same time something old and something new. We were heartened by the reference-librarian community’s goodwill for the project and anticipation for our launch in the fall. You can see our booth demo and get preliminary news on the project at www.guidetoreference.org.

Most new Editions authors can guess what is entailed in the first part of the book publishing process: write, write, revise, revise, feedback from editor, revise, revise, final draft of manuscript ready for production. But what exactly does “production” mean? Workflow differs from one publishing house to the next, but here’s the ideal flow here at Editions:

Weeks 1-2: Acquisitions editor reviews and organizes manuscript files, creates ancillary informational materials, and transmits project to the managing editor

Weeks 3-4: Managing editor reviews manuscript and prepares manuscript files for copy editor; assigns copy editor; writes up manuscript-specific instructions for editing

Weeks 5-7: Copyediting; creation of interior design template

Weeks 8-9: Author(s) review and approve copyediting

Week 10: Copy editor updates files, incorporating final revisions from author(s); returns final manuscript to managing editor

Week 11: Managing editor reviews copy editor’s work; prepares files for typesetting

Weeks 12-14: In-house designer/compositor typesets book

Weeks 15-16: “First pass” proofs sent to professional proofreader; simultaneously sent to professional indexer for indexing and to author(s) for final review

Week 17: Proof corrections entered; “second pass” proofs generated

Week 18: Second pass proofs reviewed in-house and corrected; “third pass” proofs generated

Week 19: Third pass approved (in-house) for printing; final files sent to printer

Weeks 20-24: Printing, binding, and delivery to warehouse

Note that I said “ideal flow.” Projects can bottleneck; authors, editors, or other staff members have vacations or life issues, etc.; conferences happen. So we try to allow 32 weeks in our original scheduling. But more often than not, we hit the six-month mark.

I hope this gives you a bit of insight into why book production takes “so long.” Is it really such a long time, given the amount of quality assurance that enters into the process? Which step would you give up in favor of speed of delivery?

“Faster, better, cheaper—pick any two.” I’m not sure who said that first, but it’s certainly true in book publishing.

If you’ve been part of the Chicago publishing scene as long as I have, you’ve seen your fair share of convention centers. Oh, the groups that walk through the doors on any given day. This week it might be dentists. Next week it could be power tool executives. A friend of a friend told me about a surprisingly wild convention he attended for funeral directors in Las Vegas. I think it would be fun to weasel my way into the big restaurant and hospitality convention that convenes in Chicago each year.

Anyway, the groups mentioned in the subject line were commingling at the ACRL conference in Baltimore this past week. It was pretty easy to tell who was with which group. (Though, did you know that Mary Kay reps now wear black rather than pink?…much hipper than in the 80s).

I’m not a big fan of convention center spaces…conventions, yes. It’s very energizing gathering and talking shop with like-minded folks. But the spaces themselves? Not so much. They’re functional, I suppose. But, they’re pretty much all the same. Miles of gray carpet decorated with bright orange or maroon or red or blue designs (leftovers from airport terminals?). A lone Starbucks appearing like an oasis in some far-flung area of the building. Humongous numbers designating the meeting rooms. Tables with coffee urns long drained of their precious fluid, surrounded by crumbled up napkins and spilled packets of powder “coffee whitener.”

Who designs these places, I ask myself. They are functional, sure. And, they conveniently contain throngs of people, yes. But, must they be so heartless?

Contrast the space with the conversations swirling around at the ACRL conference. The underlying theme, it seemed to me, was how can we make academic libraries anything BUT heartless. So many discussions on understanding the users…be they faculty, grads or undergrads, and finding ways to meet their needs. I popped in on a panel discussion, which included ALA Editions authors Steven Bell and John Shank (Academic Librarianship by Design: A Blended Librarian’s Guide to the Tools and Techniques).( Here we are at a reception that evening, by the way. I’m the one with the beer. What can I say? An editor’s life is tough!)
Sean Cordes, of the Iowa State University was describing multimedia stations his library had developed, which included sophisticated technology and assistance with the multimedia projects students were increasingly being asked to do. Understand what students were being asked to do, and ask yourself how the library can support that. Right on! Technology on its own is cool, but, as Steven Bell pointed out, “Pedagogy before technology.”

Later in conference I had lunch with ALA Editions author Brian Mathews of “The Ubiquitous Librarian” fame. Ubiquitous indeed. Brian has gained some notoriety for his work using Facebook and MySpace to find out what assignments students are working on and providing suggestions on how the library can help with the research. He has developed one-on-one relationships with campus leaders…presidents of student associations, resident advisors, athletes to find out how the libraries can help their various members (and to help evangelize library services). He was telling me that he’ll occasionally walk through the library, striking up conversations with students. He’ll skillfully get around to asking them things like, “Why did you choose to sit in this space? What sorts of spaces or services would you like to see in the library?”

Can you imagine a convention center designer doing that??

Academic libraries these days are truly about being more than “functional.”