A couple weeks ago, I read a lament at ACRLog for the missing students, gone for summer, who left a library too quiet. My first reaction? “Good! I hope all our Guide to Reference contributors are stuck in quiet libraries.” One of the challenges in this project is that many academic libraries aren’t as supportive as they once were in allowing time for research or publishing projects . A little quiet can be a good thing, if you have a project.

This summer, some 75 contributing editors are in the home stretch of selecting and annotating entries for Guide to Reference. The first to break the finish line tape were Elisabeth Leonard in Economics and Business and Betsey Patterson in Psychology. A pack of science librarians are close behind, leaving the humanists in the dust.

I trust that our contributing editors now take solace in the Guide to Reference project and suffer no loneliness. If you’re a reference librarian with subject expertise and a knack for bibliography, consider signing on. We may need reinforcements to finish our launch version. Planning annual revisions, we will be looking continually for prospective contributing editors.

Karen Schneider stimulated lots of discussion with her post to the TechSource blog on the Maricopa (AZ) County Library District’s use of shelf labels derived from BISAC codes. Many commenters debate the relative merit of organization systems of the bookstore chains and libraries. I was most interested in Karen’s comments regarding use of Library of Congress Subject Headings in navigating OPACs or Web collections because the issue has come up in the development of Guide to Reference.

In developing Guide to Reference’s product concept, editors saw a value in using Library of Congress Subject Headings as an index to the entries. When NCSU’s Endeca catalog took the library world by storm, we considered using the subject heading for faceted browsing. We came to the conclusion that a few obstacles made it impractical, at least for our launch version. Most prominently, whereas we could use MARC to gather subject heads for print, Guide to Reference will also include Internet resources, most of which would lack LC Subject Headings. Instead, we decided that the subject assignments within the Guide to Reference taxonomy, a sources place in the reference landscape, would be sufficient for our users.

In describing the work of Jesse Haro of the Phoenix Public Library, Karen Schneider asserts that neither LC Subject Headings or Dewey is suitable for Web record sets.

However, Haro encountered a problem I discussed in an earlier article about NCSU’s implementation of Endeca. I commented that while adding facets (guided navigation) to the OPAC was a huge plus, in the end, the usefulness of the facets was limited by the browsing language used to generate them, and I added that Library of Congress Subject Headings are “not designed for browsing collections on the Web.”

John Blyberg noted in a comment that Karen hit the nail on the head with these words.

Pouring a nineteenth-century inventory system into a twenty-first-century search engine can lead to–shall we say–interesting results. Haro comments that “Endeca exposed our catalog in ways that were for better and for worse.” Once of the “worse” ways was the clunkyness of library-generated metadata for topic browsing.

Karen considers the BISAC codes to be superior and calls them “pragmatically user centric.” Booklist Online uses BISAC for its subject organization and cross-referencing.

At last year’s ALA Annual Conference, I caught the end of Chris Anderson’s presentation on his “long tail” concept. His book The Long Tail had just been published. I slipped out the door as questions began and bought a copy, reading it in the week after conference. It’s fair to say it rattled my world. For a while, I was bringing it in our editorial meeting so often it created a sort of comfortable, predictable rhythm to our discussions (right, Jenni?). After all, the concept seemed to suggest that what I’ve been doing the past 15 years or so, finding and publishing the experts, wasn’t important. Around the same time, the Economist published a special section on participative publishing. Words like revolutionary carry heft in a publication not given to hype. And it was their business they were covering. I continue to think hard about the new place of ALA Publishing in a time of participative publishing.

The value of authority is also a concern of the academy. Barbara Fister at the ACRL blog pointed out a Chronicle of Higher Education article on scholarly communication and Web 2.0.

As we work on the “reference canon” Guide to Reference, we consider authority and community is a big issue in our Guide to Reference project, as do other reference publishers. Bob Kieft, our general editor will lead a panel discussion Monday morning at Annual Conference, “Reference Works: From Authority to Community: A Discussion Forum on the New ALA Guide to Reference.” Along with fellow panelists John Dove of Xrefer, Alan Poole of Birds of North America Online, and publishing consultant Judy Luther, he will explore ways in which professionally published reference works can take advantage of social networking to strengthen their appeal and usefulness to librarians and library users. The discussion will be in the Washington Convention Center (WCC) 204C, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm.

I’ve answered a few questions this week from authors who are a bit confused by our job titles here at Editions. These titles are standard in the publishing industry, so it doesn’t often occur to me to explain the organizational relationships. Perhaps most confusing is the title of managing editor. What is the managing editor’s organizational relationship to the editorial director? How about to the acquisitions editors? The copy editors?

These relationships can vary a bit among publishers, but here’s the skinny at Editions: Our managing editor, Christine Schwab, reports to the editorial director (fellow blogger and my boss, Patrick Hogan) and is a peer to the acquisitions editors (me and, until recently, Laura Pelehach).

Christine effectively has one foot in editorial and the other in production. She takes what an acquisitions editor has deemed to be a final manuscript and

• evaluates the level of copy editing it will require
• queries any missing or unsuitable bits in the text or the illustrations
• preps the manuscript for copyediting
• hires and supervises one of our regular freelance copy editors
• facilitates communication between the copy editor and the author
• preps the copyedited manuscript for production
• reviews the proof layouts and vets the work of the proofreader

The “managing” bit in her title refers both to managing the copy editors and to managing the editorial aspects of the production process.

Some of our products are rather more complex than others, so the steps described above are a bit simplistic. Indeed, she wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t mention her work on Guide to Reference. She is not only vetting the copyediting and answering a raft of questions about the huge and idiosyncratic editorial stylesheet, but also training the copy editors to work within an online authoring system. Luckily for Editions, Christine is more than up to the task.

Christine joined Editions early last year, but she and I have worked together off and on in some capacity for 11 years now. We even shared adjoining offices for a while at the University of Chicago Press. Well, actually it was an office and an adjoining storage closet. (You might think that Christine had the short end of the stick there in the storage closet, but it depends on your perspective. I had the only window, but she had the only door.)

On GR, Christine works closely with associate editor Steven Hofmann . . . and this just got too complicated for one blog post. Look out, Steven. You’re next.

I have been curious about the Google Co-op tool since I first heard about it. I wondered where Google would take it, what they’re up to with this tool. In its earliest implementations they seemed to be angling toward a health information portal, though the tool can be used for any content. I thought about how we at ALA might use it, and put it on my “Someday” list. One thought was to gather up ALA’s various best of the Web picks.

Bill Drew did so with the Reference and User Services Association’s best free reference Web sites. In the past, I have ripped these from the RUSQ journal when I came across one and filed it away at home thinking I would one day bookmark those that might be of future use. Now I can throw that folder away.

Contributing editors of Guide to Reference are selecting free Web sites as well as print and fee-based databases. Editors of Reference Sources for Small and Medium-Sized Libraries have done so with their manuscript in-house. Perhaps these sources could be lumped in with RUSA’s best. ALA’s librarian, Karen Muller, created a Google Co-op search engine Librarian’s E-Library.

Should the Association of Library Service for Children copy their Great Web Sites for Kids into Google Co-op?

Ben Bunnell of Google included Google Co-op Custom Search Engine in his Midwinter 2007 presentation. He suggested Google Co-op custom search engine as an alternative to creating lists of links , citing Real Climate as an example. You can place the search box and results on your Web site and specify or prioritize sites to search. At Real Climate, Google custom search engine is a radio button choice under a standard search box. Another possibility for free content of Guide to Reference.

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.

A team of reference bibliographers is deep in the task of selecting and annotating sources for ALA’s Guide to Reference, the online database. Working on the project, I can’t help but to have picked up a bit of the history of reference. ALA first published Guide to Reference Book in 1902. I found the 1911 edition in Google Book Search. Once the canon of reference, Guide to Reference Books may be revered more than used, to paraphrase one reference expert. Our challenge with this first online edition is to invigorate it with new functions for today’s reference librarians. Guide to Reference Books has been a behind-the-desk tool. When I read in the ACRL blog the summary of the debate between Steven Bell and Sarah Watstein on the Future of the Reference Desk, I asked myself if Guide to Reference would travel with the librarian on the move. I think it will. We’re building in tools that will help librarians do reference on the fly and create quality resource lists. Steven points out that the style of debate is to polarize the points. Reference librarians need to be in the library, but they need to be in classrooms and around campus too. We plan for the Guide to Reference can carry the “voice of the reference librarian” to support a researcher or a clerk in a library when the librarian is not around. When this classic is online, it’s out from behind the reference desk. Steven Hofmann and I will be previewing Guide to Reference at the ACRL Conference. General Editor Bob Kieft will be in the booth on Saturday.

Bob Kieft, general editor of ALA’s Guide to Reference, talks to LIS students whenever he gets the chance. During Midwinter in Seattle, he spoke to students and librarians at University of Washington on their career day. Getting off the beaten convention center track is always a treat. Seattle local Cindy Cunningham of Corbis, formerly of Amazon, and further back an undergraduate library assistant working with Kieft at Stanford, drove us out and gave us a quick tour of UW’s library, a mix of modern and traditional with its classic reading room.

Guide to Reference Books was first published in 1902. Long the canon of reference service, the venerable GRB, Kieft admits, may get more respect than use. Kieft outlined these questions that he and his team face as they invigorate GRB with an online makeover.

1. How do we account for changes in scholarship with the organization of content. especially in age of the Web?
2. What does it mean for Guide to be part of network of resources?
3. What is the online equivalent of guidance?
4. What do we lose when reference moves from print to online?
5. Can we restore the Guide to the library school curriculum?
6. How do we create a distributed contributor structure center with a light central editorial center?
7. How to integrate electronic and print publication in one subject directory?
8. How do we account for changes in reference publishing and reference services?
9. What is reference anyway?

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Kieft at the beginning of his talk put out a call for contributors to the Guide. Could there be room for these newbies in the Land of Reference Giants? Well, it was career day. Kieft said that academic libraries need young people who are willing to take on a middle manager role; and (this is where the Guide comes in) people who know instructional technology and can use it in a hip way.

New librarians will be defining today’s sphere of reference service. Any digital natives ready to bravely venture out to the Guide’s new section Web as Reference Source? The one Kieft says, with irony, that will put us all out of business. Any takers? We have an outline, thanks to Kelly Mueller, who unfortunately had to step aside due to the obligations of a new job.