The iPhone doesn’t go on sale until 6 pm, but at noon the line in front of the Michigan Avenue Apple store here in Chicago is already a block long. And what does one do while waiting in line for an iPhone? Work on a MacBook while listening to an iPod, of course.

Or sleep.

I couldn’t find any librarians in the line, but this guy shouted out that he liked libraries, so that merited a shot!

A sign taped to the building above one of the early adopters’ heads said, “You wouldn’t understand.” Um, yes, we would.
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At Midwinter in Seattle, no fewer than three people sought me out, one even stopping me on the street, to tell me that “Michael Porter’s got an idea” for a book. Never one to be too slow on the uptake, I made sure to talk with him at a reception we were both attending. Several conversations and one contract later, I’m thrilled to say that Michael (aka Libraryman) will be writing for us.

Just what is this big idea, you say? Michael will be interviewing and gathering stories from individuals and institutions that have become leaders in successful electronic community engagement. He will use these stories as the basis for real-world lessons that libraries can use to more effectively engage the communities they serve. The work will be many things: part historical snapshot of this transition period in library service, part motivational storytelling, part benchmarking, and part practical handbook.

Michael himself is thoroughly immersed in this world of electronic community engagement, and I’m really looking forward to his tour.

An Editions-related gathering at Etrusco last night brought together LJ Mover and Shaker alums Rob Cullin, Kim Bolan, and Chrystie Hill. Rob and Kim are the authors of Technology Made Simple, and Kim is starting work on a new edition of her popular Teen Spaces. Chrystie is working with Steven Cohen on the final manuscript stage of Inside, Outside, and Online, a book about libraries and community building. But last night was all in fun—no shop talk allowed! Let’s just say that the “rocker table” took that directive to heart.

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.

Didn’t I think I was so clever in my “24 weeks to a finished book” post, until I was one-upped by Dan Kraus upstairs at AL with his video “One article: From beginning to end.” Ah, well, that’s OK.

Very cool stuff, Dan. And I love the new AL Focus site!

I had the pleasure of working with Gail Bush on her book The School Buddy System: The Practice of Collaboration. I admire Gail’s organization and focus. I remember meeting with her in my office while her manuscript was in process and being so impressed when she pulled a binder for the project from her brief case. Yeah, I’m a sucker for a binder.

I notice that Gail is working with the same focus on advancing the cause of social justice. On Wednesday, along with colleagues at the National-Louis University Center for Teaching with Children’s Books, she will convene the symposium INDIVISIBLE: Teaching for Social Justice through Children’s Literature (K-12). A year ago, Gail wrote for Knowledge Quest an article (PDF) positing a tenth information literacy standard that would address social justice. She writes:

School Librarians work for a better tomorrow every day. We ply our trade with future young leaders as if the world depended on it, and for good reason.

ALA Publishing Marketing Coordinator Tina Coleman takes to heart Ranganathan’s first law of library science, “Books are for use.” I caught her in the hall on her way to show Jenni the purse that she made from cover overruns of Serving Teens through Readers’ Advisory. Tina is an ALA Editions author. Along with her crafter mom, she is writing a book on library craft programs for teens. Author Heather Booth is reviewing draft manuscript to assure that Tina’s projects will fly in the library. Tina graciously made this purse, which she packed away in a trunk headed for ALA Annual Conference, where she will present it to Heather. Tina works in the ALA Store at annual conference. If you have the chance to meet her, be sure to ask how you can jazz up your conference T-shirt.

In announcing the publication of The Whole Digital Library Handbook, I thought I’d look at the project file for the original edition of its inspiration, The Whole Library Handbook, now in version 4. In the earliest filed memo from March 1989, Art Plotnik describes his concept to the Director of Publishing as an almanac of the “latest general library-related information in concise form.” In Fall 1990, the project got underway with the title “The Whole Library Handbook,” and with George Eberhart as compiler. Plotnik described WLH as his pet project. Over multiple editions executing the concept, Eberhart has made it his own. He worked behind the scenes for The Whole School Library Handbook, and for The Whole Digital Library Handbook, I asked him to take the formal role of series editor.

The Whole Digital Library Handbook is a co-publishing project with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), and the idea for it came from my desire to work with that organization. I appreciated the quality of content and was thinking about ways we might work together to bring it to a broader audience. Kathlin Smith helped move the idea along at CLIR, and Nancy Davenport, then president of CLIR, recruited Diane Kresh to be the editor and compiler. While getting the ball rolling, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea. Could digital library even be defined? Does it mean one thing to computer scientists, something else to librarians? Where would you draw the line? I remember raising these questions with Diane and gaining confidence that she was ready to take the concept and run with it. Flipping through the table of contents now, I see that the entire first chapter is “Definitions,” and the first piece, an excerpt of the Wikipedia entry for Digital Library. Not that we are blind publishers of the hive mind. Also weighing in the chapter are Christine Borgman, Donald J. Waters, Abby Smith, Richard De Gennaro, Joseph Janes, Alex Wright, Deanna B. Marcum, Karin Wittenborg, Lorrie Lejeune, Anne G. Lipow, Roy Rosenzweig, Scott Carlson, Chris D. Ferguson, and Charles A. Bunge. See the full table of contents here.

Holly Koelling, editor of the forthcoming third edition of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults, weighs in on trends in Young Adult Lit at MSN.COM: “Life after ‘Harry Potter’?”

No doubt everyone who’s anyone will have devoured Book 7 long before the summer is over. Readers and parents are certain to ask “Now what?” The new edition of BBYA (due out in August, but available for ordering now) is just the resource you’ll need for post-HP readers’ advisory.
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I was Diane Briggs’ editor for her first book with ALA, 52 Programs for Pre-Schoolers. I could see then that she brings to her work the spirit of the do-it-yourselfer, the desire to share what she’s got, and gumption to put it in a book. She’s back with a new book, Preschool Favorites: 35 Storytimes Kids Love. While working on Briggs’ first ALA book, Dianne, our design and composition manager, complemented the author’s illustrations. Briggs drawings were DIY, and, while not as polished as a pro’s, they worked, and they inspired in readers the attitude that they too could draw a bit for programs. This time around though, Dianne didn’t have to do it herself. Her son, Thomas Briggs, a college student in fine arts, drew illustrations.