I enjoyed this article from the May 1st issue of Library Journal by Barbara Fister: “Publishers & Librarians: Two Cultures, One Goal.” Barbara is an academic librarian in Minnesota and an author of mystery novels at the same time. Her work as a popular author gives her an insight into the world of publishing that librarians don’t usually have, which explains the article’s focus on trade publishing rather than the academic market. (I appreciate it a lot when academic librarians write about issues of interest to public librarians and try to do the same thing.) Barbara is also a frequent poster to the ACRL blog.
Cheers, Rory – it was fun to write, and interesting to try and get a handle on what public librarians’ perspectives are. We have lots in common, but some pretty fundamentally different experiences as well.
Comment by barbara fister — May 30, 2009 @ 10:29 am