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CHARLESTON CONFERENCE issue volume 32, number 5
TM
NOVEMBER 2020
“Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians”
ISSN: 1043-2094
Short Books: An Introduction by Steven Weiland (Professor, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University) <weiland@msu.edu> and Matthew Ismail (Director of Collection Development, Central Michigan University) <ismai1md@cmich.edu>
O
urs is a fluid, some might say volatile, period for scholarly publishing, as essentials are being rethought to adapt to the digital age. Thus, Northeastern University historian and Dean of Libraries, Dan Cohen (2019), recently reported on the dramatic decline in withdrawal of books at academic institutions only weeks before a report appeared stoutly defending the scholarly role of the monograph (CUP and OUP, 2019). Plainly readers and writers do not agree on the durability of familiar forms of publishing. It has been hard to dislodge the priority given to the article and mono-
graph. Disciplinary habits rule, as does the academic reward system with its expectations of work in familiar formats. But literature and scholarly publications scholar, Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2015), has asked about our “primary forms.” She recognizes their durability. They look “utterly natural, the shapes of thought itself.” To be sure, “the constraints presented by the forms of the book and the journal article have in many cases been productive, giving structure to the analysis and exploration that we undertake.” Still, the conventional formats are also limitations: “There has long been nothing in the large space between the
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What To Look For In This Issue: Virtually, Yours............................... 72 Back to School!.............................. 94
If Rumors Were Horses
Interviews
T A few years ago Bruce Strauch did this painting of Bill Hannay’s dog. We miss you Bill.
journal article and the book, a space that might have been occupied by the pamphlet or the chapbook but never was, because that inbetweenness of shape made them literally undistributable.” Why shouldn’t the length of books be part of how we rethink what we want from writing and reading? In fact, by now there are many publishers of short academic books. We can even see that interest in them has a history (Weiland and Ismail, 2018). University presses have been leading the way, but SAGE can now be recognized as an important part of the story. It followed its own failed experiments (in the early 1970s) with
he Charleston Library Conference was invited to present a session this year during the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2020. The event was on Friday, October 16 and was on the Frankfurter Book Fair virtual platform. Labeled the Charleston Library Conference meets the Frankfurter Buchmesse, our session included two panels with the incredibly talented moderation of Leah Hinds! The speakers were Ivy Anderson, Todd Carpenter, Jill Heinze, Roy Kaufman, Jim O’Donnell, Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, Anja Smit, and Charles Watkinson. The first panel discussed the state of the academic library, the future of the monograph, values-based collection development, and developing and implementing a marketing program. The second continued on page 6
Khal Rudin..................................... 52 Tim Lloyd and Sara Rouhi............. 87 Special Reports
The LYRASIS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 2020 Survey Report....... 74 Librarian Engagement at the University of Minnesota................. 76 We All Serve: Library-wide Distributed Desk Service................ 78 Profiles Encouraged
People and Company Profiles........ 92 Plus more............................See inside
1043-2094(202011)32:5;1-C