Let 'em Rip!
Julie Cummins, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 12/1/2000
First impressions are important. Remember when you were young and you were told to put your best foot forward, to look nice, to mind your manners and speak up so you would make a good impression? In the publishing business, great efforts are made to entice you to pick up a magazine or a book with an appealing or intriguing cover. Book publishers try to impress you with advertising in all sorts of venues, to persuade you, lure you, into reading the current, hottest title. A young boy with black, round-framed glasses and a zigzag scar on his forehead made a huge impression, one so big that the New York Times was intimidated enough to create a separate "Best Sellers" list for children's books. (And the Harry Potter sensation also taught a whole lot of people how to spell the word "phenomenon.") Now that's a blockbuster first impression. So how does a new editor-in-chief of a journal impress the readers with her first editorial? First, she should have something to say and then express it in a pithy way that will keep readers interested in continuing to read the publication. She needs to speak with a strong voice, and tell them just how she intends to put the journal's best foot forward. Okay, what does that mean? I've been an advocate for library services to children and young adults my entire career. And I've never been known to hesitate or hold back in speaking up and out. In my book, there are three key factors that make a journal successful. The content must be relevant, it must be interesting and insightful, and it must offer perspective and a point of view. What's printed on the pages must be useful to the person who is reading it, enabling individuals to do their job better--school media specialists, public librarians, educators, library school faculty, and anyone else involved or interested in the field of library services to youth. The articles must be interesting and provide insight. The news and information must be relevant. And the third important element is that collectively, the publication should offer perspective; the features should focus on issues, trends, developments; and the editorial should not be afraid to identify or tackle problems or speculate on future directions and implications--or the lack thereof. We're prone in this profession to coining acronyms, and if you take the first letters of those three factors--Relevance, Insightful and interesting, Perspective and point of view--they form the action verb rip. That word reflects how I expect to implant my imprint on SLJ. I hope my first editorial makes a good first impression, one that will grab your attention, pique an idea, and keep you coming back for more, because I intend to speak up and let the pages of this journal rip. Julie Cummins
Editor-in-Chief
jcummins@cahners.com
Renée Olson
Editor-in-Chief
rolson@slj.cahners.com
