Brian Unbound

July 21, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

As I mentioned, I was out at Kent State the other week visitng Carolyn Brodie, Greg Byerly and some of the other folks in the SLIS program.

Last time I was there I got to visit their usability lab, which uses high-tech software to measure eye movements as you browse the web--the lab has been used by a number of vendors and libraries in developing products. 

This trip I got to see something equally cool but completely different: the Marantz Collection. This is a picture book collection of over 21,000 volumes that the school received back in 2007. It was developed over the past 40 years by Kenneth and Sylvia Marantz, and I think goes right up to the present. Kenneth is professor emeritus of...Read More

July 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

God knows every other bookish editor has already held forth on the Kindle. So here's my belated take on Amazon's reading machine.

This week I traveled to Cleveland (off to interview the wonderful Carolyn Brodie who won the Scholastic Library Publishing Award--more on that later). Yes, it's just a 63 minute flight. But between the playful nature of the airline industry and the freakish nature of the weather, there's no telling whether that 63 minutes to Cleveland will turn into seven hours in Buffalo.

So I did what you probably do. I packed a bag of books. And it's got to be a mix: mysteries (subgenres too e...Read More

July 9, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (74)

Have you heard of 23 Things, the self-guided program for learning about 2.0 web technology? It was developed by Helene Blowers a couple of years ago at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and since then has been adopted across the country by public and school libraries, districts, and even entire states. It consists of a number of "things," or small exercises, that you do online to expand your knowledge of the 2.0 web and social networking, from blogs and podcasts to wikis and Twitter.

For a while now (and prodded by our Technology Editor, Kathy Ishizuka) I've realized it would be a great idea if all of us here at SLJ went through a "23 Things" like experience. After all, we are always writing ...Read More

July 7, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

OK, I'm back. Just couldn't find my password to get into this thing.

One of the best parts of being an editor is the email. Seriously! You just never know what's going to sail into your inbox.

Case in point: "Killing Me Softly: No Child Left Behind," an essay by author and (now former) teacher Jordan Sonnenblick. Certainly we've all heard--and many of us have made--similar arguments against NCLB. But Jordan's piece, told from such a personal perspective, made for an especially powerful case. It had drama. I rushed to get it into the magazine and onto the web, where it became one of our most popular articles.

It was also picked up by a number of blogs, including ...Read More

July 16, 2007 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

How often have you heard that....or said it yourself? Well, a press release just crossed my desk that just might help solve the problem. Marshall Cavendish has announced a new line of books, Marshall Cavendish Classics, that will "bring a select number of out-of-print titles from all publishers back into print. We are intetested in titles that have received awards, have enjoyed starred reviews, or have with stood the test of time in story hour."

So there you have. The ball's in your court. Get your suggestions over to Marilyn Mark, Associate Editor of  Children's Books at mmark@marshallcavendish.com

It will be interesing to see what they end up publishing. We here at SLJ are trying to keep up with new editions and reissues ourselves and have launched a new column, "Fresh Approaches, " in...Read More