Dear Folks,
I'm sending a special appeal to the field regarding the Third
Edition of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences
(CRC Press, 2010). My Co-Editor Mary N. Maack and I did
our very best to bring the highest quality encyclopedia to the
field.
This was a monster project--a huge commitment by many people.
Over 700 authors--including many of you--and a 50-person advisory
panel were involved in writing the many brand-new and updated
article-length entries in the 7-volume, 5,742-page encyclopedia
(also available in online form). Some of the best-known
researchers and professional leaders from many countries
contributed.
After retiring, I worked full time for 4 years as
Editor-in-Chief, and Mary worked on overload for the same time
while still working full time at UCLA. No fewer than 13,000
email messages were exchanged on my portion of the work alone.
We worked and re-worked the contents so as to create as
comprehensive, balanced, and up-to-date coverage as possible of
several information disciplines, including LIS, archives, museum
studies, informatics, knowledge management, and social studies of
information.
-->Yet only half of the US and Canadian LIS
programs have bought the encyclopedia, according to OCLC's
WorldCat. Most of the British, Scandinavian, or other European
schools have not bought it, despite the many authors--over 30% of the
total--that we were able to attract from outside the U.S. I know
these have been unusually hard times economically, but if we are not
able to recognize and take up such a huge communal project so central
to our field--then what does matter to us as a professional
community?
Rather than an encyclopedia to be consulted only occasionally, it
should be thought of as a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of
all the specialties in the information disciplines--a review that
can be consulted frequently, with the articles widely used in
classrooms. ASIST members were kind enough to award it the
"Best Information Science Publication of the Year" award for
2010. (See a recent review in: Tony
Chalcraft, (2011) Reference Reviews, 25(1): 9-11.)
Please see the full Introduction, Topical Table of Contents, and
Alphabetical Table of Contents on my website: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/ .
The Topical Table of Contents best presents the underlying structure
of the encyclopedia, being grouped by the major categories of topics
covered.
-->Remember, you as faculty can recommend the purchase of
items by your library; don't assume that the purchase will happen
otherwise.
Thanks for your attention, Marcia
--
Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of
Science
Editor, Encyclopedia of Library and
Information Sciences, 3rd Ed.
Department of Information Studies
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520 USA
Tel: 310-206-9353
Fax: 310-206-4460
Web: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/