School Library Journal» Meredith Schwartz

Finding Bigfoot in the Stacks

Meredith Schwartz — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:36:41 +0000

Columbus State Community College’s Delaware, OH, Campus Learning Center starts its information literacy outreach early—really early. The library doesn’t just reach out to new students, or even prospective students. It’s starting with elementary school students, thanks to a campus-wide partnership between the college and the Delaware City School District.

Reed Adds Library Amendment to Immigration Bill

Meredith Schwartz — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:29:54 +0000

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) is offering a library amendment to the immigration bill that the Senate is considering this week. The amendment, #1223, would make public libraries eligible for funding for English language instruction and civics education, and would also add Susan Hildreth, the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to the Task Force on New Americans. The American Library Association (ALA) is asking its members to call their Senators in support of Reed’s amendment.

According to the Congressional Record, Reed said that the amendment “recognizes the longstanding role that libraries have played in helping new Americans learn English, American

civics, and integrate into our local communities. It ensures that they continue to have a voice in these critical efforts… This amendment expands on the recent partnership between U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and IMLS.” He also cited IMLS statistics which say that more than 55 percent of new Americans use a public library at least once a week.

The bill itself, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, seeks to strike a balance between creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and addressing concerns about border protection. It does so in part by tying the authority to confer new, more protected statuses on undocumented immigrants to the creation and implementation of stringent border controls. These include registered provisional immigrant (RPI) status, and the subsequent conversion of such registered provisional immigrants to lawful permanent resident status.

Among the criteria for RPI status are English language skills, which makes Reed’s amendment particularly relevant.

Originally introduced by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the bill has seven co-sponsors—four Republicans, three Democrats—including two from the border state of Arizona. (That co-sponsors number may soon fall to six; Senator Marco Rubio [R-FL] said he would withdraw his support for the bill if an amendment which would give equal protection to opposite-sex spouses were added.) In spite of its bipartisan support, GovTrack gives the bill as a whole only a 27 percent chance of being enacted.

Reed Backs Workforce Investment in Libraries Too

Senator Reed speaks about workforce investment at a Rhode Island library

Reed is a staunch supporter of libraries’ role in achieving civic goals. He also recently introduced, with Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), the Workforce Investments through Local Libraries Act (WILL) Act, which would recognize public libraries as allowable “One-Stop” partners, add library representation on workforce investment boards, and authorize new demonstration and pilot projects to establish employment resources in public libraries.

Reed spoke about the need for WILL at an event at the Cranston Public Library’s Central branch on June 14, along with Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT) Director Charles J. Fogarty, Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) Chief Library Officer Howard Boksenbaum, and Cranston Public Library Director Edward Garcia.

“The WILL Act strengthens the connection between our public libraries and the ‘One-Stop’ system to better serve job seekers with more targeted services,” said Reed. “The WILL Act would give library users better access to workforce activities and information related to training and employment opportunities, including resume development and job bank searches,” said Reed. “We need to maximize our resources and draw upon the strength of community assets like public libraries to ensure our workforce development efforts are effective and efficient.” According to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, 30 million Americans used a library computer to address their career and employment needs in 2009. Sadly, GovTrack gives WILL a zero percent chance of being enacted.

Rebecca T. Miller Named Editorial Director of Library Journals

Meredith Schwartz — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:00:36 +0000

Rebecca T. Miller

Rebecca T. Miller, Editor-in-Chief of School Library Journal, has accepted the position of Editorial Director of Library Journals, effective immediately. She will serve as Editor-in-Chief for both Library Journal and School Library Journal. Michael Kelley, previously Editor-in-Chief of LJ, is no longer with the company. Please submit LJ news and feature queries to Executive Editor Josh Hadro at jhadro@mediasourceinc.com.

Full release below:

Rebecca T. Miller Named Editorial Director of Library Journals: Will Lead LJ and SLJ

Media Source, Inc., today announced that Rebecca T. Miller, currently Editor-in-Chief of School Library Journal, has been named Editorial Director of Library Journals (LJS). In this position, she will serve as Editor-in-Chief for both Library Journal and School Library Journal, directing the editorial strategy of the two brands. Her new role is effective immediately.

“I’m pleased to announce that Rebecca Miller is now the Editorial Director of Library Journals,” said LJS publisher Ian Singer. “Prior to assuming the role of EiC of SLJ, Rebecca served as LJ’s Executive Editor for six years, and even while serving as SLJ’s EiC, she continued to provide leadership for LJ‘s Patron Profiles research and Design Institute events. As such, Rebecca understands deeply the mission of our brands, and I’m excited for our future.”

Miller, who was named Editor-in-Chief of School Library Journal in 2011, was an editor at LJ since 1998, serving as Executive Editor since 2005. She received her MLIS from Pratt Institute in 2009. At the helm of SLJ, she tuned the editorial strategy toward addressing the issues raised by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and launched Be the Change, a school library leadership initiative. Importantly, she also embraced the need for greater collaboration between library types, and created SLJ‘s first Public Library Leadership Think Tank as a national forum for leaders in children’s services. Throughout, Miller continued to work closely with LJ‘s editorial team on Patron Profiles research, architecture coverage, the Best Small Library in America Award, planning the Digital Shift virtual event, and more.

“The opportunity to connect the dots between these two venerable brands while better serving their distinct readerships is a deep honor,” said Miller. “I look forward to working even more closely with the excellent editorial staffs to deliver strong independent coverage of the many issues libraries face, insight into the best practices and innovative leaders at work, and robust professional development for librarians at all levels.”

Announcing the change to staff, Singer noted that the consolidation of the two Editor-in-Chief roles dovetails with the impending finalization of three technology investments to help support content integration across the brands’ various channels: a migration to the K4 cross-media publishing platform and WordPress content management system, and a consolidated book review database. “Our brands are going to continue to look inward for ways in which we can maximize our content opportunities and staff to best serve our core audience,” he said. “I believe consolidating the EiC position, with Rebecca in that role, for which I fully believe she is uniquely qualified, is the ideal starting point.”

ABOUT MEDIA SOURCE INC. Media Source, Inc., serves librarians, educators, publishers, and parents by producing critical information and services that maximize the value of libraries to their communities. Combining school, public, and academic library expertise with access to some of the best minds in the world of collection development, readers’ advisory, library management, and library technology, MSI’s brands offer invaluable resources for the library profession. Subsidiary companies include: Junior Library Guild, The Horn Book, Library Journal and School Library Journal. MSI acquired School Library Journal and Library Journal from Reed Business Information in early 2010. Visit mediasourceinc.com.

Penguin, Random House Merger Is On

Meredith Schwartz — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:11:30 +0000

Just days after word broke that a Penguin/Random House merger was a possibly, it’s nearly a done deal. The companies announced they’re creating a joint venture, pending regulatory approval. (To the disappointment of the Twitterverse, it will be named Penguin Random House, not Random Penguin.) Bertelsmann will own 53 percent, and Pearson, 47 percent of the new company. Markus Dohle, CEO of Random House, will be CEO; John Makinson, chairman and CEO of Penguin, will be chairman. Bertelsmann will nominate five directors to the board and Pearson, four. Penguin Random House will include all the publishing divisions and imprints of Random House and Penguin in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, as well as Penguin’s publishing company in China, and Random House’s Spanish-language publishing operations in Spain and Latin America. The joint venture excludes Bertelsmann’s trade publishing business in Germany, and Pearson keeps the rights to use the Penguin brand in education markets. Neither company can sell their interest for three years. From five years after the deal completes (expected to be the second half of 2013), either party can demand an IPO. And if Bertelsmann declines a Pearson offer to sell its entire holding, Pearson may require a recapitalization and dividend distribution. “The combination is subject to customary regulatory and other approvals, including merger control clearances,” Pearson said in a statement. Getting those approvals may not be a slam dunk: According to Shelf Awareness, Penguin Random House “is estimated to represent about 25 percent of trade publishing in the U.S. and U.K. and may have some antitrust difficulties.” However, SA added, “Manager Magazin in Germany said that the companies were already having detailed discussions with regulatory bodies in the U.S. and European Union.” And Makinson told the Guardian, “I don’t think our combined market share will trigger the need for disposals” because it is under 30 percent. Pearson and Bertelsmann say the joint venture’s “organic investment in authors and new product models will exceed the total investment” of the companies separately. And in a letter to literary agents published by Digital Book World, Random House says its imprints will still have “tremendous autonomy and financial resources to decide which books to publish, and how to publish them.” The deal forestalls a rival offer from NewsCorp to buy Penguin outright for about $1.6 billion, according to the U.K.’s Sunday Times, which is also owned by NewsCorp. The deal would have instead combined Penguin with HarperCollins. There’s no chance of Penguin changing its mind and taking the money, however. There is no breakup fee included in the Penguin-Random House agreement, according to Business Insider, which quoted Christian Steinhof, a Bertelsmann spokesman, as saying, “After five months of detailed discussions both sides are firmly committed to this transaction and saw no need for one.” Makinson sounded the same note in The Guardian, saying, “There isn’t any sort of break clause [with Bertelsmann],” he said. “It is a signed transaction.” As the Guardian noted, the plan doesn’t require approval by Pearson shareholders, so NewsCorp can’t outbid Bertelsmann that way. Though a small footnote to most, given the scale of the transaction, the merger creates uncertainty for libraries about which model the venture will follow when it comes to library ebooks, which is one of the areas in which what Marjorie Scardino, outgoing CEO of Pearson, called “an almost perfect match” of corporate cultures falls down. Random House, of course, currently sells what it calls ownership of ebooks to libraries, albeit at increased prices, while Penguin is only tentatively testing a return to the library market with a 3M pilot after breaking with OverDrive earlier this year. For financials, quotes, and ongoing updates on this evolving story, see infodocket.com.