As I announced, the Atlas of New Librarianship has received the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. While I have been extremely grateful for the notes of congratulations, I cannot take all the credit. While the Atlas has my name on the front cover, it would not have been possible without the contributions and support of a lot of remarkable people. I put this list in the book, but it is always worth repeating (and augmenting a bit):
Atlas Research Team
This is the crew that did the heavy lifting on the Atlas manuscript through editing, reviewing, arguing, and generally getting it done. Todd Marshall, Angela Usha Ramnarine-Rieks, Heather Margaret Highfield, Jessica R. O’Toole, and Xiaoou Cheng. Special thanks to Julie Strong for her help.
Agreement Researchers
One of the advantages of being in an innovative school like Syracuse University’s iSchool is that every so often I get to make classes up. So I did. The students did a fantastic job of slogging through rough drafts of the threads and doing a lot of really amazing work on the agreements and discussion questions.
Jocelyn Clark, Amy Edick, Elizabeth Gall, Nancy Lara-Grimaldi, Michael Luther, Kelly Menzel, Andrea Phelps, Jennifer Recht, Sarah Schmidt, and William Zayac.
Participatory Networks White Paper
The work in this Atlas really began with the formation of participatory librarianship. That happened because Rick Weingarten and Carrie McGuire of the American Library Association’s Office for Information and Technology Policy (OITP) commissioned a white paper on social networking in libraries. Much of the foundational work on these concepts came from long hours of conversation between my co-authors, Joanne Silverstein and Scott Nicholson.
From the white paper on, OITP has been a great support in the work. I thank them and all the folks at ALA’s Washington Office: Emily Sheketoff, Rick Weingarten, Carrie McGuire, and Alan Inouye.
Starter Kit Sites
Most of the examples and experiments throughout the Atlas come from a wide variety of library and information settings. The following folks were gracious enough to open their doors for me and share their insights.
Blane Dessy and the librarians of the Department of Justice Law Libraries.
Linda Johnson and Sandra Horrocks of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, and Elliot Shelkrot, Joe McPeak, Kyle Smith, and all of the great librarians (past and present) of the Free Library.
Jeff Penka, Susan McGlamery, Paula Rumbaugh, and Tam Dalrymple of OCLC’s QuestionPoint service.
Robert Johnston and the librarians of LeMoyne College.
Elizabeth Stephens of the Glendale Library.
Participatory Librarianship Research Group
After the white paper was out, a group of talented faculty and doctoral and master’s students worked with me to further refine the ideas now in this Atlas: Todd Marshall, Angela Usha Ramnarine-Rieks, Joanne Silverstein, Jaime Snyder, Keisuke Inoue, David Pimentel, Gabrielle Gosselin, Agnes Imecs, and Sarah Webb.
Special thanks to Meg Backus for her ideas on innovation.
MIT Press
Marguerite Avery, Senior Acquisitions Editor, for giving the book a chance.
ACRL
Kathryn Deiss, for insisting that I had to publish with ACRL, and Mary Ellen Davis, who told me I was allowed to piss off anyone I needed to.
The ILEADU Team, the State Library of Illinois, and IMLS
Thanks to Anne Craig, Gwen Harrison, and all the folks involved with the ILEADU Project for giving me a chance to try out some of these ideas.
A special thank you to Mary Chute of IMLS for her reaction and support. Her leadership has pushed the field forward.
The John D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation
Thanks to Kathy Im and Elspeth Revere for supporting a study on the future of libraries and the development of the Reference Extract Idea. It is a rare treat to find funders who are great collaborators and ask the best questions. Also thanks to Connie Yowell for support on my credibility work.
Reference Extract is very much a product of brilliant collaborators like Jeff Penka, Mike Eisenberg, Eric Miller, and Uche Ogbuji.
Ideas and Reactions
I do practice what I preach. Most of my learning happens in conversations over lunch, coffee, and in hallways. What I love about the field of librarianship is that you are never at a loss for interesting company. I am going to miss a lot of people in making this list, but I wanted to give a shout out to some of the folks who had patience with me droning on about new librarianship.
Scott Nicholson, Joanne Silverstein, Meg Backus for the brilliant concepts on innovation versus entrepreneurship, Joe Janes, Eli Neiburger, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Mary Ghikas, George Needham, Chuck McClure, Michael Eisenberg, Joe Ryan, Megan Oakleaf, Blythe Bennett (who cemented the name for the Atlas), and Buffy Hamilton.
An apology to those I forgot.
General Acknowledgments
Thanks to my family, who had to see a lot of my back while I was typing in my office. Riley, I marvel every day at the man you are becoming. Andrew, you are the epitome of infectious joy. Anna Maria, my wife and love of my life, you make me a better man and the world a better place.
Thanks to all of the audiences of my presentations. Your questions, comments, and challenges honed these ideas. What’s more, they demonstrated that the best days of librarianship are ahead of us.
Thanks to the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, for the time to write this book.
Thanks to the Free Library of Fayetteville for the place to write. I can’t tell you the number of tough fixes I worked through on the Stickley furniture.
To Ray von Dran, who taught me true mentorship. He gave me my first real job, his trust, and faith. His time on Earth was too short, but his impact was great.
To my dad, who taught me that everything is retail. Whether you’re selling ink or ideas, you still have to sell. I miss him every day.
To my mom, who has every one of my books and may well be the only one to have read them all (including me).
To Michael Eisenberg, my one-time advisor, but always mentor and friend.
To Chuck McClure, who has shown me that staying on the top of your game throughout your career is possible.
To Joan Laskowski, my real boss.
To Lisa Pawlewicz for all her hard work in helping me play with technology.
To Marie Radford, who covered for my Atlas obsession on that other book.
To Liz Liddy who is the queen of encouragement and for her addiction to innovation.
Thanks to the creators of Galcon who gave me the perfect activity to think things through (well technically, take a break from thinking things through). And damn you Plants vs. Zombies for that lost week!
Librarians Who Have and Continue to Inspire Me
Abby Kaswowitz-Schear, Blythe Bennett, Joann Wasik, Pauline Shostack, Holly Sammons, Rivkah Sass, Sari Feldman, Stewart Bodner, Stephen Bell, Stephen Francoeur, Donna Dinberg (who is no doubt whipping Heaven’s reference desk into shape as we speak), Franceen Gaudet, Joe Janes, Nicolette Sosulski (a one-woman reference SWAT team), Jenny Levine, Karen Schneider, Joan Stahl, John Collins, Linda Arret, Nancy Morgan, Melanie Gardner, Joe Thompson, Buff Hirko, Caleb Tucker-Raymond, Nancy Huling, Jane Janis, Joyce Ray, Bob Martin, Tasha Cooper, Mary Chute, Keith Stubbs (although you may not have the degree, you have the brain, heart, and soul of a librarian), Joe Ryan (the first and second), Linda Smith, Pauline Nicholas, Kathleen Kerns, Meg Backus, Mary Fran Floreck, Kate McCaffrey, and Lorri Mon.