Last week, as I began cleaning out the drawers of the office I’ve worked in for about 15 of my 18 years at ITI, the refrain of a Woody Guthrie song got stuck in my head.

No, not that most famous of all Guthrie tunes (audio link) but rather a song about Woody being chased off by a “dusty old dust storm” that’s a’gettin’ his home.

You can listen to So Long It’s Been Good to Know You on YouTube now, if you like, or come back to it later. Either way, it’s a classic worth hearing.

American folk singer Woody Guthrie. (Photo by Eric Schaal/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

But what, you may ask, is this dust storm that’s come up behind me to push me down the road? Well, I’d suggest it’s largely silicon dust that’s blowing, because years ago, before the internet infiltrated our lives, people read and purchased a lot of books. Times and reading habits have changed.

There’s no denying there are still millions of book lovers out there — as a reader of this column you likely count yourself among them — along with countless folk who rely on the long form for educational and professional reasons. And it would be unfair to blame the book crisis on the internet alone. The entertainment choices we have today are staggering, and as addicting as they are time consuming. Gaming and television along with social networking have usurped much of the human attention span that was once invested in books.

Copyright © Punch Limited

Any way you look at it, there has been a sea change and the book publishing business is struggling. Some say it’s on life support. A lot of talented and hard working publishing professionals have lost their jobs in recent years due to declining book sales and I’m just the latest to join their ranks.

I can’t and won’t complain about being downsized because I’ve seen it coming for years and my boss has bent over backwards to accommodate me. There’s a lot to be thankful for. Prior to 18 memorable years here, I worked just as many years for assorted publishing firms, including my own startup. I’ve collaborated with hundreds of gifted authors and colleagues, worked in diverse genres and formats, published award-winning fiction and nonfiction, and acquired and developed at least one New York Times bestseller that became an Emmy-winning tv series.

Of course there’s uncertainty about what the future may hold, but I’m looking forward to the next challenge. It is likely to be entrepreneurial in nature. (Becoming a member of AIIP — a marvelous association comprised of and supporting entrepreneurs — is going to be a big help.) About the only thing I feel sure of is that I will continue to help writers tell their stories.

It’s in me blood.

So this is my final ITI blog post and I want to use it to say goodbye. Before I do, I want to share with you some of the terrific titles we’ve been working on as the clock ticked down to Zero Hour. It’s been an honor to have worked with the authors and editors behind these books, and I can honestly say that every one of them was a pleasure to work with.

My 2016 “Swan Song” titles include:

Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits, edited by the late Mimi Drake (a wonderful person to work with and to know) and Don Hawkins

Digital Photo Magic: Easy Image Retouching and Restoration for Librarians, Archivists, and Teachers, by Ernest Perez

Inside Content Marketing

Inside Content Marketing: EContent Magazine’s Guide to Roles, Tools, and Strategies for Thriving in the Age of Brand Journalism, by Theresa Cramer

The Accidental Taxonomist, Second Edition

The Accidental Taxonomist, 2nd Ed., by Heather Hedden

Ten Characteristics of Quality Indexes

Ten Characteristics of Quality Indexes: Confessions of an Award-winning Indexer, by Margie Towery

Online Teaching in K-12

Online Teaching in K-12: Models, Methods, and Best Practices for Teachers and Administrators, edited by Sarah Bryans-Bongey (that’s my kid sister!) and Kevin Graziano

Indexing Tactics & Tidbits

Indexing Tactics & Tidbits: An A to Z Guide, by Janet Perlman

Deep Text

Deep Text: Using Text Analytics to Conquer Information Overload, Get Real Value from Social Media, and Add Big(ger) Text to Big Data, by Tom Reamy

The Future Scholar

The Future Scholar: Researching and Teaching the Frameworks for Writing and Information Literacy, edited by Randall McClure & Jim Purdy (third in a terrific series from ASIS&T – webpage to follow)

Editing Research: The Author Editing Approach to Providing Effective Support to Writers of Research Papers, by Valerie Matarese (sorry there’s no webpage yet)

Watch for these books, take care, and I’ll see you when the dust settles.

The post So long, it has been good to know you appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

The post Author Michael Gruenberg at Computers in Libraries 2016 appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

Ernest Perez has a terrific new book out that describes the best of easy-to-use, free, and inexpensive apps for retouching, restoring, and manipulating digital images. Perez’s goal in writing Digital Photo Magic was to save time and money for librarians, teachers, archivists, and others who find they have some image clean-up or “repair” ahead of them en route to creating digital collections, exhibits, or publications.

Early feedback suggests he has succeeded, and then some.

Perez–a former library director at the Houston Chronicle and Chicago Sun-Times and a frequent contributor to the library literature–begins with a useful overview of the current situation as regards digital photo resources and retouching technologies. He goes on to explain why librarians, archivists, museum curators, and educators care about such matters–or should.

The longtime news librarian and passionate amateur photographer speaks to the challenges faced by organizations that operate on tight budgets and with limited human resources, yet still need to do credible (often public-facing) work with digital images. He offers a primer on “Digital Image Details” in Chapter 2–available as a sneak peek here.

Perez’s confident and enthusiastic approach makes you want to dive right in and start using his “digital photo magic” (DPM) system right away. There are hundreds of remarkable free and low-cost tools out there and, in most cases, little or no previous experience is needed to use them effectively. Perez points you to his favorites and lets you know what they do best.

Not author Ernest Perez, but John Wilkes Booth as restored using DPM. (The book reveals the step-by-step process.)

What I think of as the heart of the book are the dozens of step-by-step tutorials and before-and-after shots (many from the author’s personal collection of family snapshots, along with numerous historic images). But Perez doesn’t stop there as he makes what some might consider “grunt work” fun and easy.

I think I know what Ernest Perez is doing right now: he’s at his computer, tinkering with some online program he just learned about, mastering new techniques for restoring old photos, retouching friends’ social headshots, removing entire objects (and people) from landscape scenes, and adding dramatic graphic touches to free his inner artist. Already a digital photo magician, he wants you to be one, too–that’s why he wrote the book, and it’s why he’s going to keep things fresh on the DPM website.

Digital Photo Magic is widely available as an ebook, including direct from the ITI ebookstore, but I must admit I love the way it turned out in print. Hey, your humble editor put some time in on this one–I’m dying to know what you think!

The post Planning to Retouch, Repair or Manipulate Digital Images? appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

There’s a mind-boggling amount of publicly funded information out there — much of it useful, and most of it collected, organized, and made available by our government and its corps of dedicated information professionals. Yet most people don’t even stop to think about it, let alone take advantage.

An opportunity to work with the late Miriam “Mimi” Drake and her co-editor Don Hawkins on Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits brought the topic home. This is a timely and useful new book that, among other things, reminds us that all this information is ours. I could say more about the book but I’d rather use this space to talk about Mimi. She was a special person who disarmed me, memorably, with kindness, curiosity, and laughter the first time we met.

Within days of receiving the worst news a person can get, Mimi called to calmly explain the situation and express her determination that the book would be published with or without her. Her commitment and vision was an inspiration to me and Don Hawkins, to whom we (smartly) turned in our hour of need. Public Knowledge reflects Mimi’s lifelong passion for connecting people with information and I feel honored to have helped get it done.

It’s a shame Mimi did not live to see the book published, but I’m grateful we have it to remember her by. She was the best.

The post She never forgot it was ours appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

To all our friends, everywhere around the world … to those we know and those we hope to meet … we send warm thoughts and wishes for the holiday season and throughout the New Year!

Design and photo of the book tree by Shelley Szajner

The post Wishing You Peace and Happiness appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

Key point:

This text provides an interesting beginner’s guide for practical applications of Web 2.0 tools in libraries and it allows the reader to discover a vast amount of resources that are unknown and can be important for libraries in this technology driven age.

You can read the full review here. [PDF]

The post Review of The Cybrarian’s Web appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

I am always giddy as a schoolgirl when a new Information Today book debuts, and never more so than when the author is the remarkable Cheryl Ann Peltier-Davis — the “scintillatin’ cybrarian” of the post title.

Those of you who know Cheryl are aware of her seemingly boundless enthusiasm for social media tools and apps that can be used to innovate and improve library services and make the world a better, more interesting place.

There’s a fascinating back story here. Shortly after co-editing an award-winning book about Caribbean libraries with Shamin Renwick, Cheryl was bitten by some bug that put her into a somnambulistic state. When the fever passed and she resumed normal activity, the only discernible change in Cheryl was an obsession for learning everything she possibly could about proliferating web technologies and apps and sharing this knowledge with her peers.

Ever since that time, Cheryl (who hails from Trinidad and Tobago, btw) has been getting down in the trenches — researching and experimenting with every intriguing free tool she can get her hands on, reaching out to discover how her fellow librarians are using them, and offering practical guidance to the rest of us through her excellent books and blog posts.

But enough about the author — we know she’s phenomenal. The new book is The Cybrarian’s Web 2, and as the numeral would suggest, it’s a followup to an earlier volume that Library Journal called “essential for libraries of all types.”

The Cybrarian’s Web 2

The new volume picks up where its predecessor left off, presenting 61 free tech tools that only a cybrarian could love (not really, but I like the phrase). If you want to get a taste of what it’s all about, download this robust sampler which includes a ToC, the foreword by David Lee King, the author’s introduction, and a chapter from the book, among other goodies.

And if you’re attending Computers in Libraries next week you can see Cheryl there (she is presenting on 5/29), congratulate her on her latest achievement, pick up The Cybrarian’s Web 2 at a great price, and have her sign it for you.

Tell her JB sent you. I don’t know if it’ll get you a better discount but it ought to be good for a knowing eye roll.

The post The Scintillatin’ Cybrarian appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

I had the great pleasure last Tuesday of seeing one of ITI’s newest authors, Amy Affelt–she of The Accidental Data Scientist fame–when she came to New Jersey at the invitation of NJ SLA to receive the Alice Rankin Award and give a talk (they call it a “lecture”) on the topic of emerging tech trends and the role of librarians.

It was a terrific afternoon and evening and Amy was extremely well-received. No surprise there. People just seem to gravitate to her. (She’s got “It,” you know.)

I knew from having met Amy at Internet Librarian in 2013 (where we first discussed a Big Data book for librarians), and later during the course of producing her book, that she is a focused, super-savvy, deadline aware (driven?)  information professional with terrific communication and writing skills. However, it wasn’t until this second meeting, which began with a delicious lunch at Harold’s Deli in Edison (not a place for vegans), that I learned how modest, even self-effacing she is.

“What if nobody shows up for my book signing?” she wanted to know.

Hah! The book signing was a resounding success and I am now pronouncing the first-time author as ready for the Bigger Time. Here’s hoping we will all be seeing much more of this wonderful writer, speaker, and librarians’ advocate in the months and years to come!

(Tip: just 3 weeks from now Amy will be appearing at the Computers in Libraries Conference. Don’t miss it.)

The post The Day the Data Scientist Came To Town appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

Nan Badgett makes a great case for the indexing life in her new book, The Accidental Indexer. That’s not to say she doesn’t point out the perils, pitfalls, and personal suitability issues that anyone should weigh before diving into a career in freelance indexing–she does, unequivocally–but after spending the last several months living and breathing this text I’m thinking my next foray in publishing might be to the Land of the Indexers.

Certainly, with Nan’s terrific (and hot off the press) book to guide me, I couldn’t be a complete failure … right? Of course, I’d need to get my hands on one of the indexing software programs she describes, and a handful of the reference books, and maybe get some serious hands-on training at Indexing Boot Camp or during the annual ASI Conference–but I think I could do it. I think I’d even like it. Of course, there’s marketing and promotion to think about … and deadlines. Indexers are always up against deadlines. Plus they have to deal with publishers. Ugh.

So … maybe I’m not quite ready to stop editing books and start indexing them, but it’s good to know that the skill is in demand and that Nan Badgett and ASI will be there to help me along when my time comes. (Did you know that machines are not likely to replace indexers any time soon, and that search engines complement but don’t supplant indexes?)

In the meantime, if you’ve ever wondered what an indexer does, and what she has in common with a misunderstood cabbage cultivar called kohlrabi, and why an indexing career might be a great fit for you or someone you know, grab a copy of [Spoiler Alert–Table of Contents and Sample Chapter Ahead!] The Accidental Indexer. This is a really informative book that’s also fun to read.

Okay, I’ve praised the book–will someone please pass the kohlrabi already?

The post Praise the book and pass the kohlrabi appeared first on ITI Books Blog.

We published a pretty special book this week – Amy Affelt’s The Accidental Data Scientist: Big Data Applications and Opportunities for Librarians and Information Professionals. I had a good feeling about this project from the start, and sure enough, before there was even a webpage or a catalog listing for the book, people were calling and emailing to ask when it was going to be available.

(I’m not sure where they heard about it, but apparently they all needed it right away.)

Well, now the book is available (at a reduced price for another week or so) and I predict it will be our most in-demand title of 2015. Hats off to Amy Affelt who did everything right – even blowing her editor’s mind by delivering her manuscript early. (Like THAT ever happens!)

Most importantly, Amy brings a perfect mix of passion and knowledge to her Big Data manifesto for librarians. She is determined to see her peers take their rightful seat at the Big Data table, plus she knows where the table is and how to get the intimidating guy in the suit to stop scowling and pull a chair out for you.

For those who want to know more, we issued a press release on Monday, and if you have some time to inspect the particulars, download the pdf sampler which includes the book’s Table of Contents,  Introduction, Chapter 1, and an author bio. (Don’t miss the bonus headshot of our photogenic “celebrity” author.)

Amy Affelt has done something important in writing this book. I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do for an encore.

The post Big Data Librarians Have Landed appeared first on ITI Books Blog.