In Case You Haven’t Heard…

UPDATE:  The book has been completed.  See the more recent post for details.

There is a new book on library residency programs in the works.  Currently, information regarding the creation, design, implementation, management, and promotion of library residency programs lacks centralization in our profession. There is not a single association, division, or section of any national library association, including ALA and ARL, which is responsible for maintaining current information regarding program availability and management.

Traditionally, most practitioners will consult with individuals (Raquel Cogell and Julie Brewer, in particular) when seeking information regarding residency programs. The purpose of this new book is to help centralize information and to provide a permanent record of residency history to date, strategies for management from program coordinators, descriptions of program design elements (including the development of a curricular component), and narratives of program experiences by different residents, both former and present.

Additionally, it is designed as a continuation and extension of Diversity in Libraries: Academic Residency Programs by Cogell and Gruwell, the preeminent title on the subject. The new title will serve as a complementary manuscript, and not a superseded edition, so that the two together provide a set of texts recording residency program activity over a series of successive decades facilitating future, longitudinal research.

It will also serve as a resource that can be consulted by individuals anywhere the book is available, independent of the availability of individual experts such as Brewer and Cogell.

There are two co-editors (Megan Perez and Cindy Gruwell) steering this new project team (a group of 25 contributors working steadily away as I write this). The writers represent over 10 different universities including Towson University, Purdue University, University of Alberta, University Louisville, University of Delaware, University of Denver, North Carolina State University, University of Arkansas, and the University of Northern Illinois; and are employed in a wide array of classifications from current resident all the way up to library dean.

The writers are:

The book is due to the publisher (Libraries Unlimited/ACB-CLIO) by June of 2010.  We’re moving at a fairly decent clip though so it may be submitted sooner.  Hopefully, it will hit the shelves in late 2010, or early 2011.  We’ll put up a facebook fan page for it, too, as the time draws near.  In the interim, there is a series of photographic progress charts I’ve been keeping  that you can follow to see how it’s going.

We are all working diligently, and pretty excited about it, so get your popcorn ready.

More to come.