With the advent of the internet and growing popularity of Wikipedia, traditional library reference tools have experienced a decline in use.  As a result, many reference publishers began producing electronic books or converting traditional print multi-volume titles to online databases.  While this has been a valiant effort, much of the content still goes undiscovered due [...]

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From a Gale Press Release: Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and Portico, part of the not-for-profit organization ITHAKA, today announced Gale will be preserving three additional digital historical collections with Portico. This follows the completed ingest of 10 Gale Digital Collections—including 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, The Making of Modern Law: Primary Resources and Eighteenth Century [...]

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This post was reprinted in full from the Points of Reference blog at Booklistonline.com. Each year at the ALA Annual Conference, Booklist’s Reference Books Bulletin sponsors a program to discuss various topics related to reference and reference publishing.  This year RBB’s session focused on the process of creating a reference work, from idea to reality.  [...]

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RUSA (Reference & User Services Division of ALA) sponsored a panel discussion of the product development of electronic reference products.  It was organized by RUSA, with Joseph Yue of the University of California at the lead and moderated by  Kay Cassell from Rutgers SLIS.  The panel included Frank Menchaca from Gale/Cengage, Rolf Janke from SAGE [...]

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If you’re going the ALA Annual Conference later this month, mark your calendar for the for the Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin program “Reference Work from Idea to Reality.” How does an idea turn into a reference book–or a reference database? Some heavy-hitters from reference publishing will discuss the process from initial concept to publication and beyond. [...]

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From a Gale Press Release: Farmington Hills, Mich., Dec. 1, 2009 – Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and Portico, part of the not-for-profit organization ITHAKA, announced today an agreement in which Portico will digitally preserve archival versions of a number of the Gale Digital Collections. “We chose to work with Portico because they are a [...]

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May 6, 2008 I had a nice conversation with Frank Menchaca, Executive VP and Publisher of Gale/Cengage Learning.  We discussed the importance of updating eBooks and what plans Gale has in place to do this, including Smart Reference and GVRL 2.0 – both forthcoming. I recommend you download the file first, then listen. May 2008 [...]

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