Thursday, July 23, 2009

Just One Reference Book from Gale

I was just reading the new Points of Reference blog from Booklist in which Mary Ellen Quinn tells about the upcoming Fall Reference Preview. Her piece is a preview of the preview. In the first paragraph she states that Gale Publishing submitted information on only one reference title for the preview.

I am now trying to remember ten days ago in Chicago. Were there any books at all at the Gale exhibit at the American Library Association Annual Conference? I remember lots of monitors and keyboards and Gale staff ready to sell databases. I don't remember seeing any bookshelves. Had I forgotten that even Gale sells books? Were they around some corner I did not turn?

At the Booklist program Rethinking Reference Collections, panelists mused that the days of mostly digital reference sources are coming. Maybe they are already here. Our reference dollars will all go to big companies that can afford to build towers above the exhibit floor.

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