Berkshire Blog 2004-2023 running text version

We started our Religion & Society series in 1998 because it seemed to us that religion was increasingly important in the world and yet misunderstood by many educated people. After the recent US elections, it's hard to ignore the impact of religion in modern life and international relations. Berkshire feels a great sense of responsibility here. We have many sincere and admirable contributors who are fundamentalist scholars, and we are working with them to make their point of view comprehensible to nonbelievers. In light of current events, however, we feel much sympathy with Frederick Douglass's writing about the Christianity of the slave-owning southern states, which you can read here. Obviously times have changed, but questions of integrity and justice remain relevant today. Click below to read Douglass's remarks. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass contrasted the Christianity that prevailed in the South and the Christianity of Christ: "I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. "What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest, possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. "...I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow skin (whip) during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me.

Why is the sky blue? How does that bug stay up on the water? Why can't I hit him? My kids are teenagers, so the questions they are are more sophisticated now, but they're still mostly 'how?' and 'why?' (and I'm still struggling with answers.) How? and Why? are the questions that lead lead people to scientific discovery, and to religion. And they're the questions that help us operate in the world, day by day. A two-year-old want to understand because they're natively, naturally curious but also because understanding how a waterbug skates across the pond might help her to do it too. There are two questions I've heard more than any others since we started creating reference: 'Aren't you afraid you're going to run out of ideas?' and 'What's so special about what you do?' That is, 'How (do you come up with new ideas?),' and 'Why (do you do this?).' Answering these questions is what the publishing thread on the blog is all about, but we'll also explore just what reference is and does and means, in this information loaded and overloaded world of ours.

I first heard the word blog when we were compiling the headword list for the Encyclopedia of Community, the subtitle of which is 'from the village to the virtual world.' Our Internet communities editor Barry Wellman had included it and we already had an author signed up. "What," I said irritably, "is a blog?" "A web log, of course," said our project assistant, "Do you have a problem with including it?" I was chagrined not to know about them, and chagrined that our Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction had gone to press without an article on web logs. But "Blog" remained in place in our new work on all aspects of community. In fact, they were everywhere in 2004. (Remember the New York Times magazine cover story about the political bloggers at the party conventions?) In that article for the Encyclopedia of Community, Jason Nolan explains, "Blogs have been traced back to 1997, according to Rebecca Blood, an early chronicler of blogging and author of The weblog handbook. They were termed weblogs by blogger Jorn Barger, and only twenty-three were known to exist when 'Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it 'wee-blog' and inevitably this was shortened to "blog"' (Blood, 2000). Blogs are children of older online technologies such as Usenet News, bulletin boards, handrolled web pages, and eve MOOs (Multi-User Object Oriented systems), but the blogging revolution comes from the ease with which one can update and maintain an online journal." Blogs are not necessarily a community-building tool, like a wiki or even an old-fashioned online bulletin board. But they can be, and that's where we're heading with this blog. I'm getting it warmed up, but we'll soon have others connected with Berkshire Publishing adding their thoughts, and we want to move the debate about interdisciplinary scholarship started at the Charleston Conference to this forum.

Berkshire Publishing does not have an experienced exhibition team, and as usual we're making do with enthusiasm, creativity, and elbow grease as we set up our first ALA exhibit in Boston. Have fun with the interactive floor map of exhibitors. We're at #1529. Kind of stuck in the back corner, but right by Ebsco and Scholastic, and not far from ABC-CLIO, so the traffic should be fine. Especially with free chair massage and Berkshire Mountain water available! BERKSHIRE EVENTS AT BOSTON MIDWINTER ALA, 14-17 JANUARY 2005 Friday 5.00-7.00pm-----------Meet David Levinson, editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Encyclopedia of Marriage & the Family, and Encyclopedia of Crime & Punishment Saturday, all day------------FREE CHAIR MASSAGE Saturday 2.30-4.30pm---------Meet Mary Leonhardt, Teaching A Love of Reading, signing and give-away Sunday, all day--------------FREE CHAIR MASSAGE Sunday 1.00-3.00pm-----------Meet Karen Christensen, The Armchair Environmentalist

Promoting a love of reading. Not just promoting literacy, a skill, the decipherment text. No, we want students who read, and we need citizens who read too, with understanding and pleasure. Berkshire thinks all publishers should be reading themselves and promoting reading in every way possible. Lucky for us, our favorite author on this topic, Mary Leonhardt, lives in the Boston area. She spent several hours Saturday afternoon signing and giving away copies of her latest book at the Berkshire booth.

We're set up and in action now, on the floor with buttons that say "Librarian, n. Expert in human-computer interaction." The buttons have been a hit, with people taking extras for colleagues back home. As you'll see from the photo below, we also have Data, the sci-fi character! Librarians truly are experts in human-computer interaction and the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction has dozens of solid, expert-written articles just right for professional development: "the first encyclopedia solely dedicated to the topic" with "highly readable general overviews and useful bibliographies,---the authoritative overviews of wide-ranging topics, gathered in one convenient resource, will appeal to general readers. Recommended for public libraries and undergraduate collections." - Library Journal, January 2005. It was highly satisfying to be part of ALA in this new way, as exhibitors ourselves, and a great chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues from both sides of the Atlantic. While we have, as one client put it, gone from "collaborator to competitor," reference publishing is a collegial world where collaboration is essential to delivering the products and services our customers want, especially in digital forms. Apart from time in the booth meeting librarians and holding events (the chair massage was a hit), Steve Hibbard and I spent most of our time talking to various companies about digital options for getting World History and World Sport online.

Steve Hibbard, our director/advisor, is here this week from Australia. Digital strategy is very much on our minds after ALA, where we looked at a variety of database products and systems for distributing reference content. An important part of this is looking at what we can learn from Google and from free content websites. When publishers and librarians talk about Google, it reminds me of environmentalists talking about cars. They want Google, and the automobile, to go away and often talk as if that's a real possibility. I don't agree, because Google and your Geo provide mobility we've come to expect, enjoy, and benefit from. My aim is to promote conscious use and alternatives that make sense, and to find ways to make these aspects of life in the 21st century enriching and sustainable.

Credit where credit is due. There were lots of other things that helped me get through our first ALA, and my first trade show (David was the experienced hand, having done anthropology exhibits during his e-publishing days at HRAF). Designer Linda Weidemann worked late and early with me, finalizing banners and buttons. Our son Tom was a willing "roadie," loading boxes of books and hauling bottles of water, and staffers who came to Boston, Marcy Ross and Jess LaPointe, were fantastic. So was Tom Pemberton, who offered chair massage. But I wouldn't have made it through the conference without this pair of shoes! I've been suffering from a pulled tendon, but thought I would be fine for ALA; two hours on those concrete floors, even with carpet padding, had me switching shoes for survival. If only I'd thought to explain them in a more creative way: I should have told people I was wearing trainers to promote our next major launch, the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport!

Seth Godin's an interesting marketing master: an ebullient promoter of the dot.com era who seemed to move effortlessly into the post.com world. I waver, buying his books, reading his blog, but remaining something of a skeptic about his pronouncements (and what else is there to call the advice given during the dot.com era?--the certainty with which people spoke then was up there with Moses). About the time I started writing here, he scared me for a minute with wonderful, totally apt comment: Beware the CEO blog. I decided to persevere; as you can see, I'm still working up to controversy.