Berkshire Blog 2004-2023

This blog, mostly written by Karen Christensen but occasionally by Berkshire staffers, was started at the end of 2004. Over the years, it changed. Some of this informal notes moved to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter , and perhaps other now-forgotten platforms. Much moved into regular email newsletters. Some of those newsletters were also posted to the blog, conscious as we have always been that online platforms change, and disappear. Karen is mostly to be found on Substack now, and at her own website, KarenChristensen.org. We’re preserving the 2004-2023 record here, and starting a new blog for current Berkshire news, in addition to our mailings for teachers and librarians, at Berkshire Bookworld. Karen’s blog was featured in the Washington Post in 2006: that story is here.

October 2004

Armchair Environmentalist on BBC News

MQP's new book The Armchair Environmentalist by Karen Christensen was the focus of a three-minute video on BBC Breakfast news. The item, by reporter Phillipa Young, was also shown on the hour throughout the

December 2004

The Pursuit of Truth

"Genuinely inclusive world history is such a helpful, even necessary, guide for survival in the crowded world in which we live." So wrote our senior editor, William H. McNeill, about the Berkshire Encyclopedia of

Frederick Douglass on Christianity

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,

January 2005

Why is the sky blue?

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

Why are we blogging?

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

Setting up in Boston

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

Greening our libraries

Public (and school) libraries are vital social centers, and should be part of all community endeavors to make the world a better place! Here are the tips I'll be handing out to librarians here at

Promoting a love of reading

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

Reporting from ALA

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

Googling and the reference road ahead

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.

From the ground up

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

Beware the CEO blog

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