It’s been a while since I’ve blogged on my own blog, but I think it’s time! I have so much to share with anyone who might care… a new job in a new (to me) country, exciting new research projects coming up, a new book, and a new book series!

My new series will be called Computing for Information Professionals. After I submitted my proposal for my forthcoming book, Data and Databases for Information Professionals, to Facet Publishing, they not only wrote up a contract for the book, but they also talked with me about editing a series! I was so excited about the possibility! I’ve edited two books (Social Media for Academics: A Practical Guide as well as Indexing and Retrieval of Non-Text Information) as well as special issues in the ASIS&T Bulletin, but an entire series?! I can’t wait!

The premise behind my book, and the series, is deceptively simple: help information professionals learn how to do things with computers that they need to do. But the books won’t provide too much info, such as you’d find in a computer science textbook – or too little info, as you’d find in a 75-page introductory guide. For example, in Data and Databases for Information Professionals, you will not learn relational algebra, but you will learn how to create and work with relational data, semi-structured data, and unstructured data, and you will learn how data and databases work within library and information settings. (Hint: data and databases are hiding everywhere!)

My various experiences with databases are informing my writing for Data and Databases for Information Professionals: experience as a corporate database administrator, systems librarian days, teaching both basic and advanced classes in databases to library and information science students… oh, and I’ve been working with relational databases since Access 2.0 was all the rage in the mid-90s!

I’m still looking for authors for the series, so if you have an idea for a book, let me know. I’ll let you know how the writing is going on this blog, and I’ll blog about whatever else is of interest to me within library and information science. Watch this space – it’s about to get fun!