This Year in Publishing

I kept wondering for awhile if any of my writing work would pay off. I've been writing and submitting things for over two years, and I'm just now beginning to see the results!

I submitted two encyclopedia articles two and a half years ago, and they are finally being published in the Facts on File Encyclopedia of American Popular Fictionm due out any day now (eee!). Two book reviews that I completed in 2006 and 2007 but had delays were also just published in the Journal of Web Librarianship, released in January at the same time my book chapter with Suzanne & Annie came out.

I've now got two book reviews pending completion--one submitted and one in the works, one for the International Journal of Comic Art, and one for ImageText. And then I'm working on two research projects, and one more on hold until summer, that I'm hoping to send out starting in May. Whew!

Presentations are certainly easier to pitch and have quicker pay-off, but I'm determined to shift my professional development toward publishing. I have a far smaller travel budget now, and even more so I simply don't have the time for traveling as much, with the course load I've got. I'm hoping to make a habit of having several writing projects going on at once, in order to produce a good body of work each year. We'll see how it goes.

I simply struggled for a long time to find things to write about. Book reviews are pretty simple (and I really enjoy them--getting encouraged to read and discuss books, what's not to love?), but my article ideas tend to require an inordinate amount of research time that it's difficult for me to commit at the moment. Two of my current research projects take quantitative analysis, and one is a qualitative study.

I'm curious to know what other academic librarians are publishing.

• Are you writing similar research-oriented articles?
• Or focusing on library issues and practitioner-type pieces?
• If you have faculty status at your institution, are your articles ranked by type as far as tenure or a performance review?
• How pressured do you feel to publish--or are you motivated to publish for your own reasons?