The Chicago Blog

In Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Seth Lerer tells us the bedtime story of Western culture's obsession with books for the young. He traces the transformative power of literature across centuries, from the moralizing allegories of antiquity to the swashbuckling epics of the nineteenth century and the acerbic self-awareness of Judy Blume and Weetzie Bat.

Written with the panoramic scope of a distinguished scholar and the affection of a parent and avid reader, Children's Literature reminds us of the sublime power of books in an era when videogames, MySpace, and text messaging compete for the free time of our youth.

Read the press release.

Archived in Classics | History | Literature | Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University of Chicago News Office has posted a podcast featuring Charles Lipson, author of Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada speaking about his new book. In the podcast, Lipson addresses many of the hot button topics for foreign students trying to adapt to life in the United States and Canada, both in and beyond the classroom. From the norms of classroom participation to obtaining health insurance, Lipson covers what students need to know to have a successful and enjoyable adventure as an international student.

To find out more listen to the podcast or see this special website for the book featuring reviews, info on institutional use, and an excerpt from the book, "Passports and Visas: A Quick Overview."

Archived in Author Essays, Interviews, and Excerpts | Education | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's issue of the the Chicago Reader—the Spring Books Special—has a nice little feature about the writer of The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. But if you're hoping that the identity of the Q&A writer will at long last be revealed to all the world … you’ll be disappointed to learn that the woman behind the wit of the Q&A has adopted a pseudonym, Jody Fisher.

Every month new entries are published to the The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. Here’s one from this month’s lot:

Q. Is it really necessary to include “as” before “per”? For example, “Client has requested, as per original agreement, two hard copies of all reports.” Since “per” means “according to,” can’t we just delete the unnecessary (and wordy-looking) “as”? Thank you, great gurus, for your wisdom!

A. It is not necessary to add “as.” In fact, it used to be considered incorrect, and sticklers still feel superior when they slash through it.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by DB at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After months of anticipation the moment you've all been waiting for has arrived—the winners of the raffle hosted by The Chicago Manual of Style Online were announced today at approximately 3:00 pm Central Time in the boardroom of the University of Chicago Press. Not one but two lucky individuals were chosen at random from a pool of respondents to the recent CMOS Online survey. The winners receive up to one hundred dollars worth of free books from the Press, that's right, one hundred dollars worth of FREE BOOKS. Choosing the winning tickets was none other than Director of the Books Division of the Press, Mr. Bob Lynch. In his press release, Mr. Lynch stated that he was pleased to present the awards on behalf of the CMOS staff and thanked the lucky winners for their time spent helping to improve the CMOS Online user experience.

Congratulations!

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by TXM at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Susan Basalla May, co-author of So What Are You Going to Do with That?: Finding Careers Outside Academia has posted an interesting FAQ for students preparing for a nonacademic career to the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Culled from the question and answer sessions that follow her frequent lectures, Basalla comments on a variety of topics including how to get started as a freelancer and how to explain to potential employers about unfinished dissertations. You can find the full article in the career section of the Chronicle.

A witty, accessible guide full of concrete advice for anyone contemplating the jump from scholarship to the outside world, So What Are You Going to Do with That? covers topics ranging from career counseling to interview etiquette to translating skills learned in the academy into terms an employer can understand and appreciate. Packed with examples and stories from real people who have successfully made this daunting—but potentially rewarding— transition, and written with a deep understanding of both the joys and difficulties of the academic life, this fully revised and up-to-date edition will be indispensable for any graduate student or professor who has ever glanced at her CV, flipped through the want ads, and wondered, "What if?"

Archived in Author Essays, Interviews, and Excerpts | Education | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Susan Bielstein, author of Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property will appear on Library Café, a program on WVKR Independent Radio FM 91.3 in Poughkeepsie, NY, on March 27th at 11 am CST. Bielstein will join host Thomas Hill to discuss her book. You can tune in to a live broadcast online at the Library Café where they should also post archived audio after the show.

Organized as a series of "takes" that range from short sidebars to extended discussions, Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction of an image? What does "fair use" really mean? Is it ever legitimate to use the work of an artist without permission? Bielstein discusses the many uncertainties that plague writers who work with images in this highly visual age, and she does so based on her years navigating precisely these issues. As an editor who has hired a photographer to shoot an incredibly obscure work in the Italian mountains (a plan that backfired hilariously), who has tried to reason with artists' estates in languages she doesn't speak, and who has spent her time in the archival trenches, she offers a snappy and humane guide to this difficult terrain.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seventy years ago, in a small office at the University of Chicago, dissertation secretary Kate L. Turabian changed forever the way research is reported. Asked to provide students with a style guide, she wrote a small pamphlet describing the correct format for writing college dissertations. That pamphlet eventually became A Manual for Writers and has gone on to sell more than eight million copies in six editions. This spring the University of Chicago Press will publish the seventh edition of her widely used and respected Manual—now fully revised to meet the needs of a new generation of students and researchers. The stellar team of Joseph Williams, Gregory Colomb, and Wayne C. Booth, master teachers and authors of the bestselling Craft of Research, have thoroughly updated the Manual while respecting the Turabian tradition. With this careful revision, they have ensured that A Manual for Writers will remain the most valuable handbook for writers at every level—from first-year undergraduates, to dissertation writers, to senior scholars.

Read the press release. Much more information will soon be available at www.turabian.org.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Publishing the online edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has given us some insight into how people use electronic editions of books, an awareness of the usability issues posed by the online environment, and a renewed appreciation for the simplicity and naturalness of the physical book.

Or at least the physical book seems a simple and intuitive interface. But maybe not. Maybe the first users of the codex had technical difficulties just as computer users have today. Maybe every monastery had a help desk to assist readers and scribes with recalcitrant books. Via YouTube:

According to a comment on YouTube, the clip is from a show called Øystein og meg (Øystein and I) and appeared in 2001 on NRK, the Norwegian television network. The sketch was written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad. The spoken language in the clip is Norwegian; the subtitles are in English and Danish.

[Updated February 23: If the video above does not play, try this version from YouTube, which has the advantage of including a bit at the end about reading the manual (RTFM), but the disadvantage of being quite dark. On February 19, NRK had a news story about the worldwide interest in this video.]

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every month the manuscript editors at the Press field questions submitted to The Chicago Style Q&A, a feature of the new Chicago Manual of Style Online. Our manuscript editors respond to these questions with serious explications of the subtleties of style and usage, although they cannot resist the occasional—well, maybe more than occasional—diversion into delicious irony.

This month's Harper's reprinted some highlights from the Q&A under the appropriately paradoxical title of "Stet Offensive," further described on their Web site as "aggressive advice from the editors of the Chicago Manual of Style." Here are examples of our editors' advice:

Q: When I began learning English grammar from the nuns in 1951, I was taught never to use a comma either before or after independent clauses or compound sentences. Did the rules of English grammar and punctuation change while I was in that three week coma in 1965, or in the years it took to regain my basic and intellectual functioning before I returned to teaching?

A: I'm sorry I can't account for your state of mind, but standard punctuation calls for a comma before a conjunction that joins two independent clauses unless the clauses are very short. I would go further and suggest that it's a good idea to examine any rule you were taught that includes the word "never" or "always."

---

Q: Is there any standard for the usage of emoticons? In particular, is there an accepted practice for the use of emoticons that includes an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parenthesis? Should I incorporate the emoticon into the closing of the parenthesis (giving a dual purpose to the closing parenthesis, such as in this case :-); simply leave the emoticon up against the closing parenthesis, ignoring the bizarre visual effect of the doubled closing parenthesis (as I am doing here, producing a double-chin effect :-)); or avoid the situation by using a different emoticon (some emoticons are similar :-D), placing the emoticon elsewhere, or doing without it (i.e., reword to avoid awkwardness)?

A: Until academic standards decline enough to accommodate the use of emoticons, I'm afraid CMOS is unlikely to treat their styling, since the manual is aimed primarily at scholarly publications. And the problems you've posed in this note have given us added incentive to keep our distance.

Read more Q&A and sign up for a free trial of The Chicago Manual of Style Online.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pulling your hair out searching for that last minute gift? You can't go wrong with The Chicago Manual of Style. It might not fall under the category of "fun" gifts, but it won't require two 'C' batteries, or any assembly. It's perfect for the person who has everything and universal enough to be appreciated by everyone from students to professionals—you've got all the bases covered with a shiny new copy of The Chicago Manual of Style. Heck, run down to the local bookstore and pick up two just in case there's anyone you forgot. And remember, The Manual is now available as a CD-ROM and an online version as well—with our online subscription service you won't even have to fight the crowds at the mall to get it.

Want more gift suggestions? Tempt your mind in our gift catalog.

Happy Holidays!

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Google Print Library Project is the latest of Google's efforts to digitally copy and distribute the holdings of several of the world's largest libraries—a project which has incited controversy among both the book industry and academe alike. Google presented this digital repository as a first step towards a long-dreamed-of universal library, but skeptics were quick to raise a number of concerns about the potential for copyright infringement and unanticipated effects on the business of research and publishing. Google is being sued by Association of American Publishers for copyright infringement.

Jean Jeanneney's new book Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge exposes the controversy surrounding this important issue and articulates some of the most powerful arguments why Google's Library Project might spell bad news for those concerned about the world's literary and cultural heritage. A review in the October edition of the ALA Booklist gives an intelligent summary of Jeanneney's argument:

From Europe's point of view, Google's proposal to digitize the content's of America's leading libraries raises questions beyond the copyright issues that presently beleaguer the project. This brief salvo from the president of France's Bibliothèque Nationale challenges directly Google's assertion that its venture offers a source of universal knowledge. Jeanneney finds such claims spurious and utopian. For by the very nature of the library collections that Google proposes to put online, American and British works would dominate, leaving behind that portion of the world's hundred million books not in English. Moreover the character of digital search engines necessarily ranks results according to algorithms that reflect prejudices that lack universal validity.… Google's commercial status also troubles Jeanneney, for the commoditization of information by a single corporation inevitably subjects it to sale and to control by a less benign owner.

As a leading librarian, Jeanneney remains enthusiastic about the archival potential of the Web. But he argues that the short-term thinking characterized by Google's digital repository must be countered by long-term planning on the part of cultural and governmental institutions worldwide—a serious effort to create a truly comprehensive library, one based on the politics of inclusion and multiculturalism.

Archived in History | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One hundred years ago, in November 1906, this press published a small book with a long title: Manual of Style: Being a Compilation of the Typographical Rules in Force at the University of Chicago Press, to Which Are Appended Specimens of Types in Use. Over the years, it grew in length and in reputation, becoming a standard reference for compositors, copyeditors, and publishers. In the later decades of the twentieth century, the audience for the Manual grew to encompass individual writers and scholars.

In its 100th anniversary year, in its fifteenth edition, the Manual has become an online reference work. The online version of the Manual offers the fully searchable text of the fifteenth edition with added features including tools for editors, a quick citation guide, and searchable access to the popular Chicago Style Q&A.

In this still-emerging world of online publishing, the look and the role of online works are not well-established. We believe that we've created an online product that is useful for editors and publishers, effectively utilizes the technology of the online medium, and has a business model that's attractive to the consumer and sustainable for the publisher. We believe that we have created innovative and user-friendly functionality and created subscription options responsive to the needs of the Manual's users. We welcome your comments on how well we have achieved these goals.

The Chicago Manual of Style is the indispensable reference for all who work with words, and now in its new online form it has never been more accessible.Try it out.

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by DB at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The online publication of The Chicago Manual of Style sparked pre-release feature stories in several publications including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, heralding the transformation of a venerable reference work into a digital tool. From yesterday's story in the Times:

Starting tomorrow the manual—sometimes known as publishing's Miss Manners—will be available online by subscription, meaning that those who need to know, pronto, whether it is ever all right to capitalize the first letters of e. e. cumming's name will no longer have to search through the more than 956-page volume to find the answer.… And if you listen to Anita Samen, managing editor of the press's books division, having the manual online is going to revolutionize the way its users, who include writers, editors, and publishers, work. 'You can consult it on the fly,' she said, 'so you are free to do your writing and editing without having to retain huge numbers of rules in your head.'

The article in the Chronicle of Higher Education also focused on the potential of the Manual's electronic versions:

The press hopes to build a virtual community surrounding the new online version, a space in which editors can debate the finer points of style. The Q&A feature of the manual's current web site already gets 100,000 to 150,000 visitors a month, according to the press, which augers well for the online edition. … The editor-blogger who runs the site India, Ink expressed her joy in a recent post. "CMS 15 CD-ROM OMG!!!" was the headline. "Dudes!" she told her readers. "This is huge!"

OMG, huge indeed. Try the online version for yourself.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Charles Lipson demystifies the process of preparing citations in research writing in his latest book, Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles—MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More. With the humorous, no-nonsense approach he is known for, Lipson offers sound advice for citing in every major style, including Chicago; MLA; APA; CSE (biological sciences); AMA (medical sciences); ACS (chemistry, mathematics, and computer science); physics, astrophysics, and astronomy; Bluebook and ALWD (law); and AAA (anthropology and ethnography). Using simple, easy-to-understand examples from a wide range of courses in the arts, law, and medicine, Cite Right offers an unparalleled range of information on how—and why—it's so important to cite correctly. At $10 in paperback, no student or researcher can afford to write without it.

Read the press release.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article in the August 4 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education quotes Susan Bielstein, our executive editor for art and architecture: “The art monograph is now seriously endangered and could well outpace the silvery minnow in its rush to extinction.”

Publishing art monographs is financially challenging, for the author and for the publisher. To obtain an image of a work of art suitable for reproduction, the author usually has to pay a permission fee to the owner of the work—a museum, say—even if the work itself is in the public domain. An author might shell out tens of thousands of dollars for such fees. Costs are high for the publisher as well, what with color illustrations, coated paper stock, and the durable binding needed for a hefty, oversized book.

The CHE article discusses the state of art-history publishing at several university presses and a forthcoming Mellon-funded report, "Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age." The article concludes: “All parties agree that it is harder than ever to navigate what Ms. Bielstein calls 'the ecosystem of rights publishing.' What's fair use? Should a museum be able to charge for a reproducible image of an out-of-copyright object in its collection? Most do. And as digital publication tempts more and more publishers and scholars, how will they protect images that appear in an electronic book or an electronic version of a journal article?”

These issues of art and copyright are the subject of Bielstein's recently-published book, Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property, an invaluable compendium of insight and advice for authors and others working in the visual arts. Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Museum News has praised Susan M. Bielstein's Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property. From the review: "[Bielstein] gives life to what could be the driest subject ever with chapters such as 'Permissions: A Love Story,' 'Privacy Woes and the Duchess of York,' and 'Doing and Saying Whatever It Takes.' And besides enjoying the tongue-in-cheek prose, readers will learn how to determine if an artwork is copyrighted, how to get a high-quality reproduction, and what 'fair use' is."

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it's a good bet that at least half of those words relate to the picture's copyright status. Art historians, artists, and anyone who wants to use the images of others will find themselves awash in byzantine legal terms, constantly evolving copyright law, varying interpretations by museums and estates, and despair over the complexity of the whole situation. Susan Bielstein offers her decades of experience as an editor working with illustrated books. In doing so, she unsnarls the threads of permissions that have ensnared scholars, critics, and artists for years.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Law | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Gapers Block highlights the Encyclopedia of Chicago Web site. Brush up on Chicago trivia by visiting the special features section of the site, which features essays, maps, photo galleries, indices, timelines, and tables.

If you're impressed by the Web site, be sure to check out The Encyclopedia of Chicago book. At 1152 pages, it's the definitive historical reference on metropolitan Chicago. If you think you know how Chicago got its name, if you have always wondered how the Chicago Fire actually started and how it spread, if you have ever marveled at the Sears Tower or the reversal of the Chicago River—if you have affection, admiration, and appreciation for this City of the Big Shoulders, this Wild Onion, this Urbs in Horto, then The Encyclopedia of Chicago is for you.

Archived in Chicago | History | Reference and Writing
Posted by at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Library Journal's new issue features a nice review of Dorrik Stow's Oceans: An Illustrated Reference: "This authoritative reference work presents a thorough overview of the physical, geological, chemical, and biological properties of the world's oceans.… Stow's up-to-date and well-organized volume would make a valuable introduction to a huge field of knowledge and is therefore recommended for high school, public, and academic libraries."

Although the oceans are vast, their resources are finite. Oceans clearly presents the future challenge to us all—that of ensuring that our common ocean heritage is duly respected, wisely managed, and carefully harnessed for the benefit of the whole planet. Lavishly illustrated and filled with current research, Oceans is a step in that direction: a rich, magnificent, and illuminating volume for anyone who has ever heard the siren song of the sea.

Archived in Biology | Reference and Writing | Reviews | Reviews
Posted by at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New Scientist has praised Dorrik Stow's Oceans: An Illustrated Reference. From the review by Adrian Barnett: "From sun-drenched atolls to the ice-capped Arctic, Oceans provides a photo-packed history of the seas, their geology, geochemistry and physics, their cycles and circulations. In elegant prose, Stow examines marine life in all its glorious strangeness and extreme abundance. He covers major areas of oceanographic research, including sociology, anthropology and archaeology, revealing how much we know, and the enormous amount we don't. Helped by lots of colour photographs and explanatory diagrams, charts and maps, this is a splendid, fact-packed read."

Archived in Biology | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, we admit to occasionally reading the blog of Mimi Smartypants. She works in Chicago, for one thing, and so we are just trying to stay hip to the blogging scene in Chicago. It's more than that though. As noted by Rebecca J. Roberts in the JournalStar of Lincoln, NE—a town whose hipness is vastly underrated—Ms. Smartypants is "unashamedly articulate and intelligent, with a twisted bent—someone you want to drink yourself silly with on dollar beers while discussing The Chicago Manual of Style and obsessive-compulsive disorder and oral sex, possibly all at the same time."

And you know how we like to talk about The Chicago Manual of Style.

Archived in Chicago | Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Clear, concise, and replete with commonsense advice, the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition offers the wisdom of a hundred years of editorial practice while including a wealth of new topics and updated perspectives. For anyone who works with words, in any medium, this continues to be the one reference book you simply must have.

However, even at nearly 1,000 pages, The Chicago Manual of Style can't cover every detail. The Chicago Manual of Style Web site features a Q&A page, where the University of Chicago Press's manuscript editing department interprets the Manual's recommendations and uncoils its intricacies. Anyone can submit a question to the Q&A. Every month new questions are featured—and answered—on the site.

Here are some recent Q&As:

Q. A colleague insists that this sentence is both ungrammatical and misuses a metaphor: "One of the major benefits of cloned stem cells could be as a more accurate window on diseases." While I think the sentence is clumsy, I don't see the mistake in grammar. And, while "accurate window" also isn't elegant, a quick search on the Web turned up plenty of uses of "accurate window" on reputable academic and government agency sites. Who's right?

A. It might be technically grammatical (I'm still averting my eyes), but it's so awful that you can't take refuge there. And even if you did find some reputable sites using the phrase "accurate window" (how many pages past all the Accurate Window and Door companies did you have to scroll?), please don't let yourself be encouraged by the fact that reputable sites feature bad writing. Listen to your colleague.

---

Q. How should I list an author's name when it is given in different forms in different works I am citing (e.g., John Smith, John R. Smith, J. R. Smith)? In the case of an author's name in a non-Roman script, if the name has been transliterated differently in different publications, shall I list the name as given in each publication, or choose one form? If a name in a non-Roman script is transliterated differently from the system of transliteration I am using, what shall I do? Thank you!

A. Please see CMS 17.40: "Alternative real names. When a writer has published under different forms of his or her name, the works should be listed under the name used on the title page—unless the difference is merely the use of initials versus full names (see 17.20). Cross-references are occasionally used." If a transliterated version is very different from the one used most often in the book, list it as a blind entry with a cross-reference to the more common one.

The Chicago Manual of Style Web site also includes tools for editors and an online search utility for the new edition.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition will also be published on CD-ROM; release is projected for about September 2006. The Manual will then be available in book form and on CD-ROM.

The chapter on indexing is available separately.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)