How to use this Page

A quick lunchtime post (written in the wee hours, embargoed until now) since I’ve received email that tells me the press release is filtering out across the Internet’s series of tubes…

First, I’m going to miss My (Current) Place Of Work. They are great folks and when I said I was leaving they expressed great sorrow and sent some VERY funny pictures.

But I had an offer I couldn’t refuse — well, I could have refused, but then I’d be kicking myself for the rest of my life, and what fun would THAT be? (Like this cupcake I ate in New York City last December. Sure, diets, whatever… but I’m still glad I ate the cupcake.)

As of June 23 (just in time for ALA!), I’m the Community Librarian at Equinox, the support and development company for Evergreen, the premier, industrial-strength open-source integrated library system software.

What, you ask, is a Community Librarian? It’s a chief blogger, presenter, evangelist, community liaison, birds-of-a-feather organizer, strategist, branding specialist, user-experience person, project management advisor, and whatever else happens to need doing. (I wrote the job description, and I think that hits the high notes.)

After sixteen years in LibraryLand (more, if you count college and high-school jobs), I want to be working on the future of libraries. It’s time. For nearly two decades I’ve watched libraries struggle with closed legacy software, and the advantages of open source — particularly in a highly-scalable system — are obvious to me.

Making the advantages of open source obvious to YOU will be part of my job.

Where will I work?

I don’t like to say “from home” — that sounds too parked-in-a-chair — I think a better term is “telework,” because first, our home will probably change sometime in the next year, and second, the point is that I’ll be wherever Evergreen and Equinox need my voice and presence. I will make trips throughout Georgia and to the Norcross offices of Equinox (I’m starting to like Atlanta — it’s an interesting city) and far, far beyond.

I’m sad to leave MPOW… learned a lot, great people; definitely recommend MPOW to anyone interested — but I’m excited about the future. (I hope that was a nice-enough farewell to my buddies at MPOW. I’m hoping they give me a green Prius as a going-away present… though that means I better finish that Shibboleth report Greg is waiting for..!)

Bookmark to:

Timothy G. Young’s recently published Drawn to Enchant: Original Children’s Book Art in the Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection, has enchanted Slate Magazine enough to publish an annotated slide show of works from the book. “Where the Wild Things Came From: How children’s books evolved from morals to madcap fun” offers up enticing examples of American book illustration for children over the years, along with opinionated commentary. Children’s book writer and blogger Erica S. Perl collaborated with Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon on the piece. Here’s more information on Designed to Enchant. Young is Associate Curator of the Modern Books and Manuscripts Collection at Yale University’s Beinecke Library.

Here's a slide show on the history of children's book illustration in the United States, based on Timothy G. Young's new book, Drawn To Enchant.

Thanks to Fuse #8 and Educating Alice for the link.

Vintage Children's Book Illustration Slide Show...

My co-worker Rachel (editor of Novel & Short Story Writer's Market) sent me a link to an interesting and wonderful little slide show on Slate featuring illustrations from the late-1800s up through the mid-20th century (including a Maurice Sendak illustration for The Hobbit). (You have to watch an ad if you're not a Slate subscriber, but it's kind of amusing.)

The illustrations featured (and I think the copy on the history of children's books as well) were culled from Timothy G. Young's Drawn to Enchant. The art in Young's book is from the collection of Betsy Beinecke Shirley. She left her extensive collection of books, original illustrations, manuscripts, and ephemera to the Library of Yale University. Young is the curator of the Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection of American Children’s Literature.