SchlagerBlog

I’m happy to close the work week by linking to the product page that Salem Press has set up for our forthcoming 4-volume set Milestone Documents in World History. This page tells librarians and educators everything they need to know about the set when considering a purchase. But even casual readers will enjoy glancing through the model entry, Lin Zexu’s Letter to Queen Victoria of 1839. As the historian Q. Edward Wang of Rowan University points out in his detailed analysis, “The letter was, in effect, an ultimatum made by Commissioner Lin on behalf of the Qing emperor to the English monarch, delivering the unmistakable message that he and the Qing government were determined to ban the selling and smoking of opium once and for all and at any cost.”

Educators can see from the model that each entry in our set offers questions for further study to accompany the expert analysis and full text of the primary document. Not yet on display, but also in the print set, will be several classroom activity guides written by our consulting editor, the educator Cathleen Boivin. Do you use document-based learning in your classroom? If so, you’ll find the set to be extremely useful all across the world history curriculum.

Basic details: $395, 4 volumes, free online with purchase, ready November 2009.

Oh, and check out our beautiful new cover, courtesy of Patricia Moritz!

Although the title is slightly misleading, Cheryl LaGuardia’s recent blog post over at LibraryJournal.com is very positive. In the post, LaGuardia notes that Salem Press offers free access to the online version of its print titles, either through Salem History or Salem Health, whichever is applicable. What’s misleading is that the online access does not apply just to backlist titles but in fact to frontlist ones as well. Regardless, this “print plus online” offer is true for the 2 sets (with more forthcoming) that we’ve published and that are distributed by Salem: Milestone Documents in American History and Milestone Documents of American Leaders (referred to as “American History” and “American Leaders” in the article). We are thrilled with–and agree with–LaGuardia’s assessment of the program:

“So what does this Salem program translate as? A REALLY BIG DEAL. Kudos to Salem for doing something remarkable – that I hope other publishers will fall in with.”

Meanwhile, LJ.com also has an interesting interview with Eric Calaluca of Paratext, the publisher of Reference Universe (and, like Schlager Group, based in Texas). Reference Universe is an online database that indexes subject encyclopedias from many different publishers at the article level. This is hugely valuable product, because it allows users to find relevant encyclopedia articles when they are searching for information on a given topic. As I have previously blogged about, the whole issue of “reference discoverability” has been a major liability for reference publishers for decades now, and Calaluca rightly points the finger in part at publishers themselves for “not doing enough to educate” librarians about their products. I wish there were a free product that was availabe to 100% of libraries, perhaps one created by a consortium of reference publishers. Fat chance, that. But in any event, let’s hope Reference Universe continues to thrive, since it’s really the only discoverability tool there is for print reference titles.

I’ve just posted online the table of contents for our forthcoming set, Milestone Documents in World History. Just like our previous set, Milestone Documents in American History, the new title will comprise 4 volumes and will present the featured documents–full text plus expert analysis–in chronological arrangement. If you scroll through the list of documents we’ll be covering, you’ll find items from ancient history (e.g., Code of Hammurabi in 1752 BCE) to the present (e.g., African Union Constitutive Act of 2000) and from all regions of the world–Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East.

Needless to say, the list provides an interesting lens into world history and a great tool for teachers who are interested in document-based learning. Here are just a few ways that educators and students can use the set:

• Compare the ancient Greek constitutions of Athens and Sparta to the U.S. one
• Read formative texts from the early centuries of Islamic history
• Study iconic European documents like the Magna Carta and Martin Luther’s 95 Theses
• Explore the South American independence movements through their founding documents
• Read key items related to rise of Communism in China during the 20th century
• Examine influential statements of human rights, from revolutionary-era France to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948
• Study documents relating to contemporary conflicts around the globe, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the war between al Qaeda and the West to the peace process in Northern Ireland

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture. Once again, in addition to in-depth contextual analysis of every document, we’ll offer questions for further study as well as several classroom activity guides tied to the National Standards for History. And once again, libraries that purchase the print set will get free access to the same content online via Salem History, so students and teachers can utilize the set in the library, classroom, or at home.

In the near future I’ll post a sample entry from the set, and as we get closer to publication in November, I’ll continue to blog about the set and its contents.

Today on MilestoneDocuments.com we are pleased to offer original analysis of Barack Obama’s inaugural address. This is a landmark for us in the sense that it’s the first time we’ve offered one of our e-docs for sale (and immediate download) that didn’t previously appear in one of our print encyclopedias. Although the Obama article follows the exact same format as the entries in Milestone Documents in American History, it was written well after that set was published. However, the advantage of having a site like MilestoneDocuments.com is that we can do special offerings like the Obama piece.

The full text of Obama’s address is available for free, as is a time line of related events. The expert analysis of the address, comprising 5,000 words, and available for $6.99 (but free to any library that has purchased MDAH via Salem History), was written by the presidential historian Chester Pach of Ohio University. The following excerpt will give you a taste of what Dr. Pach’s analysis is like:

Obama tries to forestall criticism from those “who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.” He maintains that such critics do not appreciate what Americans have accomplished at times “when imagination is joined to common purpose.” He also insists that his election shows that voters have repudiated the cynics’ “stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long.” In short, Obama maintains that change—both in national objectives and in how Americans achieve them—is essential to economic recovery.

Dr. Pach analyzes the complete address in this manner, and he also discusses the historical context of the speech, provides a brief biography of Obama, talks about the intended audience for the speech, and offers questions for further study and research. All in all, it’s a fascinating look at what Dr. Pach rightly calls “the most anticipated political speech of the first decade of the twenty-first century.”

We recently got word that the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association recognized Milestone Documents in American History as one of its Best Reference Titles for 2008. And just as thrilling is the review of the set by Joyce Valenza, chair of the review committee for PSLA, who says that our title

 “has my vote for this year’s best reference.”

Of course, MDAH has received other awards and wonderful reviews, but it’s once again extremely gratifying to hear from librarians who “get” what we’re doing with our Milestone Documents series. We are of course the epitome of “biased,” but nonetheless we feel strongly about the appeal of our series. If your library serves high school or college history students, then every Milestone Documents title would be supremely useful to you. Today, history education is focused heavily on primary sources. And helping students understand primary sources is our mission.

Getting that word out to librarians around the country is as challenging as ever for any publisher, especially a small one like Schlager Group that works through a distributor (Salem Press). But I am heartened by the marketplace response to MDAH. Now, we face a long, anxious summer as we await reviews for our companion set, Milestone Documents of American Leaders. But with one successful title already under our belt, it’s a good kind of anxious. And as we look forward to the start of the next school year in August, we’ll be devoting significant time and energy to figuring out how to get our titles in front of more librarians–and how to help those librarians come up with simple, effective methods to increase classroom use of our titles.

Today, though, we love the Keystone State!

Today is a big one here at Schlager Group: I’m pleased to announce the publication of Milestone Documents of American Leaders, the 4-volume companion to our award-winning Milestone Documents in American History. The press release is here, while information on ordering the set is here.

The production of American Leaders seemed to require double the work of our first one, even though it’s the same size. For one thing, it was vastly more complicated, with several hundred primary document texts to go along with the 120 main entries. But under the guidance of managing editor Marcia Merryman-Means, and with the help of editor in chief Paul Finkelman, the volumes turned out beautifully (IMHO). Virtually every page has some really interesting material on it, thanks to the great writing of our historian contributors. Students can read analysis and the corresponding full text of some of Abigail Adams’s letters, including her most famous one (“Remember the ladies”), in which she castigates her husband, John, to work with his colleagues drafting the Declaration of Independence to keep the rights of women in mind for a change. Or they can read how the infamous opinion of Dred Scott v. Sandford marred the legacy of an otherwise legendary Supreme Court justice, Roger Taney. Or they can read some of George W. Bush’s most important documents, including his controversial second state of the union address, where he introduced what would come to be known as the Bush Doctrine of preemptive military action. Even reading about a less famous document, say Teddy Roosevelt’s speech to the New York State Republican Convention in 1918, we learn that it was given under the most difficult of circumstances: 2 days after finding out that his son’s plane had been shot down in France during World War I, and 2 days before learning that his son had indeed died in the crash.

Librarians and teachers alike should note that just like our first set, this new one contains many elements that make it useful in the classroom, from study questions for students to activity guides for teachers, all aligned to the National History Standards.

And I want to mention as well that libraries once again have the opportunity to take advantage of the best deal in reference publishing today: free access to the electronic database via Salem History through 2012. And that electronic access comes with exclusive content not found in the print set: an entry on Barack Obama, with expert analysis of 4 of his best-known speeches (2004 DNC speech, 2008 speech on race, 2008 convention acceptance speech, and 2009 inaugural address).

And now, after a brief company-wide cheer, we are already turning our attention to the next title on our plates, Milestone Documents in World History, coming out later this year. Think the Magna Carta. Think the Chinese Constitution. Think Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address. Think the same pioneering approach, with full texts of the documents alongside expert analysis from esteemed historians. Trust me, it’s going to have great stuff in it.

We are about a week away from publication of our second title, Milestone Documents of American Leaders. The mad dash to the finish line partially explains my silence on this blog over the past few weeks. Today I’m flying to Newark for a sales presentation about the set to our distributor, Salem Press. It’s a great opportunity to offer my vision for the set and the series in general, and it’s a good excuse to brush up on my PowerPoint skills.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing some work to get the data for American Leaders in final, pristine XML shape for the electronic database that purchasing libraries get for free, Salem History. (And big news on this front: we’re offering an exclusive online article about Barack Obama’s speeches and writings for those libraries that buy the print set.) While doing that, I’ve realized that there are a number of April birth anniversaries for people covered in our set. Yesterday (April 22), for instance, was the anniversary of Robert Oppenheimer’s birth. (It was also the anniversary of George Washington’s influential Proclamation of Neutrality , which was our Doc of the Day at the Milestone Documents Blog.) Today is the anniversary of the births of both James Buchanan and Stephen A. Douglas, while Saturday is the anniversary of William Brennan’s birth. Next week sees birth anniversaries for Ulysses S. Grant (April 27) and James Monroe (April 28), while we’re just past the anniversaries for folks like Colin Powell (April 5), Allen Dulles (April 7), Frances Perkins (April 10), Henry Clay (April 12), Thomas Jefferson (April 13), and Roger Sherman (April 19).

We are in the early stages of a badly needed site redesign for MilestoneDocuments.com, and one of the things the redesign will accomplish is integration of the content from American Leaders with the content already in place from Milestone Documents in American History. And, above all, we will move closer to making the site an essential stop for information about famous primary documents in U.S. and world history. There is so much exciting stuff happening around the use of primary sources in the classroom, and we look forward to being a bigger part of that conversation in the months and years to come. Stay tuned for more news about our site redesign and new product offerings for students, teachers, and libraries.

I’m pleased to announce that Andrea Betts and I will be attending the upcoming Texas Library Association annual convention. Even better, we’ll be giving away free posters (”5 Milestone Documents in Black American History”). These are beautiful, 24″ x 36″ full-color posters that will make a great addition to any classroom or library. To get a poster, just stop by the Salem Press booth (#1925) and drop off your card or give us your name/address, and we’ll mail you a poster after the convention is over. If you’d like to meet me and Andrea in person, note that we’ll be at the Salem booth on Wednesday, April 1, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and again on Thursday, April 2, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible!

On a side note, if you’re on Facebook, consider becoming a “fan” of our Milestone Documents page.

Today we are sending out a press release that details a recent donation we made to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas (BCGD). We are donating all of our Milestone Documents content–in print and electronic form–to the BGCD’s 14 area locations to assist with their Project Learn. BGCD has a wonderful director of education, Juany Valedespino-Gaytan, who explained to us that the mission of BGCD is now heavily focused on educational projects, not just after-school recreation. As part of this, BGCD has extensive tutoring programs, homework help, and mentoring intiatives. We are thrilled to be able to share our content with such a worthy organization.

Hello again after a long absence. We’re in the final stages of production on Milestone Documents of American Leaders, so it’s been a challenge to lift my head up to think about blogging. The launch of a new publication is always exciting, and this time is no different. Our distribution partner, Salem Press, is readying a direct-mail piece about the title, advertisements will be appearing in upcoming issues of Library Journal and Booklist, and Ingram (a wholesaler) has selected MDAL as of its upcoming “Reference Premier Picks.” And later this month, managing editor Andrea Betts and I will be at the Texas Library Association annual conference giving out free Black History Month posters to all attendees. If you plan to attend TLA, please stop by the Salem Press booth to get your free poster!

The editor in chief of MDAL, Paul Finkelman, has some exciting news to share:  next week he’ll be giving the Nathan I. Huggins Lectures at Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. His topic is “The Supreme Court and the Peculiar Institution: Marshall, Story, Taney, and the Defense of Slavery.” The 3 Supreme Court justices named in the title–John Marshall, Joseph Story, and Roger Taney–are of course featured in MDAL.

Meanwhile, our Doc of the Day over at the Milestone Documents Blog today is the Truman Doctrine. As it happens, I just started reading David McCullough’s Truman. I’m only 50 pages in, which means that I have a mere 950 to go! Luckily, McCullough is a writer of uncommon grace and intelligence, so the read will be an enjoyable one.