Students of LIS590AP: Publishing as an Information Profession have learned the ins and outs of publishing during the first offering of the course this semester. To put theory into practice, the students have created InfoBlitz, a blog that will feature posts on a variety of LIS topics. Entries will include editorials, commentary on current issues in the field, and reports on field experiences, lectures, and conferences.
“Research and engagement with professional literature are important components of many jobs in the LIS field, and many GSLIS graduates will be encouraged or expected to publish once they reach the workplace,” said master’s student Brandon Locke, who has been working on the project this semester. “InfoBlitz provides an exceptional opportunity for students and alumni to learn about writing for these venues and navigating the publishing landscape, all while making a contribution to the LIS corpus of literature.”
The publishers-in-training collected content from their peers, alumni, faculty, and other information professionals. They launched the blog this week with several posts, including reports from successful GSLIS alumni, field reports from LIS518LE: Community Informatics, and a conference report from their faculty advisor and instructor of the publishing course, Senior Lecturer Maria Bonn.
Bonn, who has years of publishing experience and was recently named editor of the Journal of Electronic Publishing, reports that her students show a lot of promise as future publishing professionals. “From the very first class, they have engaged seriously with both the theory and practice of publishing. I’ve told them I’d hire them in a minute, and I mean it. I envy their future employers!”