TK7895.M4K488 2007 P96.T42K567 2007

Welcome to another installment of book blogging! The proofs are safely back at the press, and from here on out it should be nothing but blurbs, cover designs, and other pre-publication goodness.

One episode I neglected to recount along the way. Mechanisms was initially assigned a Library of Congress classification heading of TK. Some of you may recognize this as the Technology rubric, specifically: “Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering.”

Now, you can not imagine how unbelievably flattered the geek in me was. Someone had decided that Mechanisms was, essentially, an engineering book. Man, talk about interdisciplinarity. I had arrived.

Only problem was, it wasn’t where I wanted to be. On my campus, and very likely yours, the engineering stacks are in a separate library, physically far removed from the books that are Mechanisms’ real intellectual kin. So, I petitioned to have the classification revised, and was successful—Mechanisms is now a “P” (Language and Literature) and believe me, it’s in good company.

Getting shelved as a TK would have had a significant impact on Mechanisms’ readership and sales. There’s always been tension between library classification systems and new forms and fields of scholarship, but I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in new media studies in the future. Luckily I had the full support of my editor and the press and my appeal was successful. If you’re an author, don’t neglect to pay attention to the little things.

Here’s the Library of Congress data for Mechanisms in full:

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G.
Mechanisms : new media and the forensic imagination / Matthew G.
Kirschenbaum.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-11311-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Mass media—Technological innovations. 2. Mass media and language. 3. Discourse analysis—Data processing. 4. Computer storage devices. 5. Data recovery (Computer science) 6. Gibson, William, 1948- Agrippa. 7. Joyce, Michael, 1945- Afternoon. I. Title.
P96.T42K567 2007
302.23—dc22
2007002121

Pretty cool, eh?

Save a place on your shelf at P96.T42K567 2007.