This is the academic librarian in California who writes the Romance Fiction Guide for Libraries Unlimited and does the romance reviews in LJ. Anyone interested may contact her directly. Mary K. Begin forwarded message:

From: Kristin Ramsdell <kristin.ramsdell@csueastbay.edu> Date: March 23, 2012 5:00:22 PM EDT To: Mary K Chelton <mchelton@optonline.net> Cc: Kristin Ramsdell <kristin.ramsdell@gmail.com> Subject: Condolences and Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction Query

Dear Mary K.--

I'm contacting you because I’m serving as editor for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction (ABC-CLIO) and am looking for people who might be interested in contributing to this work. I know of no one in the library world (or in the larger academy, when it comes right down to it) who appreciates and advocates for the romance genre more than you do, and I am sure you have passed this passion on to your students, as well. So, I am writing to ask 1) if you have any students you would recommend who might be interested in being contributors, and/or 2) if you would be interested being a contributor, yourself. The encyclopedia is aimed at students and general readers, not romance specialists or scholars, so the articles would need to take that into consideration. The articles cover all (or as many topics as we could come up with) aspects of the romance genre and range in length from 350 to 4000 words. If you think you or any of your students might be interested, I will send more specific information. I just don’t want to clutter up your email with attachments unnecessarily.

As is typical of projects of this type, there is little financial reward, but I can offer a copy of the encyclopedia to contributors, as well as author credit, which is always useful for one’s CV and might appeal to students, in particular.

In addition to contacting some of the library schools, I am reaching out to scholars, librarians, authors, editors, and other academics and professionals in the field, so if you have any people you would like to recommend, please do!

Seriously, I hope you are well, your dogs are affectionate, your students are smart and rewarding, and that things are getting better every day.

Thanks so much for considering this. I'll certainly understand if you don't even have time to deal with it, but you are one of the first people I thought of when I started this project.

Wishing you all the best,

Kris

-- Kristin Ramsdell California State University, East Bay kristin.ramsdell@csueastbay.edu kristin.ramsdell@gmail.com Romance Fiction: A Guide to the Genre. 2nd ed. (Libraries Unlimited, 2012)