SAGE Reference SAGE Reference has come a long way since it first launched its social science reference program years ago. What started out as a modest and focused list of multivolume sets has blossomed into a diverse and robust variety of titles with an interdisciplinary approach and a clever online strategy librarians are responding to positively. Twice yearly, Rolf Janke, vp and publisher of SAGE Reference, pays LJ a visit all the way from Thousand Oaks, CA, to present new titles. During his last visit, he let me in on some exciting new e-initiatives, some already taking effect, others needing more time to mature before they can be revealed. And while we wait to see what else this maverick publisher still has up its sleeve, Janke agreed to offer some wise perspective. Looking backward and forward, can you say what qualities SAGE possesses today that it didn't years ago. What makes it distinct? SAGE is a much more global company with an aggressive digital-content strategy, which has really helped us grow. When we started the imprint, I never realized how fast and how big the global market would be for e-reference products. Also, SAGE products have character, they are lively yet authoritative, they are easy to use, the topics are very diverse, and there is something for everybody. SAGE's recent acquisition of CQ Press got a lot of positive reaction from the community (some called it a match made in reference heaven). Why do the two publishers complement each other so well? First of all, the companies are very independent. So from the start we share each others' mission and vision. Second, SAGE, as a premier social science publisher, has had only a minimal offering of political science products. With this acquisition, we now have a much stronger position in the marketplace as a significant social science publisher. The field of social science is branching out into all sorts of disciplines, which is reflected in your current list (e.g, the Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research comes to mind). Will we see more interdisciplinary titles in the future? Absolutely! It is a challenge taking an important topic like stem-cell research and then turning it sideways to see how all of the major social science disciplines fit within the scope of that topic. If there are economic, political, psychological, or sociological implications of a key and current topic, then we will consider it for an encyclopedia. We feel that the end product will become a useful research tool for students seeking an authoritative resource covering more than one perspective. Can you name some of those interdisciplinary titles on the horizon that may be of special interest to librarians? The Encyclopedia of Time is very interdisciplinary and a perfect topic for our program. Time is a mathematical, scientific, philosophical, and religious phenomenon, and we assembled scholars from all over the world to write on these perspectives. We also have the Encyclopedia of Play, Encyclopedia of Motherhood, and Encyclopedia of Nanoscience under development, all produced from an interdisciplinary focus. SAGE eReference, which houses all your print sets online, is thriving. Are any major updates to the existing platform in the works? There will be only minor updates to the SAGE eReference platform. We are delighted by the response it is getting not only from librarians but from faculty and students as well. There will be some major enhancements in 2010, including a subscription component, that will allow us to provide annual updates to certain encyclopedias that are quickly outdated. Late next year, we will also launch a series of e-encyclopedias that don't have a print counterpart. They will be the equivalent to a single-volume work and will be sold for under $100. The reference industry is a small world; sooner or later everybody knows what everyone else is doing. Whose initiatives do you admire? I admire what Stephen Rhind-Tutt has done at Alexander Street Press. Stephen is a pioneer in electronic publishing and has put his talent to good use building a series of scholarly databases that are so rich in content, easy to use, and extremely well indexed. There was a lot of talk at this year's ALA about future content being "born digital." Isn't this already happening, given that hardly any content is now printed without an e-strategy in place? You are correct; it is already happening. The real question is, When will it all be born digital? I am personally convinced there will always be a time and place for print. What works for reference or journals doesn't necessarily work for textbooks. Every publisher of any type of content has or will have an electronic strategy. Some will be more successful than others. I think another key question to ask is, What are the nontraditional publishers who have their eyes on content creation and repurposing thinking about? These companies have a reach into every age via the Internet and play hard on a global scale. Scary.

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Mirela Roncevic is Senior Editor, Reference & Arts and Humanities