(Calgary, Alberta)

“It didn’t start out that way”, says Brian Hades. “It was in the Hallowe’en edition of the Calgary Herald newspaper and the moniker just stuck”.

“Captain Fantasy” was the name splashed across the front page of the Entertainment section, under an enormous colour photograph of a grey haired, “Godfather-like” character seated in a 1950s style diner surrounded by two gorgeous space aliens.

The article, which spread over two pages, was the beginning of a media blitz bringing attention to one of Calgary's best kept secrets.

Further coverage included an article in Calgary’s Fast Forward Magazine, a mention in Swerve magazine, and an interview with Hades on CBC’s Daybreak Alberta.

An interview on CKUA, and an article profiling the publishing company in Quill and Quire Magazine are forthcoming.

The big deal? Hades was showcasing his publishing company to the world fantasy community for the first time. Less than 10 years ago, Hades sat in a restaurant over a cup of hot chocolate, doodling a business plan on a napkin – now the publishing house holds a number of imprints and has become Canada’s largest publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Although previously the imprints’ media coverage focused on the books being released, there had never been an opportunity like this to let people know about the company itself.

It was time to tell the world.

The appropriate launching pad was the World Fantasy Convention, a literary genre event held for the first time in Calgary which attracted over 700 writers, publishers, editors and fans.

Hades was determined to make his mark.

“Many of the convention’s participants visited from around the world, and it was their first time to get to know Hades Publications, and our imprints – EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Dragon Moon Press, Tesseract Books and our newest imprint Absolute XPress”, said Hades.

Participants had a number of opportunities to discover the publishing company during the convention, including:

• Author signings at the Hades Publications booth (that spread across the back of the ballroom)

• The Breakfast at Tesseracts event (which featured all of the various authors present at the con, who at one time or another had contributed to the Tesseracts series. Tesseracts is a more than 20 year old Canadian literary legacy featuring 13 titles, including the latest Tesseracts Twelve, edited by Claude Lalumière)

• An opportunity for people to “Meet the Mystery Makers” – the editors and writers of Hades’ newest hit release: Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes.

• Opportunities to meet writers, listen to readings and indulge in chocolate at the Books, Bytes and Chocolate Delights, a multi author book launch that featured a number of titles including:

Pretenders, by Lynda Williams

Lachlei by M. H. Bonham

Madman's Dance by Jana Oliver

Tesseracts Twelve: edited by Claude Lalumière

Writers for Relief, edited by Davey Beauchamp

and

Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes . edited by Charles Prepolec and J. R. Campbell

- the “Un-Conventional, Pre-Convention Event” which helped launch the literary gathering. Brian and Hades Publications presented The Plaid Tongued Devils, a unique Calgary band which played a combination of Ska, Gypsy and Klezmer music. This was the World Fantasy Convention's first event of its type. The reaction of international organizers was so positive, similar events will be incorporated into future World Fantasy Conventions.

Emails and Facebook notes have been streaming in from around the world thanking Hades for his efforts. One, from a gentleman in Australia said:

"I just wanted to say thanks for the great gig with the gypsy band and for being so welcoming. I had a blast at the con and hope to get to another one soon. I'm a convert, for sure :)"

Hades smiled. His mark was made.

====================================================================
Other Upcoming Events

The Worlld Fantasy Convention was just the first of several events announcing new releases:
Forthcoming also include:

Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes

will have its Calgary release on November 15th at

Chapters – Indigo (Sunridge)

Spectrum Shopping Centre, #500 - 2555 32nd St NE

Calgary, Alberta T1Y 7J6 Canada

5-9pm

(403)250-9171

( Because authors from around the world contributed supernatural mystery tales to this anthology, Gaslight Grimoire events are also being planned for England, USA and Australia, as well as several more in Canada.
Please watch for details for the international book launches of Gaslight Grimoire will be shown on www.edgewebsite.com )

Tesseracts Twelve: edited by Claude Lalumière
will have its Toronto release in November.

For further information about all of these events, and other information about Hades Publications, its authors and its books please visit www.edgewebsite.com

-30-

For further information about Hades Publications, or to book an interview with Brian Hades, please call:

Janice Shoults

Hades Publications

403.254.0160

Or write:

events@hadespublications.com

To view some of the stories referred to in this release, please visit:

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=444...

http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/life-style/books/fantasy-wonder-excite...

Call for Submissions:

The Code4Lib Journal (C4LJ) exists to foster community and share information among those interested in the intersection of libraries, technology, and the future.

The Code4Lib Journal is now accepting proposals for publication in its 6th issue. Don't miss out on this opportunity to share your ideas and experiences. To be included in the 6th issue, which is scheduled for publication in late March 2009, please submit articles, abstracts, or proposals to c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com by Friday, December 12, 2008. When submitting, please include the title or subject of the proposal in the subject line of the email message.

C4LJ encourages creativity and flexibility, and the editors welcome submissions across a broad variety of topics that support the mission of the journal. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

    * Practical applications of library technology (both actual and
hypothetical)
    * Technology projects (failed, successful, proposed, or in-progress), including how they were done and challenges faced
    * Case studies
    * Best practices
    * Reviews
    * Comparisons of third party software or libraries
    * Analyses of library metadata for use with technology
    * Project management and communication within the library environment
    * Assessment and user studies

C4LJ strives to promote professional communication by minimizing the barriers to publication. While articles should be of a high quality, they need not follow any formal structure. Writers should aim for the middle ground between blog posts and articles in traditional refereed journals. Where appropriate, we encourage authors to submit code samples, algorithms, and pseudo-code.  For more information, visit C4LJ's Article Guidelines or browse articles from the first 4 issues published on our website: http://journal.code4lib.org.

Remember, for consideration for the 6th issue, please send proposals, abstracts, or draft articles to c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com no later than Friday, December 12, 2008. (If accepted: first draft due, January 23, 2009.)

Send in a submission. Your peers would like to hear what you are doing.

Code4Lib Journal Editorial Committee

HathiTrust Releases Experimental Full-Text Search Feature:
Approximately 350,000 Public Domain Works Included

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls

HathiTrust is currently experimenting with large-scale full text searching as part of an effort to create a mechanism to search across the entire repository. As an initial public beta of full text search functionality, we are offering a simple mechanism to search across all of the fully viewable works (both those in the public domain and those for which we have permissions) and a sprinkling of search-only works (i.e., in-copyright works where we may not show the text of the work).
The size of the content indexed is approximately 500,000 volumes, and the majority of the works are fully viewable. Although this is a fully functioning and reliable search mechanism for these works, we provide it as a public beta in order to learn more about these large search indexes in a public setting.

More information on our process to explore issues in this area is available in the HathiTrust.org large-scale search report.

http://www.hathitrust.org/large_scale_search

Please visit http://www.hathitrust.org/ to learn more about the HathiTrust Shared Digital Repository.