Some on this list might be interested in the news about the launch of the beta version of the Public Sphere Guide, co-sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK): http://publicsphere.ssrc.org/guide The Public Sphere Guide serves as a research guide and teaching guide and as a guide to the SSRC's public sphere program area, creating a map of the fragmented interdisciplinary field of study and building a resource for the renewal of the public sphere. This mapping project is accompanied by an essay forum on Transformations of the Public Sphere. The initial essays include contributions from the recent ICA 2009 Mini-Plenary on "Keywords: The Public Sphere, Public Culture and Reasoned Public Choice." The forum includes essays by Michael Schudson, Shanto Iyengar and James Curran, Michael X. Delli Carpini and Craig Calhoun. Forthcoming contributions include essays by Lauren Berlant, Daniel C. Hallin, Nick Couldry and others. The forum is interactive. Readers of the essays are invited to submit comments. http://publicsphere.ssrc.org/ Andreas Koller, SSRC and NYU