High-quality customer service is an important aim of the library experience. Its importance is evidenced by attention given to the topic in scholarly literature and academic conference proceedings. This article describes the challenging process of creating and delivering a blended customer service training curriculum to all library staff working…

This article presents a case study of liberating reading lists through a staff-student collaboration in a UK arts university. It characterizes reading lists as a familiar but under researched feature of academic life and discusses their practical and symbolic role in maintaining Western/Eurocentric/White disciplinary canons, and how they inform…

Twelve scholarly papers and eighteen abstracts comprise the content of the nineteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of…

Online learning, already an essential component of the higher-education and professional landscape, has now developed a more ubiquitous presence in K-12 learning due to educational trends such as flipped education and use of tools such as Google Classroom. Despite the increasingly important role of online learning in K-12 education, little…

Children's librarians are often required to be performers. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to determine the degree to which the Masters of Library Science (MLS) programs accredited by the American Library Association currently incorporate theatrical and performance-based training. A quantitative content analysis was conducted…

This study is a systematic review of the library and information science (LIS) literature related to international students and academic libraries. A systematic review involves the methodical collection and analysis of a body of literature and is growing in popularity in the LIS field. Three well-known LIS databases were systematically searched…

Special collections and area studies librarians face similar challenges in the changing academic library environment, including the need to articulate the value of these specialized collections and to mainstream processes and practices into larger discovery, teaching, learning, and research efforts. For some institutions, these similarities have…

This essay reflects on the challenges of facilitating a community program partnership with the Prince George's Memorial Library System. The program, "Community Justice," uses a public syllabus to introduce local teens to social justice concepts, theories, and methods. While issues of sustainability and retention are examined in this…

Every year, the Rainbow Round Table Committee from the American Library Association (ALA) selects quality lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual+ (LGBTQIA+) books for the ALA's Rainbow Book List. The committee evaluated approximately 450 titles published in the United States and Canada between July 1, 2020,…

In this article the author discusses the evolution of the profession of librarianship and the compromise of educating librarians in schools instead of by apprenticeship. He poses a series of questions, some more rhetorical than others: (1) Is Technical Services an intellectual concept or an administrative device?; (2) Can the routines and rules of…

In this article, the author gives an overview of Dunkin's article on education in the library profession. He believes it is clear that Dunkin thought too much attention was focused on practice, and not enough on theory--though there was room, and need, for both. Dunkin poses a series of questions, some more rhetorical than others: (1) Is Technical…

This article uses the case study of developing a collaborative "out-of-hours" virtual enquiry service by members of the Northern Collaboration Group of academic libraries in the north of England to explore the importance of communication and collaboration between academic library services in enhancing student learning. Set within the…

Staying ahead of the pitch: an old baseball metaphor that means to anticipate where the ball is going to go so that the batter can score a hit. But to anticipate changes in a field as robust and challenging as information sciences, reflection and contemplation are often key to good planning. With simple day-to-day management of libraries already…

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell of their visions for the profession, or to tell of research that is…

Academic librarianship has had a traditional role encompassing various specialisms: subject support, training, journal subscription management, collection development and user engagement front of house. While many of these roles remain, they should be re-evaluated. New competencies and skillsets in teaching, publishing, bibliometrics, impact, data…