ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

In the news

Darwin said that adaptation was the key to the survival of a species. If adaptation is the key, then I think librarians have a good prognosis for survival. As I review the contents of this issue, I see librarians creatively adapting to their situations—whether it is adapting space to fit new technology needs, adapting instructional design to meet new campus initiatives, adapting the Web to be a better tool for users, or adapting themselves into new roles as managers.

I hope these articles give you ideas that you can use to adapt your services or facilities, or even the way you think about things!

Steven Sowards offers 13 tips that can make your first year as a middle manager more successful (page 523). A special thanks to Tamara Ohr-Campbell for providing the illustrations to his tips.

Norm Medeiros reviews the way libraries have adapted their use of Web sites and takes a look at what the future may hold (page 527).

Katherine Furlong and Michael McGuire share how they quickly devised a curriculum and recruited teachers to implement a faculty senate decision to require a new core course that would include library instruction (page 531).

Dorothy Warner, John Buschman, and Robert Lackie share how they took an already crowded space and made it into a lab/electronic classroom (page 536).

Jennifer Kimball reminds us to adapt our thinking to that of an undergraduate and start our instruction with the basics (page 556).

This issue concludes our coverage of ACRL’s 9th National Conference (page 547). I hope that you find many useful ideas in the session reports that will help you adapt to whatever comes your way.

—Mary Ellen Davis Editor-in-chief medavis@ala.org