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The library profession holds user services and broad information access as top priorities for the long term. Strategies change along with users, and this confirms the need for ongoing reassessment. [...]

[THIRTY] YEARS OF MONITORING LONGTERM TRENDS--24 FOR COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES--HAS ITS REWARDS. BUT AFTER MORE THAN 3 DECADES, WHERE DOES CONVERGENCE STAND? Memories vary about when digital convergence first hit [...]

RESEARCHERS ARE EXPLORING WHAT IS NOW POSSIBLE USING DATA ANALYTICS, AND WE OWE IT TO OUR USERS TO PUT FORWARD OUR DEVELOPING VISION OF THE DATAVERSE ALONGSIDE OUR COLLABORATORS. Conversations [...]

THE ENTHUSIASM OF THE LOCKDOWN INSTRUCTIONAL STYLE IS NOW A CONTINUING SOURCE OF CREATIVITY AS SOCIETY REOPENS FULLY, IMPROVED PRESENTATION SKILLS DO MORE THAN GUIDE OUTREACH-THEYALSO BUILD COMMUNITY Our professional [...]

Digitization has been around for a long time, and it received substantial media attention when Google launched its mass-scanning initiative in 2004. That venture ran aground on the barrier reef [...]

WITHOUT A STRATEGY TO SAFEGUARD PEER REVIEW, ARTICLE-BASED OPERATING SYSTEMS MIGHT ATOMIZE THE JOURNAL WITHOUT PROVIDING A NEW FOUNDATION FOR PEER REVIEW. Digital collections are fully integrated into research at [...]

DISCOVERING THE SCOPE OF INFORMATION FRAGMENTATION MAY HAVE A ... GALVANIZING EFFECT ON ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT--IF MANAGERS ARE ALERTED TO ITS PREVALENCE. The pace of evolution in IT security is accelerating, [...]

INFO PROS ARE NATURAL ALLIES OF FRONT-LINE INSTRUCTORS, AND USING DISCOVERY AS A DESIGN CONCEPT STRENGTHENS THAT ALLIANCE. Designing learning spaces is now a top goal for research universities. Every [...]

Monitoring the progress of OA is a constant exercise these days, especially given the deeper engagement of publishers. Legacy publishers have increased their strategic thinking about OA, and this is [...]

Information professionals are very accustomed to wisecracks that go something like this: 'Everything I need is on the web--I never go to the library.' By now most of us have [...]

The pace of evolution in IT security is accelerating, increasing the workloads of network administrators and pushing all stakeholders closer together in search of stability. In addition, online security is [...]

A Library Director Emeritus for Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California-Berkeley Metrics are pervasive throughout American society, and the demand for more is constant. The explosive [...]

IT COMES AS A PLEASANT SURPRISE THAT THE URGE TO COLLABORATE HAS REACHED EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS. THIS IS THE KIND OF EPIDEMIC WE NEED.... As Computers in Libraries' September 2021 deadline [...]

The article offers information on the evolving role of digital libraries in understanding user behavior and emphasizes the social aspect of information and collections. Topics include the convergence of digital collections and services; the significance of physical collections in the digital age; metrics revealing user engagement with library resources; and the impact of data analytics on information management and user outreach strategies.

AS THE LOCKDOWN WINDS DOWN, THE WAY FORWARD IS CLEAR: OUTREACH THAT ACCENTUATES PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WORKS. AND WE CAN ANTICIPATE DEMAND FOR MORE OF THE SAME. Library patrons now rely [...]

Both the library profession and society at large have been surveying the past year to determine what the new normal will look like in the wake of a global pandemic. [...]

The article focuses on the growing importance of collection expertise in the digital landscape, highlighting the collaboration between librarians and publishers. Topics discussed include the increasing interest in digital custodianship among content creators, the power of visual media in community building and scholarly communication, and the embrace of collaboration among content managers to address challenges like peer review and data services.

This issue of CIL focuses on special libraries, where I've spent my library career--and whose future has been on my mind. Consequently, I am using my column space to assess [...]

Since 2017, the West Coast has faced repeated and serious fire disasters. The severe 2019 fire season gave Bay Area residents a taste of extended emergency lockdowns. Those were tough [...]

For as long as print has been the medium for preservation, it has been easy to think of collections as static or at least highly stable. As a profession, we [...]

The need to innovate has challenged information professionals for as long as Computers in Libraries has been around, and we've learned a thing or two along the way. Effective innovation [...]

SOCIETIES AROUND THE GLOBE ARE CONFRONTING A NOT-SO-BLITHE FACT THAT WAS FORETOLD BY WEB CREATOR TIM BERNERS-LEE LONG AGO: THE WORLD WIDE WEB WAS NOT DESIGNED WITH SECURITY IN MIND. [...]

Recently, I had two intriguing conversations that caused me to rethink my assumptions about how skilled researchers start discovery efforts, as well as how they deepen their focused research in [...]

The majority of innovative discovery projects typically focus on optimizing search, improving user skills, and introducing new services. Of course, this is all wonderful and very much needed. However, while [...]

Lately, I have been expanding my forays into some of the more popular public libraries in the San Francisco Bay Area in search of historical resources. While fun in its [...]

For most of us, the first thing that comes to mind when we hear the term 'blockchain' is bitcoin, as in the cryptocurrency and innovation in online financial transactions. Indeed, [...]

Thirty years of innovation in digital preservation have reshaped how the library profession perceives itself, as well as how it interacts with scholars in every field. Large-scale digitization has advanced [...]

Data science--and Big Data in particular--has been revolutionizing the world of information professionals for years. In response, librarians are assessing their overall data strategies in pursuit of new roles, opportunities, [...]

AN ENTREPRENEURIAL FOCUS FROM THE LIBRARY MIGHT BE A WELCOME RESPITE TO OUR USER COMMUNITIES, WHICH FACE A DAILY MARCH OF DISTRESSING NEWS ABOUT FOREIGN POWERS MEDDLING IN ELECTIONS; CYNICAL, [...]

It was just a few years ago that online repositories were established as an ideal platform for hosting persistently accessible digital artifacts, chiefly manuscripts on their way to publication. Since [...]

The Russian influence scandal that occurred during the 2016 U.S. presidential election has received major attention, and technology's role figures prominently in the story. The New York Times' columnist Farhad [...]

For a profession that invented and perfected resource sharing--aka shared cataloging and interlibrary loan--we have come a long way. We have taken advantage of the sharing economy and partnered with [...]

Library content managers have long faced an interesting public relations challenge: explaining why our repository interfaces seem behind the times. Robust content platforms might be working just fine, but they [...]

Data aficionados will remember 2015 as the year that Big Data applications began appearing everywhere. Additionally, the debate about the proper balance between human and machine-based analysis gained new prominence [...]

Librarians have demonstrated that they are more than able to innovate, take risks, and find new ways to engage with their user communities. Practicing activism is no longer an inconvenience, [...]

Continuous change has been the norm for information professionals since the Industrial Revolution, but it is easy to lose track of the long arc of change for two reasons. First, [...]

Many of us follow the lifecycle of technological innovation from concept-to-market-to-consumer. As a result, we know a lot about how new technology carries potential and excitement, but it also creates [...]

Digital library development has become a mainstay of professional practice, not only for collection development and programming experts, but for anyone who has a public-facing role in the library. This [...]

One of the seldom-mentioned advantages of being a librarian is, at least for me, one of the more surprising: Unlike many other experts and professionals, we have long known that [...]

As I am writing this column, it seems as if all the commentators and critics in the world have had their final say on the U.K.'s Brexit vote, the U.S. [...]

As 2016 draws to a close, we look back on a year that is marked by several important advances in technology, which are sure to influence society--and the information professions [...]

As I think about CIL's November issue and the timely topic of media strategies, I'm reminded that by the time this issue appears online and in print, Internet Librarian International [...]

There is a very broad and very well-considered literature in our field on the challenges we face in improving user experience (UX). It's worth following because there are always new [...]

Having made information science my second career, I have always benefited from comparing what matters to us with what mattered in my past field of expertise: independent bookselling. Back then, [...]

Cybersecurity is receiving more attention than ever before. University campuses everywhere--including the one I work at--face repeated hacking attempts and are heightening security measures. What was once rare now seems [...]

OA, AS A CONCEPT, IS CAUGHT BETWEEN THE DREAM OF FREE (OR, AT LEAST, FREER] INFORMATION AND THE REALITY OF SOCIETY'S DEPENDENCE ON PROFIT-MAKING BUSINESS MODELS. The open access (OA) [...]

Whenever CIL focuses on innovation, it's tempting to look at what is in the technology pipeline. However, the month of December also triggers an urge to assess the past year's [...]

As of this writing, I had two intriguing conversations with University of California-Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) economists about the potential of adding machine-generated data in their field of study. In the first [...]

Library space has been a hot topic and a source of debate for as long as Computers in Libraries has been in existence. Our perspectives on library space have been [...]

Marketers spend a lot of time and effort trying to understand the Millennial generation, and so do we. After all, they are already supplanting the Baby Boomers as another trendsetting [...]