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I have long regarded discovery, search, and collection management as sources of inspiration for user instruction, but library-based instruction now provides important insights about patrons. Newly minted professionals may not [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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, [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Librarians have embraced the internet and mastered the web, and they are building profiles in social media. These have become our core skills. Now we have yet another exciting opportunity [...]

HP announced on Aug. 18, 2011, that it was buying Autonomy.--Ed. Calling new technology game changing sounds like marketing hype. But every now and then, it's actually true. In the [...]

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 [...]