In my mailbox

Today must have been mail day for library journals; in my mailbox were the most recent editions of College & Research Library News (January 2010), American Libraries (February 2010), and ALA Graphics (Spring 2010). I've only briefly perused the titles, but there were a few things that caught my attention.

ACRL Insider provides a great overview of the journal and includes full text where available. I was particularly interested in Professional Development on a Dime and Social Media: A Guide for College and University Libraries. The Fast Facts section included interesting statistics on Missing Web References:

"According to a new case study, “the number of [W]eb citations (in research papers) has increased from 41.60 percent of all citations in 1998 to 53.32 percent in 2002. But a substantial quantity of [W]eb citations (32.09 percent) was found to be missing.”" -- Gary Pattillo

American Libraries (the February edition no less) is often geared more to public librarians, but there are always one or two things that are adaptable to the academic venue. Faces of Circulation is a particularly timely to discussions I had with our head of circulation earlier this week and the often prevailing feeling of many non-librarian professionals.

"The main point is that every position in the library is necessary to help all workers perform their job efficiently. Circulation staff are valuable to the service of a library and should be treated that way." -- Toccara Porter

The author is honest, and blunt, about reasons for penning the article and I do not disagree with her description of events at the circulation desk as I have witnessed the same. But, I have to wonder.