Although they are referred to in this article as “a new kind of web site”, most academic librarians have used or are familiar with social bookmarking sites – or those that combine social bookmarking and social networking. What is a hidden influencer? Someone whose contributions to sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit or StumbleUpon (see [...]

The pseudonymous Thomas H. Benton has written another personal essay for the Chronicle about books and libraries, this one titled Red-Hot Library Porn. Benton, an associate professor of English, reminds us that academic library users also include non-millenials who get their jollies more from dusty old tomes than the latest electronic gadgets. After a literate [...]

It’s great that our academic libraries can provide the community with local and remote access to vast amounts of digital content. But in doing so, do our OPACs and aggregator databases eliminate the benefits of the serendipitous discovery of information? We’ve probably all had the experience of coming across an article or book while wandering [...]

As previously promised ACRLog is now proudly brings to you, from the candidate’s forum at ALA midwinter, the responses to the forum questions by this year’s candidates for the position of ACRL Vice-President/President-Elect, Erika Linke of Carnegie Mellon University and Scott Walter of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both candidates have graciously offered their [...]

Many of us become academic librarians without much prior knowledge of the structure or practices of higher education. In time we become familiar with phrases and terms such as academic freedom, tenure, shared governance and others. In some cases we have just a surface understanding of these concepts, or we may have studied them in [...]