Exploring Canadian academic librarians’ and archivists’ research outside librarianship and archival studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to interpret and discuss survey results of a study of academic librarians’ scholarship and creative work outside of library and information science in order to reveal some librarians’ motivations to perform such work as well as their perceptions of administrators’ attitudes toward it. Design/methodology/approach – The authors published a link to a qualitative survey instrument on COLLIB-L and ULS-L, the e-mail lists for the college libraries section and the university libraries section of American Library Association, asking that only academic librarians engaged in scholarship and creative work outside of library and information science participate. This paper is an exploratory analysis of the survey results. Findings – Librarians reported that they produce such work for many reasons, including personal satisfaction, dynamic and successful liaison work, and ongoing commitment to scholarship and creative work. Academic librarians who produce non-LIS work do so with varying levels of support, and the recognition of such work is inconsistent among institutions. Originality/value – The authors are the first to query American academic librarians specifically about their scholarship or creative work outside of library and information science. Managers and administrators will glean much about academic librarians’ attitudes toward such work and how it adds value to the library operation and institution. Findings could affect criteria for reappointment, promotion, and tenure.

A Review of:
 Flaspohler, M. R. (2009). Librarian sabbatical leaves: Do we need to get out more? Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35(2), 152-161. 
 
 Objectives – To gather data on what proportion of U.S. academic libraries provide sabbatical opportunities to librarians, and to explore library directors’ perceptions of the effectiveness of sabbaticals and barriers to sabbatical-taking among librarians at their institutions.
 Design – Online questionnaire.
 
 Setting – Academic libraries in the U.S..
 
 Subjects – Directors of 403 academic libraries.
 
 Methods – The author reviewed the literature on sabbatical leaves in the library profession. She then developed an online survey using the University of Washington’s Catalyst system (a tool similar to SurveyMonkey). The survey contained both closed and open-ended questions, in order to generate quantitative data as well as to gather more in-depth information on respondents’ views. 
 
 A sample of American academic library directors was generated by choosing every eighth entry on a list of 3037 academic libraries generated by lib-web-cats, an online directory of libraries (http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/). The survey was sent to 403 academic library directors based on this selection method. The author received 101 successfully completed surveys for a response rate of 25%.
 
 Main Results – The author found that just over half of respondents (53 libraries, or 52%) indicated their institutions offered sabbatical leaves to librarians. Thirty-six per cent indicated they did not, while 12% indicated “other” (many of these respondents commented with clarifications about what other leave programs were available to librarians). Of the 53 institutions that reported offering leave programs, only half (27 respondents) indicated that library staff members had taken a sabbatical leave.
 
 Open-ended questions generated some insight into the barriers to sabbatical leaves at academic libraries. Differences between institutions in terms of availability of sabbatical leaves appear to be due to a combination of librarian status (whether or not librarians have full faculty status); funding issues (in some institutions, the library, and not the college administration, has to cover the costs of a sabbatical); and availability of other staff to cover the duties of the individual taking the leave. 
 
 Respondents also noted a discrepancy between the length and timing of librarian sabbaticals compared to other faculty (i.e., the professoriate), with librarians more often required to begin their leaves in the summer. Librarian sabbaticals were also sometimes shorter than those of other faculty; in some institutions a summer-length sabbatical was available, but not a six-month or year-long sabbatical, even though these options were available to other faculty.
 
 In terms of impacts of sabbaticals, most respondents who had experienced a staff member taking sabbatical felt that the sabbatical benefited the staff member and the institution; positive results include improved morale, publications that raised the profile of the library, and learning that was applied in the workplace. Some respondents, however, had negative experiences to report, the most common being that the sabbatical had had no effect. Some respondents noted staff who had taken sabbaticals had failed to meet the goals that had been set for the sabbatical. When asked what could be done to enhance sabbatical programs, respondents at institutions with these programs had some interesting suggestions, such as aligning sabbatical programs more closely with institutional goals, or promoting the pursuit of more collaborative research while on sabbatical.
 
 Conclusion – The author notes that while it’s dangerous to over-generalize from such a brief survey, many of the issues raised in the responses, such as faculty status, funding shortfalls, and staff shortages echo themes raised elsewhere in the library literature. These issues probably need to be addressed if we are to see any increase in the number of librarians taking sabbatical leaves.
 
 The author’s other conclusion is that librarians must be more accountable for demonstrating how a sabbatical could add institutional value, and for meeting the goals set in their sabbatical plans. The author conducted this study while on sabbatical herself, and concludes it “provides one example of how a librarian might create a manageable, research-based project that more closely marries academic rigor to personal experience” (p. 160).

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu Samantha Sinanan is an MLIS candidate in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Here she proposes that librarians should seek to understand the Net Generation searcher's perspective in order to teach information literacy most effectively. Accredited by the American Library Association with the Canadian Library Association, SLAIS is an internationally recognized graduate school at The University of British Columbia, in beautiful Vancouver. At SLAIS we are in the business of preparing professionals to exercise leadership in planning, implementing, and promoting the preservation, organization, and effective use of society's recorded information and ideas. We offer the master's degree in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) and the master's degree in Archival Studies (MAS). In addition, we sponsor a multidisciplinary Master of Arts in Children's Literature (MACL) with five other departments. Opportunities are also available for post-master's study, including a Ph.D. program in library, archival & information studies. For more information, visit www.slais.ubc.ca

A Review of:
 Oliver, A., & Prosser, E. (2018). Academic librarianship without the degree: Examining the characteristics and motivations of academic library professionals. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 44(5), 613-619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2018.07.006
 Abstract
 Objective – To examine the motivations and career paths of professionals outside the field of library science who work in academic library settings, including their reasons for not pursuing a graduate degree in librarianship.
 Design – Multiple-choice survey questionnaire.
 Setting – Not clearly stated.
 Subjects – 193 adults without graduate degrees in librarianship employed in professional positions in academic libraries.
 Methods – A nineteen-item multiple-choice questionnaire hosted on Select Survey and a previous study by the same authors. Filtering excluded survey respondents who did not currently work in academic libraries, who had graduate degrees in librarianship, or who do not identify as an academic library professional.
 Main Results – Most of the survey respondents (n=115, 59.9%) had positions in a library prior to pursuing a professional academic library career. Of those with prior library experience, most (n=98, 85.2%) had gained experience in academic library settings. The two top reasons cited for becoming an academic library professional were an interest in employment in academic library settings (n=59, 52.2%) and meeting position requirements (n=54, 47.8%). A fifth of respondents both met the requirements for their position and had an interest in working in academic libraries (n=23, 20.4%). Most respondents had less than five years’ experience (n=41, 36.6%) or six to ten years’ experience (n=43, 38.4%) in an academic library. Less than half of respondents had became academic library professionals after applying as an external candidate (n=83, 44.6%) and a number of respondents had applied as an internal candidate (n=52, 28%). Several respondents had become academic library professionals because they were promoted, appointed, or recruited within their academic libraries (n=35, 18.8%). Few respondents were actively working on a graduate librarianship degree (n=21, 11.3%) and most expressed that they did not need such a degree (n=112, 67.9%). Those who were pursuing a graduate degree in librarianship did so because of their desire to advance their careers (n=17, 81%). Respondents’ current positions were mostly categorized in areas such as administration (n=77, 31.2%), scholarly communications (n=34, 13.8%), technical services (n=27, 10.9%), and information technology (n=20, 8.1%).
 Conclusion – Having prior experience working in an academic library served as a notable motivating factor for entry into the position of academic library professional. Two main pathways towards obtaining such positions included positions without graduate library degree requirements and the transition of paraprofessionals into professional-level jobs. Most survey respondents noted their lack of interest in pursuing an advanced degree in librarianship, as they did not see the significance of having one. These findings may help library education programs to better understand growing needs in librarian education and prepare the future library workforce to meet these new demands.

In the last decade, several studies have been made in Latvia (Klotiņš 2018; Konstante 2017; Ķencis 2019), the focus of which has been the art of totalitarianism, or the so-called Stalin period, as well as the folklore sector in political, ideological and institutional discourse, leaving the personality in the background. The article focuses on an individual personality because the work and life of the poet Jānis Sudrabkalns (1894–1975) offer an opportunity to study his motivation for choosing behavioural strategies when he finds himself in a totalitarian regime and where they lead him. The purpose of the article is 1) to reveal the motivation that determined the behavioural strategy chosen by Sudrabkalns during the first year of Soviet occupation (June 17, 1940 – June 29, 1941); 2) to show that becoming a collaborator/ collaborationist was a process characterised by a fluctuation between collaboration and collaborationism during this period; 3) with examples of poetry and journalism, to reveal how collaboration and collaborationism are manifested in his creative work. The sources of the research are two collections of poems from the interwar period of Sudrabkalns, articles and poems published in periodicals during the first Soviet period; additional material is also provided by the collection of Sudrabkalns and Arturs Baumanis in the Museum of Literature and Music. The biographical method, close reading of the text, and archival studies were important in the research, as well as the concepts “collaboration” and “collaborationism”, which allow a more nuanced understanding of the path to collaborationism. An evaluation of certain events in Sudrabkalns’s life and an insight into his creative work during the interwar period and the first year of Soviet rule serve as the basis for reconstructing his motivations. This allows for the hypothetical conclusion that the poet’s collaboration and collaborationism were significantly influenced by the international situation at the beginning of the Second World War and the German-USSR war, but as well as his personality traits and personal motives, it also allowed us to outline the further consequences of his personality and creative work in the totalitarian regime.

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the use of augmented reality technologies in the training of specialists in information, library and archival studies, who can solve specialized problems in the professional field, characterized by the complexity and uncertainty of the conditions and provide for the application of the provisions and methods of information, library and archival affairs. Work in project student groups to develop library augmented reality is a synergistic educational model that combines different pedagogical strategy: problem-based (PBL), innovative learning (IBL), project-based (PjBL), active learning (AL), deeper learning and game-based learning (GBL). The study proposes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching student librarians: a combination of applied augmented reality research for academic libraries and problem-oriented student learning, learning in the development process for innovations. The method of infographics comparative analysis was used. The article raises the issues of convergence of traditional forms of theoretical and practical training and the organization of innovative activities of students in the space of the academic library on the example of the development of AR-technologies. Peculiarities of development and implementation of augmented reality information technologies in work with documentary funds of academic libraries in the process of problem-based learning focused on innovations are determined. AR-marker technology has been intuitive for humanities students and facilitates the annotation and indexing of library documents. AR-technologies allow playfully to delve into documentary and library science aspects of creating the content of an AR document to master the skills of compiling thematic references. In the concepts of PBL and IBL, the primary emphasis is placed on the applied solution of problems and implementing innovations that meet the needs of a particular organization. This undermines the value of fundamental theoretical learning. We show the value of theoretical lecture material, on the example of the development of augmented reality for academic libraries by student librarians. We prove the importance of correlating lecture material as a starting point for student innovations to the actual needs of the academic library. The results of the research will be an impetus for implementing PBL & IBL in higher education in developing innovations by students in new learning environments (internships, information industry), such as academic libraries. Also initiate the work on implementing AR information technologies in the activities of university libraries. AR is a significant addition to the tools that university and libraries can use to engage their audiences to information literacy training. This should promote the librarianship and increase the status of the university. The students’ work with AR library technology is characterized by complexity, interdisciplinary nature, the collaboration of students of humanities and technical profiles. All this develops in students important competencies: creativity, ability to apply theory, work in a team, learn, developer responsibility, systematic thinking, involvement, focusing on innovation. The paper proposes to consider AR information technologies not only in the perspective of programming but also as a tool for PBL-AL-PjBL-GBL-IBL of student librarians, and as a subject of library and document researches (new tools of documentation). We emphasize fundamental learning and its constant testing in practice. The starting point in the development of innovations by students is the educational material, not the needs of the organization for which the innovations are developed. Because the process of innovation is a learning experience designed to show the applied power of theoretical knowledge. A multifactor model for evaluating student innovations is proposed.

The most important task of the Supreme bodies of state power and local administration in Russia is the strengthening and development of modern Russian federalism based on the constitutional relationship of the centre and subjects of Federation. The present textbook contains a set of materials for conducting lectures and practical exercises, background material, questions for self-students, etc. they are based on the author's development, some of which were used as assignments for seminars, essays, essays and other creative works within the framework of the teaching course "the Historical experience of state and local government in Russia." Meets the requirements of Federal state educational standards of higher education of the last generation. For students enrolled in training 46.03.02 "documentation studies and archival studies".

As a result of changes in scholarly communication created by the open access movement, some academic libraries established open access (OA) publishing funds. OA funds are monies set aside at an institution to fund open access publishing of the results of scholarly research. OA funds are a recent innovation in the type of services offered by academic libraries. Adoption of an innovation can be examined in the light of established theories of innovation adoption among social systems. To examine academic libraries’ responses to OA publishing charges, this article explores the adoption of OA funds among Canadian academic research libraries from 2008 to 2012 by analyzing results from a series of previously published surveys. The findings are then examined in light of Everett Rogers’ Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) to consider the question of whether or not OA funds are becoming a standard service in Canadian academic research institutions. Adoption in Canada is briefly compared to that in the United States and United Kingdom. The paper concludes that, as of 2012, OA funds were becoming common but were not a standard service in Canadian academic research libraries and that libraries were actively participating in the development of OA funding models. Given the current Canadian context, the need of researchers for OA publishing support is likely to create pressure for continued adoption of OA funds among Canadian academic research institutions. However, assessment of existing OA funds is needed.

Genuine collaboration between academic librarians and social work faculty in which information literacy is embedded in social work education is lacking. Drawing from the results of the authors’ 2016 quantitative study surveying academic social work librarians across the United States, this qualitative follow-up uses data from 27 semi-structured interviews concerning the prevalence and nature of information literacy instruction (ILI) in social work education, how ILI is introduced and sustained in social work curricula, and the alignment between ILI efforts with institutional goals, guidelines from accreditation authorities, and professional social work practice standards. The literature review engages the reader in a robust definition of “information literacy” as applied to social work practice and its connection to social justice and anti-oppressive pedagogy. The findings and subsequent discussion center on current systemic obstacles in ensuring social work graduates enter the profession with sufficient information literacy (IL) skills for an ethical, research-informed, data-driven practice and conclude with recommendations for the evolution of integrated ILI at a local level within social work curricula. Collaborative and sustainable partnerships among academic librarians and social work faculty are essential for educating information literate social work practitioners of tomorrow.

Summary. The purpose of the article is to analyse literary heritage of the Ukrainian lawyers who dealt with literature, to present an overview of its sense and essence with their professional work as a background. The paper aims at disclosing different genres of their literary activity, as well as their creative authenticity. The paper sheds light on the personalities whose literary works were long forgotten due to the Soviet propaganda of the former era. The methodology of the research relies on the historic and objective principles. It includes the historical, historical-comparative, biographical, behavioural, and contrastive methods. The scientific novelty of the paper is revealed by the need to determine and systemize the role and place of the lawyers-writers in the cultural life of Galicia at the turn of two centuries, to understand peculiarities of their professional and creative work and to comprehend their perception of national ideas with their further embodiment in literature. Conclusions. The turn of the XIX–XX centuries introduced a new socio-professional stratum to the public arena of Western lands which were under the Austro-Hungarian Empire rule, and this stratum consisted of the Ukrainian lawyers. Not only its representatives, particularly lawyers, acted as legal defenders of national and civil rights of their compatriots in the local courts, they also took leading positions in the Ukrainian political and public life of Eastern Galicia, and fought for the rights of Ukrainians in both the Austrian Parliament and the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria. Besides their professional, political and social activity, a significant part of Galician lawyers (as all representatives of the legal professions were called back then) became famous because of their cultural and creative activities which were not a part of their working routine but part-time activities or hobbies. A lot of them took to creative writing as a means of expressing their ideas, and they works appeared in various genres of literature: scientific, journalistic, fiction (poetics, prose, etc.), representing their worldview and beliefs. The list of the well-known literary figures of that time includes such people as an ethnographer and folklorist M. Buchynsky, writers L. Martovych, I. Semanyuk, A. Tchaikovsky, poets M. Kichura and M. Kozoris, a publicist and one of the first Ukrainian futurists A. Kos, literary critics and editors V. Levitsky and M. Mochulsky and others. In fact, literary work was a complementary component of their way of life, a way of self-expression, as their main activity was legal work. Their literary work was an important component of life, a way of self-expression, which complemented their main legal work in a way. Their literary works depicted bitter reality of that time and hard life of fellow stateless people. Yet, they also served to show the best features of Ukrainians in literature.

A Review of:
 Miller, F., Partridge, H., Bruce, C., Yates, C., & Howlett, A. (2017). How academic librarians experience evidence-based practice: A grounded theory model. Library & Information Science Research, 39(2), 124-130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.04.003
 
 Abstract
 
 Objective – To explore and enhance the understanding of how Australian library and information science (LIS) practitioners experience or understand evidence based practice (EBP) within the context of their day-to-day professional work. 
 
 Design – Constructivist grounded theory methodology.
 
 Setting – University libraries in Queensland, Australia. 
 
 Subjects – 13 academic librarians.
 
 Methods – Researchers contacted academic librarians by email and invited each participant to take part in a 30-60 minute, semi-structured interview. They designed interview questions to allow participants to explain their process and experience of EBP. 
 
 Main results – This study identified six categories of experience of EBP using a constructivist grounded theory analysis process. The categories are: Empowering; Intuiting; Affirming; Connecting; Noticing; and Impacting. Briefly, empowering includes being empowered, or empowering clients, colleagues, and institutions through improved practice or performance. Intuiting includes being intuitive, or using one’s own intuition, wisdom, and understanding, of colleagues and clients’ behaviours to solve problems and redesign services. Affirming includes being affirmed through sharing feedback and using affirmation to strengthen support for action. Connecting includes being connected, and building connections, with clients, colleagues, and institutions. Noticing includes being actively aware of, observing, and reflecting on clients, colleagues, and literature within and outside of one’s own university, and noticing patterns in data to inform decision-making. Impacting includes being impactful, or having a visible impact, on clients, colleagues, and institutions. Together, these categories represent a model that explains the nature of academic librarians’ experiences of EBP. The theory describes academic librarians' experiences as complex and highly contextualized phenomena. There is no clear relationship between these categories, as data analysis did not generate a specific hierarchy of categories. 
 
 Conclusion – Based on the research findings the authors hypothesize that their study is one of a growing number of studies that has begun to establish an empirical basis for EBP in the LIS profession.

A Review of:
 Rabina, D. L., & Walczyk, D. J. (2007). Information professionals’ attitude toward the adoption of innovations in everyday life. Information Research, 12(4), 1-15. 
 
 Objective – This study examined the general characteristics and patterns of librarians in connection with their willingness to adopt information and communication technologies.
 
 Design – Online questionnaire. 
 
 Setting – General distribution to information professionals through online inquiry. More than 70% of responders worked in public or academic libraries.
 
 Subjects – Librarians and library staff at mostly public and academic libraries.
 
 Methods – The study was conducted during a two week period in April 2006 through an online questionnaire that was sent to library and librarian-related electronic mail lists. The questionnaire was divided into two parts and contained a total of 39 questions. Part one contained eight questions that asked for demographic data and the respondent’s daily attitude toward the adoption of information and communication technologies. Questions regarding age, number of years worked in a library, career, type of library environment worked in, and primary responsibilities within that environment were asked. For one question the respondents were asked to identify which of the categories they fall under when adopting a new technology. The results from part one were used to consider the innovativeness of librarians. The results from part two were used for a study of opinions on innovations and their relative advantage. 
 
 Main Results – A total of 1,417 responses were received. Of those, 1,128 were fully completed and considered valid and used for inquiry. The majority of respondents worked in public or academic libraries. Nine hundred and twenty-six respondents, or 88%, were from the U.S. and represented more than 300 distinct zip codes. Two hundred and two respondents, or 12%, were international respondents. 
 
 This study notes that the sociologist, Everett Rogers, identified and defined five adopter categories in 1958. Those categories are: innovators, early adapters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The findings of this study indicate that regardless of the demographic variables considered, more than 60% of respondents, the majority of librarians surveyed, fall into two contrasting adapter categories: early adopters and early majority. The study suggests that the efficient and effective diffusion of new technologies in library settings may be difficult. Three problematic areas among librarians for the dissemination of innovation were identified: conflicting opinions among multiple opinion leaders, deceleration in the rate of adoption, and improper re-invention. The findings of the study also suggest that “contrary to common beliefs, librarians in academic or special libraries are no more innovative than public or school librarians” (Conclusion, ¶3). 
 
 Conclusion – The study concludes that librarians’ attitudes are unevenly distributed with most either accepting new innovations or being late adopters. The variables of age, role, tenure, and library type had little impact on the approach of the professional toward innovation. The identification of the three problem areas: opinion leadership, deceleration of adoption, and improper re-invention, represents where more time and effort may need to be spent to make the implementation of new technology a smoother process.

As a researcher I have always maintained a firm boundary between my professional work and my personal hobbies. One of my most recent academic projects has traced the development of techniques and styles of needlework pictures and pictorial samplers made by young women in eighteenth-century England, while in my spare time I have increasingly turned to crocheting clothing and toys for friends and family. However, following recent developments in material culture and archival studies, which have encouraged reframing conceptions of authorship and resituating objects within larger networks of connection, it seems foolish to suppose that my work on needlework in the long eighteenth century is unaffected by my investment in crochet (and vice versa). This article aims to initiate discussions around the relationship between personal lives and professional research and seeks to explore how my practice of crochet and my research of textiles from the long eighteenth century are intimately connected.

I've been thinking a great deal about the trajectory of our journal. As Editor, I've been writing about how exciting it is to see the content for each issue develop over time. I've mentioned to anyone who will listen that I love talking with authors about ideas, and I love reading each iteration of the articles as they go through revisions. So, of course I ask myself, “Well, how did we get here?” In exploration, I started at the beginning.Have you ever read the very first issue of American Archivist?2 Published in January 1938, the issue is slim compared to those of today. It lists SAA officers, Council members (including Margaret Cross Norton), the members of the journal's Editorial Board, and Theodore Calvin Pease as managing editor. There is a single article about manuscript repair in European archives—“Part I: Great Britain”—and Pease's review of Hilary Jenkinson's A Manual of Archive Administration. There are professional notices and abstracts of European archival publications. The style is formal, the information specific and primarily technical.It's interesting to read this brief issue, because it is clear that American Archivist is not the “same as it ever was.” Even as we remain concerned about preservation and practice, the content we are currently writing is far from where we stood in 1938. What was then a budding professional concern—specifically the work of American archives—is now a vibrant network of professional scholarship, research, and communities of practice. Where we once looked to Europe to find structure and “suggestions” for our institutions, we've cultivated a professional mindset that reaches toward diverse voices and international colleagues to collaborate and contribute to an ongoing discussion about theory, practice, and the implications of our work.Our content in this issue is a mix of material—all in that continued vein of moving our professional conversation forward. This issue invites readers to read a handful of elegant articles about specific practice areas such as born-digital archives, finding aid aggregation, and reference staffing. We're considering assessment of our technical skills, how we teach with primary sources, and how the classroom provides us with a way to connect to underserved students. Case studies address how modern soldiers create their own archival record, and two international contributions—from Germany and Australia—consider disaster planning and a retrospective look at an important digital project.In addition, this issue asks us to look inward to examine the development of our profession. In particular, these articles explore archival education programs and the Guidelines for Graduate Programs in Archival Studies (GPAS)3 as well as the relationship between educators and the Academy of Certified Archivists.4 We also have the opportunity to consider the influence of the Archives Leadership Institute on professional career-building. This introspective look at how we have formed/are forming our profession is a first foray into examining professional identity.I say a first foray because, in forthcoming American Archivist issues and on the journal's Reviews Portal, we'll see some interesting reflections on that question of “Well, how did we get here?” Upcoming issues will bring you the opportunity to consider different segments of our professional work, our history, and implications for the future. We will begin to publish information from and about A*CENSUS II, and we're excited to be developing a special section on Middle Eastern and North African Archives. The Reviews Portal will debut a series entitled “Intergenerational Conversations,” which will bring new voices into conversation with articles and authors from the archival canon. American Archivist 85.2 is wonderful. Issue 86.1 is shaping up to be just as engaging.So, in my reflection on the trajectory of this journal and in reading its first issue, I realized that there is a statement made in the Announcement of American Archivist 1.1 that represents where I return, again and again: The editors are quite aware that in spite of the co-operation of the Society, THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST may be a failure. Without that co-operation, no matter what their efforts, they know it cannot succeed. . . . the journal can never be a success unless each individual member of the Society of American Archivists recognizes a personal responsibility for furnishing it with worthy material. In the hands of the membership, therefore, rests the ultimate fate of the publication.5This statement was written in part as a consideration of the journal's finances—important to understand at the beginning of a publishing venture. But more than that, this statement prioritizes from the outset what we continue to see 84 years later—that the contributions to this journal are made by our members, that the work of peer review and editorial guidance are done by our members, and that the journal is used and shared and valued by our members. You all have made this journal what it is. This is how we got here, same as it ever was. . . .

Welcome from the Editors