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Many college and university libraries offer 
minority residence programs to help them 
recruit and retain a diverse workforce and 
to provide opportunities for new minority 
graduates of MLS programs. “Our experience 
as minority residents” offers a thoughtful 
look into the minority residency experience 
from the perspective of two librarians who 
went through such a program together. They 
highlight the positive aspects of the experi­
ence and provide suggestions on ways to 
improve it. 

Social networking sites have soared in 
popularity in the past year or so, particularly 
among the teenage and young adult set 
who are, or will soon be, college students. 
Always on the lookout for ways to use new 
technologies, some academic librarians are 
beginning to experiment with reaching out to 
their student populations through these sites. 
In “Do you Facebook?” Brian Mathews shares 
the results and his insights from undertaking 

to use Facebook as a marketing and outreach 
tool for the library. 

In the December 2005 issue, we ran a 
The Way I See It article, “Losing our minds: 
The impact of technology on reading and 
reflection,” which dealt with the changes that 
technology has brought to the higher educa­
tion environment and examples of ways to 
deal with these changes. A response to this 
article, “Reading and technology: The bigger 
picture,” appears in this issue. It focuses on 
the changing makeup of the student popula­
tion and the role of the library in meeting that 
population’s needs. 

A complete listing of ACRL preconferences, 
program, meetings, and special events at the 
ALA Annual Conference (June 22–28, New Or­
leans, Louisiana) is included in this issue. The 
pull­out preliminary program can be taken to 
conference as an easy reference. 

—Stephanie Orphan, Editor­in­chief 
sorphan@ala.org

May 2006  291 C&RL News 

mailto:sorphan@ala.org