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Welcome to the July/August 2008 issue of 
C&RL News. Encouraging and developing 
quality research skills in students is an es­
sential component of a successful library 
instruction program. Librarians at Bingham­
ton University collaborated with classroom 
faculty to survey both full­time faculty and 
teaching assistants in order to assess how 
students really conduct research, and in­
corporated the results into their instruction 
program. Read about the survey results and 
responses in “Critical research practices at 
Binghamton University.” 

One way is to engage and motivate stu­
dents is make learning more hands­on and 
experiential. In her article “Service learning and 
engagement in the academic library,” Nancy K. 
Herther describes the challenges and successes 
of library participation in courses that promote 
this type of active, community­based learning. 

Engagement and motivation are also es­
sential to recruiting and retaining new library 

professionals. The East Carolina University 
Joyner Library provides “A different kind of 
fellowship” for library support staff who are 
attending library school to help them gain 
professional­level experience. Northwestern 
University considered issues of motivation 
in reworking the training of preprofessional 
interns. Carol Doyle provides tips for “Re­
thinking preprofessional training to improve 
work quality” in this issue. 

Make sure to read all of the other great 
articles this month as well, including Karla 
Hahn’s scholarly communication article on 
new developments in author rights and 
copyright management, Internet resources 
on bioinformatics, and tips for putting on a 
collaborative library outreach symposium. 

After a short break, C&RL News will return 
in September. Enjoy your summer! 

—David Free, editor-in-chief 
dfree@ala.org 

July/August 2008 377 C&RL News 

mailto:dfree@ala.org