feb11a.indd


February 2011 73 C&RL News

In the

Welcome to the February 2011 issue of C&RL 
News. Despite personal opinions of the current 
crop of TV reality shows such as Real House-
wives and Jersey Shore, popular culture can be 
used as a tool to reach today’s college students. 
The recent controversy over Jersey Shore cast 
member Snooki bumping the Newberry and 
Caldecott Medal winners from the Today Show 
can spur discussion about media coverage of 
the arts. And reality shows like Jersey Shore can 
even be used as tools in the library instruc-
tion classroom as Amy Springer and Kathryn 
Yelinek discuss in their article “Teaching with 
The Situation.”

While the word disaster could be used to 
jokingly describe some reality programming, the 
impact of physical disasters can be a real con-
cern for academic librarians. Jo Ann Calzonetti 
and Victor Fleischer advise us to “Don’t count 
on luck, be prepared,” based on their experi-
ences with flooding at the University of Akron.

Leadership and management are two impor-
tant aspects of many academic librarians jobs. 

In this issue, Kate Burke and Belina Lawrence 
describe their experiences and impact managing 
student assistants in “The accidental mentor-
ship.” Eric C. Shoaf also touches on the topic 
of leadership this month, discussing lessons 
learned from a recent management book in his 
essay “On leading and being led.”

Reaching out to your off campus local 
community can be a great way to build part-
nerships and increase the reach and impact of 
library programs and services. Librarians from 
the University of Michigan share their success 
in creating “A transformational outreach pro-
gram for an academic health sciences library.”

Make sure to check out the other features 
and columns this month, including Internet 
Resources on Arctic research, great dining 
options at ACRL 2011 in Philadelphia, and 
statements from the 2011 candidates for ACRL 
vice-president/ president-elect.

Thanks, as always, for reading the News.
—David Free, editor-in-chief

dfree@ala.org