july11a.indd


July/August 2011 385 C&RL News

In theIn the
Welcome to the July/ August 2011 issue of 
C&RL News. In today’s fast paced world, aca-
demic libraries must constantly innovate to 
stay relevant to their constituencies. What 
made the library a central part of the stu-
dent’s world in the past may not draw them 
in today. At McPherson College in Kansas, 
the usual orientations and instruction ses-
sions weren’t doing the job of getting stu-
dents excited about the library. The solution? 
Take advantage of the current zombie craze 
and create a comic book that places library 
skills instruction in a more contemporary 
context. The comic’s creators, Matt Upson 
and C. Michael Hall, refl ect on the project 
and its benefi ts to the library in their article 
“Zombie attacks.”

Of course you don’t have to create a 
graphic novel to make your services more 
student-friendly. At Brigham Young University, 
librarians took the traditional volunteer student 
advisory group a step further by creating and 
organizing a team of library student workers 
around the IDEO model to drive innovation. 
Sara D. Smith and Quinn Galbraith describe 

the results in “Shopping carts and student 
employees.”

The Carnegie Mellon University Hunt Library 
took several different tracks for input, including 
advisory groups and class projects, resulting in 
a variety of projects aimed at “Increasing stu-
dent satisfaction.” Librarians at Duke University 
surveyed honors undergraduates, asking the 
question “Is the library part of the picture?” Emily 
Daly discusses what the survey discovered about 
student impressions of the library.

New ideas can extend outside the physical 
library to impact research and publishing, as 
well. In this month’s Scholarly Communication 
column, Gail P. Clement describes several proj-
ects in which librarians and library groups are 
joining the “Copyright self-help movement.”

Make sure to check out the other features 
and columns this month, including Internet 
Resources on Islamic manuscripts, information 
on using Selective Tweets and Twitter Feed 
in library marketing, and new Information 
Literacy Standards for Teacher Education.

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