As libraries increasingly store books in off-site storage facilities or on-site automated retrieval systems, there is less capacity for library users to browse stack collections. This reduces the possibility for serendipitous discovery of books, or what the author refers to as a “collision with the collection”. This article discusses why this is…[Read more]

In this new era of experimentation in higher education, administrators should look to the academic library to adopt the same spirit of experimentation. Library and academic administrators will want to examine how they can collaboratively develop a new culture of experimentation to take risks, achieve new successes and occasional failures. This…[Read more]

As gatekeepers and content buyers, academic librarians carve out only a limited higher education role – making information accessible – for themselves. Our future depends on our ability to differentiate what libraries offer and what library workers bring to their communities. This article lays out an alternate vision for the library profession -…[Read more]

In a world where openness is increasingly a desired quality of higher education, academic and research libraries should strive to be open to non-student/non-faculty members of the surrounding community that could benefit from library resources, primarily access to computers and the Internet. This essay explores the potential benefits and…[Read more]

At one time faculty rarely had much good to say about Wikipedia and typically warned their students not to use it for research. Academic librarians are visibly involved in changing the say Wikipedia is perceived on their campuses. This essay explores ways in which Wikipedia is being used to promote writing and research skills.

In this update to our original article we share those most recent developments, which to our way of thinking generate high enthusiasm for even greater progress towards higher education’s transition to a culture of openness. We offer suggestions for how to spread the development of open educational resource (OER) initiatives.

There is often an assumption that academic libraries and bookstores are adversaries around the development of textbook affordability projects. This article shares the results of a survey on library-bookstore relationships and suggests that the two organizations have a shared interest in student success upon which a productive relationship can be built.

This reply to “The Curious Absence of Economic Analysis at the Federal Communications Commission” (Faulhaber, Singer, & Urschel, 2017) makes three claims. First, we document the paper’s undisclosed origins as a white paper commissioned by an advocacy group with deep ties to the telecommunications industry. Second, we describe two of the authors’…[Read more]

Concert programmes are an increasingly important source to those studying the history of musical performance and concert life, providing rich sociological and musicological context. Though there are currently projects in place to improve access to these vital documents, the arrangement of programmes has so far escaped in-depth study. Therefore…[Read more]

Live video streaming as a technique became political with the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. To see images in real time and without the mediation by journalists affected many people not because they shared the same space with the various protesters but the same time. In the last years, artists have started to adopt streaming as a technical…[Read more]

A review of the original Sims game and how fans are attempting to preserve the game and its assets through digital archives and other participatory practices. Written for the Intensive: Cult Media Review section of Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media.

The open access movement has taken a strong hold within cultural heritage institutions, as large-scale digitization efforts are becoming increasingly popular in most libraries, museums, and archives. These initiatives have had a particular effect on the status of rare and unique materials through the provision of high-quality images and…[Read more]

The author examines a choice of the conceptualisations of the ‘musical work’ within the domain of music in the context of bibliographical control and information retrieval. The study uses the principles of domain analysis proposed by Hjorland (Hjorland 2002) as a framework. The scope is wide and does not claim to be comprehensive. The phi…[Read more]

Why do we play games—with and upon each other as well as ourselves? When are winners also losers, and vice-versa? How and to what end do we stretch the spaces of play? What happens when players go ‘out of bounds,’ or when games go ‘too far’? Moreover, what happens when we push the parameters of inquiry: when we play with traditional narrative…[Read more]

This paper engages with the existing body of archival literature that addresses what has been termed “documentary art” in order to address questions regarding the treatment of visual materials in archival practice and theory. It will also borrow and apply theories from the disciplines of material culture studies and art history in order to for…[Read more]

Through an engagement with theory from the fields of art history, anthropology, and sociology, this article examines the archival existence of medieval manuscripts and facilitates an understanding of archival practice and its effects on user experience from the perspective of the researcher, rather than from that of the archivist or information…[Read more]

Through a discussion of the materiality of photographic documents and the inherent qualities of digital objects, this article examines the viability of digitization as a method of archival photographic preservation. By exploring notions of surrogacy, originality, and aura, the author presents and deconstructs the popular argument that digital…[Read more]

Through a discussion of the materiality of photographic documents and the inherent qualities of digital objects, this article examines the viability of digitization as a method of archival photographic preservation. By exploring notions of surrogacy, originality, and aura, the author presents and deconstructs the popular argument that digital…[Read more]

Abstract What is a Health Library? What categories need to be met so that a library can be referred to as a Health Library, and not just a library with health material? A literature review was carried out, looking at the history of health libraries in the UK, various organisations linked to those, the staff that work in them, the services they…[Read more]