This will be our final issue of Australian Academic & Research Libraries (AARL), and therefore our final AARL editorial. As previously announced, AARL will be merging with the Australian Library Journal to form the new Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (JALIA). So for us this is a special final issue as we thank the Editorial Board, in particular the Chair Paul Genoni, Curtin University, but also all the members, Sheila Corrall, University of Pittsburgh, Heather Gordon, James Cook University, Cathrine Harboe-Ree, Monash University, John Kennedy, Charles Sturt University, Steve O’Connor, Information Exponentials, Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, National Library of Australia, and Janette Wright, Biblio Insights. Sheila, Heather, John and Janette will be joining us on the JALIA Editorial Board, and we look forward to their continuing contribution. We wish Paul, Cathrine, Steve and Anne-Marie all the very best in their future endeavours.
We also wish to thank all AARL’s authors, reviewers and readers, without whose support we could not have conducted our work as editors and without whom the journal would not have flourished for the last 46 years. We would specifically like to acknowledge the contribution of editors past from the foundation editor, D.H. (Dietrich) Borchardt, who was also the longest serving editor. The editors who have served the journal and thus the profession were:
This is also a special issue in terms of its content. We have selected a range of past papers that resonated with readers in terms of citations or downloads, or discussed a specific issue of importance to the profession or discipline. Accompanying these original papers are reflections by the authors about how the subject of their earlier paper has changed over the years. We are pleased that seven authors accepted our invitation to contribute to the issue. One author, Tony Ralli, nominated instead a colleague, John Shipp, to write a reflection on his paper, as he felt he had been out of the profession for too long. Time was a factor in our selection of papers, but we have nevertheless managed to cover over half the journal’s publishing history and it is fascinating to read how the perspectives, academic and professional, have developed and changed over the years.
We arranged the papers in this issue chronologically, according to when the original paper was published and begin with Janine Schmidt’s reflection on her 1989 paper ‘Collection evaluation and the conspectus: Chimeras in library cooperation?’. In 1990, Tony Ralli wrote ‘Professionalism – Does it count?’ and John Shipp provocatively reflects on the issue of professionalism today. Maxine Rochester steps out of the river and puts down her fly fishing line to examine what has changed in library and information science research in Australia in her reflection on her 1995 paper ‘Library and information science research in Australia 1985–1994: A content analysis of research articles in the Australian Library Journal and Australian Academic & Research Libraries’.
Perspectives on information literacy have changed markedly over the years and Christine Bruce provides us with food for thought when reflecting on her 2000 paper ‘Information literacy research: Dimensions of the emerging collective consciousness’. Those of us in the field know there have been changes in library and information education programs and Connie Wilson and Patricia Willard analyse these in their reflection on their 2004 paper ‘Australian professional library and information studies education programs: Changing structure and content’. Some of the figures quoted in the paper are quite surprising.
In all libraries, the services and resources offered have changed over the years, sometimes in quite short periods of time and Robyn Drummond reflects on a paper she co-wrote on ‘RIMS: The Research Impact Measurement Service at the University of New South Wales’ which exemplifies this. As library services and resources change, so too have our perceptions of our users and Michael Olssen builds on his 2009 paper ‘Re-thinking our concept of users’ to illustrate how this change has occurred and how it may affect those of us in information work. The final reflection is on the 2010 paper ‘On becoming citizens: Examining social inclusion from an information perspective’, which was written by Annemaree Lloyd, Suzanne Lipu and Mary Anne Kennan before the global refugee crisis was to reach its peak. Annemaree Lloyd reflects on how library and information science researchers and practitioners across the world are uniquely placed to play a significant role in supporting refugees with their information needs.
To round off the issue, David Wells, AARL book reviews editor, again provides us with a fantastic range of reviews. David is moving on after the journal merger and in wishing him well in the future we want him to know how appreciated his work for AARL was, and that he shall be missed.
While we are sad to see an end to AARL, we look forward to our next challenge as Co-Editors of JALIA and hope you our authors, readers and reviewers will make the transition with us. For those wishing to make a contribution to JALIA the link for submission is at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/JALIA/default.aspx.
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