Editorial

Collaboration and Growth

Lorie Kloda

Editor-in-Chief

Assessment Librarian, McGill University Library

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

2015 Kloda. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons-Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same or similar license to this one.

After the success of the journal’s Feature section on the 2010 Library Assessment Conference which appeared in issue 8(2) in 2013, I am pleased to present the current issue, which includes a Feature section on the 2012 Library Assessment Conference. The conference took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I was lucky enough to be in attendance. It was, in fact, my first Library Assessment Conference, as I was a newly minted Assessment Librarian at the time. In the present issue, six papers are included: one Commentary and five peer reviewed articles, based on the original conference proceedings. In addition, our Feature section Guest Editor, Martha Kyrillidou who served co-chair of the 2012 conference, has an editorial. The Editorial Board at of EBLIP is delighted to continue its collaboration with the Library Assessment Conference and to provide an open access venue to publish scholarship on library assessment.

This issue also includes the final EBL 101 column, which made its first appearance in issue 3(3) in 2008. Published every issue, the column’s first 11 installments were meant to cover all the steps of evidence based library and information practice. The following 14 installments introduced various research methods. Virginia Wilson, who authored 23 of the 25 columns, says goodbye to the EBL 101 column but not to the journal. Read her last column to find out her plans for a new column.

Given all the successes of the EBLIP journal over the past decade, it’s no surprise to me to see new opportunities arising and to see the journal flourish. This success is due to past and current members of our Editorial Board. This past year, as the Board prepared for Alison Brettle, to step down from her role as Editor-in-Chief, we discussed possible ways in which previous Board members could continue to serve the journal. (I’ll confess to a mild panic at the thought of Alison’s sudden disappearance from editorial meetings.) What we conceived was a group of experienced editors to help guide the journal’s direction and provide support during times of high volume of submissions.

It was decided that anyone who has served for a minimum of one year as a member of the Editorial Board of EBLIP, (as Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, Production Editor, or Lead Copyeditor, for instance) would be invited to become an Editorial Advisor. I am thrilled to be able to announce that we invited four prior Editorial Board members who met these qualifications, and all of them readily accepted! Our new Editorial Advisors are Lindsay Alcock, Alison Brettle, Katrine Mallan, and Pam Ryan.

Lindsay Alcock (formerly Glynn) is Head, Public Services at the Health Sciences Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. Lindsay served as Editor-in-Chief of EBLIP from its inaugural issue in 2006 until 2008 (volume 3, issue 4). She is also currently a member of the Evidence Summaries writing team, and has served as a peer reviewer for the journal. Alison Brettle is a Senior Lecturer and Information Specialist in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Salford in the United Kingdom. She served as Associate Editor (Articles) of EBLIP and more recently as its Editor-in-Chief. Katrine Mallan is Head of Acquisitions at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Pam Ryan is the Director of Collections and Technology at Edmonton Public Library in Canada. Katrine and Pam both served as Production Editors for EBLIP, and Pam has also been a peer reviewer.

The role of Editorial Advisor, like other members of the Editorial Team, is completely voluntary. The purpose of the Editorial Advisor is to act in an advisory role within the Editorial Team: to offer guidance, provide support when needed, and to maintain continuity in the journal as it evolves. Editorial Advisors serve for a three-year term, which may be renewed. The entire team here at the journal is very excited about this new development, and we look forward to expanding our group to include these experienced members in order to continue to propel EBLIP into another decade of high-quality content.