ARL News

Would you like to search job descriptions at your peer libraries from a single interface? Could you use a digital archive of job descriptions from your own institution? Are you attending the 2013 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle? Join us for a free demonstration of the forthcoming Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Position Description (PD) Bank on Saturday, January 26, 3:00-4:00 p.m., at Hotel 1000, Great Room on Level Four, 1000 First Avenue.

On Thursday, November 29, the US Senate Judiciary Committee took a crucial step toward fixing outdated privacy laws by endorsing a bill proposed by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), which includes vital reforms to give appropriate privacy protection to e-mail and cloud storage. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) applauds Chairman Leahy and all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for their strong, bipartisan support for reasonable privacy protections online.

ARL has published Changing Role of Senior Administrators, SPEC Kit 331, which focuses on the professional, administrative, and management positions that report directly to the library director (or, in some ARL member libraries, the position that serves as the representative to the Association), positions that have not been examined by a SPEC survey since 1984.

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has issued the following statement regarding the appeal filed yesterday by the Authors Guild in its lawsuit against the HathiTrust and five partner libraries:

ARL has released the report (PDF) of its Joint Task Force on Services to Patrons with Print Disabilities, scheduled for final publication later this month in Research Libraries Issues(RLI). ARL formed the task force in May 2012 to expand upon the ongoing work of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), of which ARL is a member, in support of an international instrument for the print disabled that is under active consideration by the World International Copyright Organization (WIPO).

Photo Melanie Hawks and Paul Meyer, ISC facilitatorsAre you already working with library colleagues, faculty, and researchers on your campus for change in scholarly communication? Do you want to develop a deeper impact for your programmatic activities? If this describes your situation, you won’t want to miss the new ARL-ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication (ISC) workshop “Increasing the Effectiveness of Your Scholarly Communication Program: Strategic Skills for Success” to be held April 9–10, 2013, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Washington, DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published the ARL Statistics 2010–2011, the latest in a series of annual publications that describe the collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities of ARL's 126 member libraries in 2011. Of these 126, 115 are university libraries (16 in Canada and 99 in the US); the remaining 11 are public, governmental, and nonprofit research libraries (2 in Canada, 9 in the US).

clockwise from top left: Karin De Jager, Joan Rapp, Sam Kalb, Don KingARL is pleased to announce the 2012 Library Assessment Career Achievement Awards. These awards recognize individuals with substantial contributions to effective, sustainable, and practical library assessment as evidenced through presentations/publications, methods, service, advocacy, and other work. The 2012 awardees are Karin De Jager and Joan Rapp from South Africa, Sam Kalb from Canada, and Don King from the United States.

Washington, DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) will host a webcast on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. eastern time, to discuss the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust decision and the implications of this victory for research libraries. The webcast will be moderated by Brandon Butler, Director of Public Policy Initiatives at ARL, and will feature discussion from:

Washington, DC—Wendy Pradt Lougee, University Librarian and McKnight Presidential Professor, University of Minnesota, began a one-year term as President of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) on October 11, 2012, during the ARL Membership Meeting in Washington, DC. She succeeds Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums, Johns Hopkins University. Tabb continues to serve as a member of both the ARL Board of Directors and the ARL Executive Committee as Past President.