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EDITORIAL: CHANGES AFOOT

Changes Afoot

Before I became a librarian, my perception of librarianship (when I thought about it at all) was that that line of work 
probably appealed most strongly to people who didn’t like change. The whole vibe of libraries seemed to me to exude 
constancy, stability, longevity. I don’t mean to say that this was a negative perception, only that this struck me (as a 
library “consumer” rather than “practitioner”) as a preeminent trait of the whole business.

Now, not so much: I cannot fathom how anyone who doesn’t like change, and to some degree thrive on it, could 
possibly abide the librarian’s life. In fact, on the rare occasions when undergraduates ask me about how one gets into this 
business, one of the things I emphasize is that formal education is important, but what one knows at a given point in 
time will turn out to be less valuable than what one is capable of learning, often on-the-fly. (This is where I could strike 
a cosmopolitan pose, and insert the French phrase “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” only I’m not completely 
certain of what it means.)

With all this in mind, it’s hardly surprising that so much of our TL content (with the understandable exception of 
Critical Reviews) has to do with different aspects of change: collections, resources, services, what have you. I really love 
this about the journal.

Further on the same theme, we’ve got some more changes to report on the journal itself: 1. Our semi-annual publication 
schedule has shifted slightly (to be more in step with the work flow of ATLA staff), and 2. With this issue we welcome 
our new Bibliographic Essays Editor, Suzanne Estelle-Holmer. We’re delighted to have her as a colleague, and know that 
you’ll enjoy working with her. (Thank you once again to Dan Kolb, her predecessor, for his fine service over the past 
few years.)

Thanks for writing, and thanks for reading,

DRS