The May 2026 issue of College & Research Libraries is now freely available online both as a full issue PDF and as individual articles. Visit the C&RL website for complete contents from 1939 to the present and follow C&RL on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram for updates and discussion.

Applications/Nominations Invited for C&RL Managing Editor
The C&RL Editorial Board invites applications and nominations for the position of Managing Editor of College & Research Libraries (C&RL), the scholarly research journal of ACRL. The board seeks an experienced candidate to help manage the submissions for its top-tier, open access journal. Learn more on ACRL Insider and submit applications by May 31, 2026.

Articles
Teresa Schultz, Emily E. Boss, and Elena Azadbakht. “Publish or Perish? A Content Analysis of Scholarship Criteria in R1 Academic Libraries’ Promotion and Tenure Documentation.”

Lindsey S. Skaggs, Rachel Elizabeth Scott, and Colby Cilento. “Not Just Monetary: Arts and Humanities Scholars’ Perspectives on the Costs of Open Access Publishing.”

Molly K. Maloney and Keith T. Nichols. “Applying Universal Design for Learning to Support Non-Native English Speakers in an Embedded Information Literacy Classroom: A Case Study.”

Russell Michalak, Laura Rose Taylor, Michelle Reed, Amanda Koziura, and Devon Ellixson. “The Evolving Roles of U.S. Academic Librarians: A Snapshot of Job Responsibilities in 2023.”

Emmett Lombard. “Librarian IRB Participation.”

Can Ekşi and Yurdagül Ünal. “Three Discovery Tools: A Comparative Analysis of Retrieval Scope, Ranking Effectiveness, and Topic Diversity.”

Jung Mi Scoulas, Sandra L. De Groote, Kimberly Shotick, and Ian Christensen, Yishan Yu. “Academic Success and Campus Engagement: Insights from Library Usage at Two Universities.”

Book Reviews
Careers in Library and Information Services: First-Hand Accounts from Working Professionals. Reviewed by A. Blake Denton.

Essentials of STEM Librarianship. Reviewed by Clarissa M. Ihssen.

Instructional Design for Teaching Information Literacy Online: A Student-Centered Approach. Reviewed by Patrick Leeport.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist Editor in managing incoming submissions in Open Journal Systems
• Maintain a current list of qualified reviewers and assign submissions for peer review
• Work to diversify author and reviewer pools and editorial board membership
• Review reviewer feedback and work with Editor to communicate with authors regarding revisions
• Assist Editor in making publication decisions regarding submissions where needed
• Field inquiries and comments from readers
• Attend C&RL Editorial board meetings, which are held at a minimum of twice a year
• Facilitate meetings and information exchange with the Editorial Board and ACRL in absence of Editor
• Assist Editor in running reports, writing work plans, and other administrative duties relating to journal publication and ACRL/ALA oversight
• Advance other initiatives as appropriate

Estimated Time Commitment

The duties of this position will require an average of approximately 10 hours per week, though the amount of work will vary by week.

Qualifications

• Professional experience in academic and research libraries
• Broad knowledge of current issues facing academic and research libraries
• Knowledge of, and experience with, current trends and innovations in scholarly communication, including open access and digital publishing
• Commitment to ACRL’s Plan for Excellence in regard to scholarly publishing and the profession
• Organizational and communication skills, including the ability to meet, and hold others to, publication deadlines
• Project management skills, including ability to coordinate publishing schedules and managing reviewer assignments
• Reviewer experience,  preferably in the scholarly publishing environment
• Editing experience, preferably in the scholarly publishing environment
• Record of scholarly publishing or equivalent professional contributions relevant to academic publishing

ACRL provides an annual honorarium for the Managing Editor. The appointment will be confirmed by the ACRL Board of Directors upon the recommendation of the search committee and the ACRL Publications Coordinating Committee. The incoming Managing Editor will serve a three-year term for C&RL beginning in July 2026.

Interested applicants should submit a CV, brief cover letter addressing qualifications, and names of three references via email to C&RL News Editor-in-Chief David Free at dfree@ala.org. Please send questions about the application process to search committee chair Michelle Demeter at med15@nyu.edu.

The deadline for receipt of applications is May 31, 2026. Finalists will be interviewed virtually throughout Summer 2026.

ACRL announces the publication of Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries, edited by Annie Bélanger, Jennifer A. DeVito, and John J. Meier. This collection explores what inclusive leadership is, the theories underlying it, and ways to incorporate it into your daily work.

Learn more about Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries in this Preface from the editors, © Annie Bélanger, Jennifer A. DeVito, and John J. Meier. 

We, the editors, first came together as members of the Inclusive Leadership Subcommittee of the New Roles for a Changing Landscape (NRCL) committee in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Promoting inclusive environments in libraries, both for users and for employees, is an important component of the mission of the NRCL committee. To begin our exploration, we partnered with undergraduate students to create a bibliography about inclusive leadership, in and outside of libraries.¹ Following this process, our group drafted a definition for “inclusive leadership” inspired by the Center of Creative Leadership:

Inclusive library leaders are individuals who are aware of their own biases, actively seek out and consider different perspectives to inform their decision-making, collaborate more effectively with others through cultural competency, and center empathy and compassion in their approach to leadership.

Developing skills in inclusive leadership is one step toward fostering workspaces that are diverse and equitable. We acknowledge that libraries are evolving and, as such, so are library leaders, both formal and informal. Inclusive leadership incorporates empathy and the knowledge that one person does not hold all the answers to encourage openness and communication. Inclusive leaders acknowledge that every person brings different perspectives and skills to the workplace. It further articulates that leaders exist at all levels and demonstrate their leadership through behaviors and actions.

In order to introduce this concept to ACRL membership, we held a webinar inviting four academic library leaders to react to the definition and share some of their professional experiences. We also invited feedback on the definition and bibliography from all ACRL members for a two-month period in early 2023.² Through this process, we discovered a wealth of knowledge and diverse lived experiences in libraries that needed to be surfaced and shared with the profession. We considered first publishing an ACRL library guide, acting as a toolkit, before deciding on an edited volume where we could invite stories and expertise from across the field.

Our Process

In creating an edited volume, our intention was to collect the current understanding of inclusive leadership in academic libraries and share lived experiences of library professionals.

We wanted this volume to explore the different themes contained in the ACRL definition of inclusive library leadership as well as the application of these themes to practice and lived experience. This volume brings together the theory and the practice of inclusive leadership.

As a way to model inclusive leadership in the editing of this book, we contacted some leaders in the field of inclusive leadership to write chapters and put out a call for proposals for case studies. For each, we prioritized diverse voices, including offering editorial support for newer authors. Each author was encouraged to include a brief statement describing their positionality to help the reader understand the lens through which the piece was written. We also asked authors to include specific examples of tools or techniques that you can use as a leader in whatever context you find yourself. This volume contains perspectives from library professionals and college students from across the country and Canada.

The book is organized into three sections: Setting the Stage, Concepts and Practices, and Living into Inclusive Leadership. The first section is composed of chapters only. In the second and third sections, we have paired each chapter with case studies that exemplify the main theme(s) it covered. Here is an overview of the volume’s structure to help you navigate the content.

Part 1

Part 1—Setting the Stage introduces inclusive leadership along with frameworks to contextualize later chapters.

• Jolie O. Graybill and John J. Meier start by discussing why inclusive leadership is important to libraries.
• Thomas L. Dickens follows with an overview of the six signature traits of inclusive leadership through a lens of racial equity.
• The last introductory chapter comes from Christina Fuller-Gregory and Mark A. Puente, who talk about the ACRL, Association of Research Libraries (ARL), American Library Association (ALA), and Public Library Association (PLA) joint Cultural Proficiencies in Racial Equity (CPRE) framework.

Part 2

Part 2—Concepts and Practices covers themes from the definition.

• Annie Pho’s chapter examines incorporating compassion, care, and empathy into one’s leadership practice, using the lens of feminism, critical librarianship, and critical race theory. Veronica Arellano Douglas and Mea Warren’s case study shows this in practice as they explain how an inclusive leadership approach was used at the University of Houston Libraries to create a Teaching & Learning department.
• Peter Anderson talks about Emotional Intelligence. He explores the underlying concepts as well as ways to develop and grow emotional intelligence skills. Boutsaba Janetvilay shows many examples of these concepts and of active growth.
• Robyn Andrews and Jennifer A. DeVito explore the connection between humility, inquiry, and inclusive leadership, while Michelle Hendley’s case study demonstrates how communication and collaboration facilitated a successful migration project.
• Continuing the theme of communication, Meghan Musolff and Jeff Witt’s chapter discusses how professional and organizational values can be utilized in communication to strengthen inclusivity. Jermal Alleyne Jones presents a case study that highlights the importance of conversation and communication in the workplace to create shared approaches toward living a value of inclusion.
• Ken Irwin and Elizabeth Kerr take a holistic approach to inclusive leadership with their chapter on systems thinking. Combined with Jen Froetschel and Peter Cohn’s case study that re-envisions the academic search process, the pairing demonstrates the systemic impact that inclusive leadership can have.
• In their chapter “Collaboration, Engagement, and Decision-Making: A Path to Compassionate Relationships and Empowerment,” Vanessa Seals and Annie Bélanger discuss the role collaboration and engagement have in inclusive leadership, showcasing tools and framework. Regina M. Beard provides a real-life example of how a self-described “late-career librarian” adopts inclusive leadership into their practice.
• Shannon D. Jones closes out the section on concepts and theories with her chapter on compassionate care in the workplace. Lisa Kallman Hopkins, Dawn M. Harris, and Bridgit McCafferty showcase how empathy and compassion can be employed in the workplace, and Gricel Dominguez discusses reflective practice as a way to support an empathic and compassionate work environment.

Part 3

Part 3—Living into Inclusive Leadership has authors writing about putting inclusive leadership into practice and providing examples of how it has been done in various academic libraries.

• Elizabeth L. Wallis’ chapter explores cultural humility and continued learning as components of inclusive leadership, while Russell Michalak showcases a case study in inclusive leadership through onboarding student workers.
• Aisha M. Johnson, Shaundra Walker, Tamika Barnes, and Tina D. Rollins provide an intersectional overview of inclusive leadership as black women leaders in libraries through their chapter. Through their case study, Elise Ferer, Sharon Bunch-Nuñez, and Richie Sebuharara examine aspects of inclusive leadership effective in working with student employees.
• Lorin Jackson reminds us of the importance of self-care and reflection in the practice of inclusive leadership. Tatiana Usova emphasizes community-building with her case study on reciprocal mentoring. Courtney L. Young and Martin L. Garnar close out the book with a dialogue-style case study about their experience in library leadership roles at liberal arts institutions.

We hope that you will find this book useful for your leadership practice. We invite you to dive deeply into the concept of inclusive leadership by exploring the variety of frameworks and concepts. We encourage you to integrate aspects that resonate into your ongoing leadership development and explorations.

Notes

1. Annie Bélanger, Jennifer A. DeVito, John J. Meier, Bruna Ngassa, Christina Prucha, and Morgan Taulbee, “ACRL Inclusive Leadership Annotated Bibliography,” ACRL New Roles and Changing Landscapes Committee, Inclusive Leadership Subcommittee (updated January 4, 2023), https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/library_reports/33.
2. Annie Bélanger, Maisha Carey, Jolie O. Graybill, and Elaine Westbrooks, “ACRL Presents: Inclusive Leadership” (webinar, ACRL, Chicago, IL, February 7, 2023), https://acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/acrl-presents-inclusive-leadership/.

Christine (Mi-Seon) Kim is the chief librarian at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, NY. Christine has been a member of ACRL for 7 years and is your ACRL Member of the Week for April 27, 2026.

Describe yourself in three words: Motivated, driven, resilient.

What are you reading (or listening to on your mobile device)? I am reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez and Radical Candor by Kim Scott.

Describe ACRL in three words: Networking, sharing, professional development.

What do you value about ACRL? ACRL helps librarians to grow professionally by learning and networking.  It is a wonderful venue for any academic librarian to explore ideas & research interests and advance her/his/their career.

What do you as an academic librarian contribute to your campus? I am chief librarian, coordinator of information literacy classes, and science librarian.  Motivated by my love for education, I teach information literacy (IL) classes to students.  All librarians give library instructional classes tailored to courses and Information literacy instruction flourishes at Queensborough Community College.  Although IL instruction is not a credit-bearing course, more than 200 IL classes were held in the FY 2024-2025. I provide library workshops and research consultations for faculty and staff. I’m a member of the Asian American Faculty & Staff Association (AAFSA) and the Data Governance Committee.

Most of all, I promote the value of the library and library services to students, faculty, and staff. 

In your own words: I am a woman, person of color, and immigrant living in the United States. I have witnessed/experienced barriers that inhibit minorities from achieving dreams. I found this experience made me stronger and more resilient. As a librarian and educator, it is my mission to help students to be courageous, move forward, and understand challenges can be transformed into opportunities.

Queensborough Community College was ranked as the second-best community college in New York State in 2025 according to the report from WalletNews. I take pride in offering services to students and support their upward mobility.

Editor’s Note: Would you like to be featured as ACRL Member of the Week? Nominate a colleague? Fill out this form and we’ll be in touch!

The Working Group has spent considerable time examining these questions through the lens of ALA’s Core Values, and they welcome your perspective as this work moves toward consideration at the 2026 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

The working group invites all ALA to review and comment on the draft. Please complete the feedback form by May 8, 2026. Your responses will be shared with the Working Group co-chairs and may inform revisions prior to Council action. Additional details are available on the ALA website (login required).