The July 2022 issue of Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS) marks the first under the guidance of the new editorial team, and we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves, describe the work we are currently undertaking, and look ahead towards our goals for this publication. We are pleased to work with our colleagues throughout the profession to ensure that LRTS remains integral to the scholarship and practice of library collections, technical services, scholarly communication, and related areas. LRTS is in a time of transition. We began our work in March and have since finalized the editorial board, familiarized ourselves with the articles under review, and met with a variety of groups in the Core shared governance structure. Core is still a young organization and the editorial staff of the three Core journals—Information Technology and Libraries, Library Leadership & Management, and LRTS—have been given the charge of bringing the journals into alignment. Among other things, this alignment means that LRTS content will be free to read with no embargo beginning in 2023.
We will reach out to request your support for Core journals; please consider what roles you wish to play in ensuring that the journals remain excellent and accessible into the future. We also invite your written contributions to the journal. The LRTS Author Guidelines outline the procedures for preparing and for submitting an article for review. If you have questions or wish to discuss ideas with the editorial staff, please contact us at rescot2@ilstu.edu and michael.fernandez@yale.edu.
In This Issue
- Lindsey Lowry shares the results of a survey that considers “Soft Skills for Technical Services Professionals in the Academic Library.” The findings show that interpersonal communication and teamwork skills are perceived as essential to technical services work and reiterate that despite persistent stereotypes suggesting otherwise, technical services employees are collaborative and service oriented.
- Damla Yılmaz and Yurdagül Ünal offer an analysis of “Evidence-Based Acquisition at Hacettepe University Libraries” focused on that institution’s EBA plan for Cambridge University Press e-books. The authors find that although over half of the collection consisted of general research monographs and only 27 percent of coursebooks, both the unique books used and total usage favored coursebooks (47 percent and 62 percent, respectively) to general research books (41 percent and 29 percent, respectively).
