New Books in Library Science

Librarians as Researchers: Developing Our Scholarly Identity (Bloomsbury, 2025) edited by Paul C. Campbell and Sarah Nagle is designed to empower librarians to develop their research skills and embrace their identities as scholars. Many librarians, particularly those in academic libraries, are expected to engage in research and scholarly output. However, unlike disciplinary faculty, most librarians have not completed a PhD program, and many have never designed or participated in original research upon embarking on their career. This edited volume provides inspiration and support for academic librarians looking to develop or refresh their research skills and develop their scholarly identities. The focus of this book is toward empowering librarians as researchers, rather than librarians supporting student or faculty research. This book provides a venue for librarians to share their knowledge on different aspects of research as well as build community for other librarians to actualize their own identities as researchers. The existing literature and research in the realm of librarian identity development often touches on librarian identities in the face of emerging technologies and new library types, or how librarians can support research at their institutions. However, there is a gap in the literature around librarians developing their own identities as researchers. Librarians have a unique role in the scholarly community; we often sacrifice our own research interests so that we can provide support and instruction to others, whether it be faculty, students, or the public. But the library world holds immense opportunity for developing and executing original research. Additionally, conducting research is beneficial to librarians' individual practice as well as the library community as a whole. This edited volume will provide guidance as well as actionable methods for librarians to develop foundational research philosophies, create communities of practice, and hone practical skills in a wide range of research areas.
Guests: Paul C. Campbell is an Assistant Professor and the Social Science & Assessment Librarian at Kent State University Libraries.
Sarah Nagle is the Creation and Innovation Services Librarian at Miami University in Ohio
Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is a Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Library Technical Services: Future Forward (Bloomsbury, 2025) edited by Mary Beth Weber and Melissa De Fino looks at the future of technical services post-pandemic and at the brink of technological disruptions through a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility lens. Libraries have undergone a tremendous transformation that has been driven by multiple factors that include technological developments, and societal impacts such as declining college enrollment and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has introduced changes to how technical services professionals work and provide services. Whereas the library is often perceived by users as a building to house print books and journals, the reality is that the library encompasses both physical and virtual spaces. For many users, the library's online catalog and website are their first (and perhaps only) experience with the library. Our user community is global, and technical services work has evolved to serve users with a growing array of electronic resources, including e-books, databases, and e-journals. These resources differ from their print counterparts in that they cost more, require licenses and contracts that must continually need to be renegotiated and renewed, must comply with accessibility standards, and require different skill sets to catalog. The virtual spaces and services libraries provide are built on the foundation provided by technical services librarians. Assessment is an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of technical services work, and is addressed in this book. It is critical for collection development and acquisition of electronic resources. It is also an important component of the work of electronic resources librarians, who monitor usage and trends. Developing an appropriate skill set for technical services work is essential for success. This includes knowing the standards for the work performed, awareness of emerging standards, and remaining relevant.
Guests: Mary Beth Weber is the inaugural Coordinator for Training and Mentorship for Rutgers University Libraries. In this capacity, she serves as an advisor to the Faculty Mentoring Program, collaborates with colleagues to identify, develop, and implement a continuous program of enrichment activities to meet the needs of the Libraries' personnel. She previously served as the Head of Central Technical Services for 2008-2025, and her new role is the result of a large-scale reorganization undertaken by Rutgers University Libraries. Weber has had a long career in technical services, overseeing both resource description and acquisitions, and collaborating with collection development librarians. She representedRutgers on the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Heads of Cataloging Committee from 2014-2025. Other offices she has held include serving as editor-in-chief for Library Resources and Technical Services, one of ALA Core’s official journals, for nine years. In addition to three books she has published with Bloomsbury, she co-authored Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management, 5th edition, with Peggy Johnson. She may be contacted via her LinkedIn profile. She earned her MLS from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and earned my BA from Michigan State University, where I had a double major of English and Art History.
Melissa De Fino is Team Lead for Cataloging and Metadata Services and Metadata Librarian for Special Collections and Audiovisual Materials at Rutgers University Libraries. She has worked at Rutgers for more than 20 years, beginning her career there as a Special Collections Cataloger. Her research focuses on the evolution of technical services librarianship. Melissa is the co-author, with Mary Beth, of Virtual Technical Services: A Handbook, has published several peer-reviewed articles, and served for five years as editor of the “Tech Services Online” column in Technical Services Quarterly. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science and an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Rutgers University, as well as a B.A. in English from Fordham University.
Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is a Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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It’s a long journey from a writer’s mind to a finished book, and a lot needs to go right along the way. But isn’t it more interesting when things go wrong?

In Rogues, Widows and Orphans: Mischief and Misadventures in the World of Books (Brandeis University Press and Profile Books, 2026), Rebecca Lee, a senior editorial manager at Penguin Random House, guides readers through the secrets of the book industry, a world fizzing with scandals, rivalries, catastrophes, and con jobs. Lee demonstrates how the tiniest of typos can have oversized consequences, unearths horrifying examples of bad taste and worse style, and peeks into tales of forgeries and feuds as dramatic as any thriller. She unredacts the most egregious cases of censorship, exposes hoarders and thieves, and asks whether AI is really an existential threat to the literary universe—or if we are our own worst enemies.

An irresistible tour of mistakes and misbehavior, Rogues, Widows and Orphans will make you cringe, crack you up, and renew your appreciation for the hard work of making books—and all the ways it can go sidewise.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021).

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Focusing on U.S. academic libraries, The Reinvention of the U.S. Academic Library: 1990 – 2025 (2025, Bloomsbury) provides a concise history of the traditional role and function of academic libraries from their earliest times up to the dawn of the Digital Age and the spread of digital technology into all aspects of academic research and scholarly communication. This book analyzes how digital technology has transformed, over the course of a few swift decades, not only the role and function of academic libraries, but also the nature of scholarly communication itself.

Specifically, The Reinvention of the U.S. Academic Library: 1990 - 2025 discusses how digital technology has changed the way academic libraries acquire and exercise bibliographic control over collections, provides equitable access to information, and instructs and guide students, faculty, and others.

Guest: Donald A. Barclay worked as an academic librarian from 1990 until his retirement in 2022, holding during his library career positions at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, the Texas Medical Center, and the University of California, Merced. During his career, he devoted much of his time and interest to teaching students how to think critically about the information they encountered in their academic, professional, personal, and civic lives. Working in academic libraries during a time when digital technology was expanding into every aspect of human life allowed him to both closely observe and actively participate in the biggest technological changes to humanity’s relationship with information since the advent of printing from moveable type.

Barclay has authored numerous articles and books over the course of his career on topics ranging from the literature of the American West to children’s literature to library and information science.

Barclay earned his bachelor’s degree from Boise State University and holds masters’ degrees in both English and Library and Information Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is a Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Efficiency by Design: Transforming Libraries and Archives through Process Management (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Joy M. Perrin offers library and archive professionals a comprehensive guide to optimizing processes, with a focus on improving efficiency, speed, effectiveness, and reliability. Professionals in libraries and archives often are asked to take on decades old processes and are not provided the tools to rework those processes. This book gives readers practical insight into how they can analyze and re-design their work processes to be more efficient, faster, more effective, and more reliable. Readers will learn methods for getting more done while reducing stress and burnout. Librarians, archivists, and paraprofessionals who find themselves managing a process will find this book an excellent companion. By integrating process management techniques with the specific needs of libraries and archives, this book bridges the gap between theory and practice, providing actionable strategies to streamline workflows. Ultimately, Efficiency by Design contributes to making library and archive management more productive, sustainable, and mindful of the challenges professionals face today.

Guest: Joy M. Perrin is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at the Texas Tech University Libraries, where she leads initiatives related to digital collections, institutional repositories, scholarly communication, and digital preservation. Her research interests include digital libraries, accessibility, artificial intelligence in libraries and archives, and workflow optimization. She holds a Master of Information Science from the University of North Texas.

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is a Professor of Library Services and served for ten years as the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator at Delaware County Community College.

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