Rough seas and the Journal of Academic Librarianship : differing opinions by two academic librarians

• Main Authors: McKinzie, Steve, Godolphin, Jocelyn
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Library and information science
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152371
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

When navigating the seas of collection development, you sometimes have to cover your ears to the sirens’ cries from the shore, row straight ahead, and let nothing distract you. It is very much like that now, if you find yourself listening to the shore pleas of some of the profession’s most distinguished voices. The sirens, such as Ray English of Oberlin College and Sue Martin of Georgetown University, are urging librarians to cancel their subscription to one of the library profession’s flagship journals, The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The journal has new owners, Elsevier Publishers, and the sirens implore libraries to drop their subscription and add in its place a soon-to-be-published alternative, Portal: Libraries and the Academy. Librarians, they argue, should set an example to their academic colleagues by being willing to cancel overpriced Elsevier titles in their own academic field of librarianship.