Editorial

Around the Sun

Michael Fernandez

The previous issue of LRTS marked an important milestone, as it was the first to be published fully open access. While being the “second fully OA issue” is not necessarily noteworthy, this issue is something of a personal milestone for the current editorial team, as it marks the first full year since we have taken over the reins at LRTS. Much of that first year involved getting acclimated to the various administration and backend processes here and meeting regularly with the editorial board, in addition to preparing for the move to OA in 2023. Now that the current editorial team has a year’s worth of issues under our belts, we felt it was a good opportunity to use this space to comment on our process, with a focus on my role as assistant editor.

It’s first worth noting that this is a new role, as the previous iteration of the LRTS board had a single editor and a book review editor. The new team was brought on board with the book review editor role transitioning into that of assistant editor; this change was precipitated by the editorial workload, which was too large for a single editor. Additionally, this puts LRTS in alignment with our Core sister publications, Information Technology and Libraries and Library Leadership & Management, both of which also use an editor/assistant editor model.

In my capacity as assistant editor, I view my main role as to, you guessed it, assist! The editor takes the lead in assigning peer reviewers to papers, communicating revisions to authors, providing notifications of acceptance, and submitting final manuscripts to ALA Production Services for copyediting and layout. I serve backup as needed, and we consistently collaborate throughout the process. The editors closely consult on decisions of peer reviewer assignment, article acceptance, and determining the contents of each issue, down to the cover image. Importantly, we both give each article a final review, providing a last round of edits and proofing, and we both review the proofs from Production Services as well. It is definitely true that two heads (or pairs of eyes, as the case may be) are better than one. While the workload can be heavy, we feel the final product is made that much stronger having gone through multiple close readings by the editorial team.

I’m also happy that book reviews remain a part of LRTS, as they are an important service to the profession. I continue to carry on the roles and responsibilities of book review editor, selecting relevant titles for review, soliciting review copies from publishers, delegating assignments to reviewers, and editing the final reviews. This has been enlightening for me, as it allows me to stay abreast of new titles and be aware of publication trends within library technical services. Speaking from experience, writing a book review is a great avenue for early career library workers and beginning authors to get more involved in publishing. Indeed, there is a good deal of overlap at LRTS among book reviewers, article authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members. I encourage anyone interested in penning a book review for LRTS to fill out our volunteer form.

In this issue of LRTS:

• In “Unsettling the Library Catalog: A Case Study in Reducing the Presence of ‘Indians of North America’ and Similar Subject Headings,” Karl Pettitt and Erin Elzi present a case study for amending subject headings to more appropriately represent Indigenous populations. The authors explain the genesis of the project in the context of institutional history, describe the challenges they encountered, and advocate for the importance of making changes at the local level.
• Robyn Gleasner’s “Clear the Floor: One Library’s Approach to the Removal and Integration of Items from Two Print Journal Collections” describes a complex project to offsite an entire floor’s worth of print serials. Decision criteria for retention and weeding is discussed, and a methodology for integrating the removed titles with an existing offsite collection is presented.
• Book reviews