Autumn Thank Yous
Correspondence concerning this column should be addressed to Barry Trott, RUSQ Editor, 7770 Croaker Rd., Williamsburg, VA, 23188; email: btrott@wrl.org.
With the coming of holidays it is always a good time to reflect thankfully on the collaborative nature of the work that makes it possible to get out a journal such as RUSQ. First off, I would like to thank the members of the RUSQ editorial board. The board members are the first readers of submissions to the journal and I appreciate their thoughtful reviews and suggestions for ways to improve articles. Without their work, the journal would not offer our readers the quality in breadth and depth of feature articles that support and move the profession forward. The board members also help guide the journal’s policies and procedures, offering thoughtful suggestions and ideas for improving both content and processes. For volume 54, the editorial board members were Jenny S. Bossaller, Heidi LM Jacobs, Kate Kosturski, Scott Seaman, Carol Singer, Nicolette Sosulski, Laurel Tarulli, David A. Tyckoson, Chiang A. Wang, and Neal Wyatt.
In addition to the board, I rely on a slate of reviewers who can fill in when needed to look at articles that require specialized knowledge or when board members are not available to review a submission. Over the past year, the following reviewers have generously given of their time and talents: Curt Asher, Chris Avery, Danielle Ball, Susan Burke, Kathleen Kern, Elizabeth Kline, Elizabeth Marshak, Neil Hollands, Mary Popp, Joyce Saricks, Karen Sobel, Molly Strothmann, and Tammy Voelker.
The column and review editors consistently bring thoughtful and engaging pieces to RUSQ readers. The columns are an essential piece of the journal offering ideas and advice for practitioners, and the reviews of professional and reference materials keep readers alert to what is new and important in the field of reference and user services. I would like to thank the column and review editors for their excellent work in recruiting authors and marshaling pieces through the publication process. The column and review editors for volume 54 were Karen Antell, Nicloe Eva, Aimee Graham, Eric Phetteplace, Kelly Myer Polacek, Marianne Ryan, Erin Shea, Laurel Tarulli, and Tammy Voelker. I would also like to extend a farewell to Kelly Myer Polacek, who will be leaving the journal after issue 55:3. Kelly has served as editor of both the Alert Collector and Information Literacy and Instruction columns during her time with RUSQ. In both cases the columns presented interesting and sometimes challenging ideas to our readers.
Getting a journal to publication, whether print or digital, is a big task, and there are many people whose work is essential to RUSQ whose names do not appear in the bylines. Tim Clifford at ALA Publishing is responsible for layout, typesetting, and keeping me straight on tricky questions of grammar. The staff of the RUSA Office, Executive Director Susan Hornung, and Marianne Braverman, Andrea Hill, and Leighann Wood, all help keep RUSQ funded and promoted to our readers. I would like to thank all of these folks without whom the job of editor would not be possible.
Finally, I would like to thank the members of the library profession who take the time to submit pieces to the journal. Putting your thoughts in writing is a scary business, and sending them out for others to judge is doubly so. Although we cannot print everything we receive, we do read each submission carefully, knowing that a lot of effort has already gone into getting it to us. As I have said before, the collaborative nature of the library profession and the willingness of its practitioners to share ideas is one of our strengths.
So as 2016 approaches, I wish all of our readers the best in the coming year and hope that you will continue to find RUSQ a useful resource to inspire new ideas, challenge old ways of thinking, and shape the future of reference and user services.