Promoting Global Understanding

With this issue of portal, we launch a new feature column, “Global Perspectives,” designed to emphasize the increasing internationalization of higher education and the essential role of libraries in global engagement. One need look no further than the newspaper—or the Chronicle of Higher Education—in recent years to realize that these trends are here to stay. It might be said that strengthening such connections is long overdue. Noting the complexity of modern civilization and the interconnectedness of experiences among people throughout the world, Franklin Roosevelt observed that it is “impossible to be in this world and not be of it.”¹ That was in 1920.

In this century, academic institutions—large and small, public and private—are more pervasively incorporating goals in their vision documents to underscore the critical importance of global relationships. Language such as “Achieve distinction in globalizing the University,”² “Increase presence in national and international conversations about higher education and other issues of high public significance,”³ and “Engage with the world,”⁴ which is peppered throughout strategic plans, emphasizes expansive themes. Some universities have entire agendas with this focus, to stress the ways in which “great universities are bridges between communities and continents”⁵ and to “foster a community that values all cultures, languages, lands, and people”⁶ in “a world growing increasingly flat and seamless.”⁷ The goals and priorities of the libraries of governments and academic institutions are aligned with these missions. Reports from them, documenting both partnerships and internal efforts, can enhance global literacy and an appreciation for diverse cultural experiences.

We welcome submissions to “Global Perspectives” that will more fully allow us to emphasize portal’s stated purpose as an international journal.⁸ This new feature will spotlight submissions that explore partnerships and initiatives with a global emphasis. Beth Clausen will serve as feature editor and has written the inaugural column, which follows. It describes her experience serving as director of the library on the campus of Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) and how that opportunity has broadened her own perspectives. As with portal’s other feature, “Reports from the Field,” “Global Perspectives” columns will appear irregularly, when suitable content is available. In most cases, features will not go through peer review but rather will be shaped by dialogue between the author and the feature editor, adhering to portal’s author guidelines for feature manuscripts.

Concurrent with initiating this new feature, will retire two others: “Information Standards and Technology” and “Research: Theory and Application.” These subjects are now so integrated into the enterprise and so prominent on the landscape of libraries and the academy that having separate features to highlight them is no longer viable or necessary. These columns have been edited, respectively, by Carlen Ruschoff and Neal Kaske. Sincere thanks to them for serving in the capacity of feature editors for the past several years and for their other contributions to the Editorial Board. The journal’s masthead, listing column editors and topics, has been updated to reflect these changes.