A Janus Perspective

The month of January suggests the traditional meaning of the two-faced god, looking both backward to the old year and forward to the new. It also offers a rich series of analogies with the nature of this journal and the broader nature of the library and information profession. Appropriately enough, Janus was not only the god of beginnings and endings but of gates and doors—of portals. portal has sought to position libraries as gateways to information in the academy, and it now steps across a threshold of its own, ending one era of stewardship and beginning another. With the close of the 2008 volume, Charles Lowry moved on from his highly successful tenure as the editor and assumed leadership of the Association of Research Libraries. I have been given the great privilege of following in his footsteps and in those of the two other founding editors, Gloriana St. Clair and Susan K. Martin, who have led portal to become a substantive and respected voice in less than a decade since its birth. Charles gave great testimony to those leaders and to the journal's advocacy-driven history in his own inaugural editorial in 2004.¹

In looking back along the dynamic path the journal has traced since the early discussions in 1999 and forward to the paths we might pursue to help shape our shared futures, I believe our original goal is as strong and relevant as ever: to address the role of libraries and librarians in meeting institutional missions. The founding editorial board of portal, of which I was a member, sought to establish a venue that would be in keeping with other work in academic librarianship and, yet, at the same time strike a different tone and reach across boundaries, mirroring the complexities of the higher education environment. portal thus seeks to examine library administration, information technology, and new forms of support for research and teaching, scholarly communication, and information policy, not as internal or technical operations but from the perspective of how these matters ultimately have an impact on the academic enterprise. To understand libraries and deliver services more effectively, we have to understand the relationship of the library to many campus constituencies and programs. portal has sought to include presidents, faculty, and technologists on its board and to publish articles that may be read meaningfully by those audiences as well as by librarians at all levels.

Although the fundamental mission of libraries—and of this journal—is unchanged, our future challenges mount with the reshaping of publication, communication, education, economics, and societal expectations. How do we as a profession engage in the conversations that will help us stay abreast of the shifting environment and stay attuned to university needs? For the editorial board of portal, what aspects of traditional operations continue to need thoughtful analysis? What are the issues still on the horizon for which portal should be encouraging new research and writing? As I write these remarks in the fall of 2008, two important new reports have just been issued that go to the heart of these questions and that may serve as platforms for research and action in academic librarianship.

The Council on Library and Information Resources convened a symposium in 2008 that brought together library directors, library science deans, academic faculty, provosts, technologists, funding agency program officers, publishers, and more. The papers from this event were published as No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century.² The discussions focused on an array of topics including the role of the library in teaching and publishing, the information services needed to support large-scale electronic science and scholarship, and the position of libraries as partners in many aspects of the academic program. The individual essays are productively, and provocatively, synthesized in an introductory text that serves almost as a strategic plan for academic libraries, outlining a series of factors characterizing the academic environment, noting threats and opportunities for libraries, and ending with a series of recommendations for libraries individually and collectively. I can summarize those here only briefly and commend the full report to all of portal's readers. Participants...