Library Student Journal, Issue 1

The first issue of Library Student Journal is now available.

I am very excited about this concept - though I haven't yet had a chance to check it out. I'm particularly interested in the concept of taking ownership of our education - we already do it, but within limited strictures - we still have to take lame required courses in which Dialog is taught for 10 weeks. I'm interested in the idea of having a formal public space to really talk about why library school is so lame when the field itself is full of such innovation.

From the editor's statemen:

This journal, Library Student Journal (LSJ), starts from two premises that may be contrary to common assumptions but which I feel are decent and defendable. First, that the field encompassing librarianship and information science is not at threat from developing technologies and the evolving ways in which information is communicated, but is well positioned to take advantage of these changes. And, second, that the traditional structures of scholarly publishing face an Open Access (OA) storm so strong that even the hybrid traditional-OA programs to which many of the established scholarly journals are now turning will do little to prevent a collapse.

...

Our goal with LSJ is to provide a forum for discussion of current LIS education issues and to publish the best student papers in the LIS field, broadly defined, while providing valuable publishing and editing experience to authors and editors alike. But I hope our readers, authors, and editors will also take away this lesson: libraries can be publishers, and librarians can take advantage of our diverse skills and the many resources at our disposal to be directly and actively involved in the publishing of high quality scholarly information.

And ya know what's double-hot? There's comments. Comments on journal articles. yeah.