The semester might be over, but HLS has something special planned for the beginning of 2016. For the next month, we are teaming up with ACRLog the blog of the Association for College and Research Libraries) to feature current professionals, sharing experiences and advice for the next crop of academic librarians. Our writers, and excitingly many guest writers, will be talking about how academic librarianship figures into their LIS education, what they have learned thus far, and, sometimes surprisingly, how they came to find their calling in academic librarianship.

If you need a picture of books…HLS is the place to look (CC: Flickr Shannon Hauser) 

While we tend to focus on the experience of students, we think that it is important to see how professionals view the future of librarianship as it exists in our classrooms. They were once students, and we will soon be professionals. The mission of HLS has always been to promote the voices of students, and in this collaboration, we will be reaching new audiences while bringing much need professional voices to LIS. We encourage students and professionals to read both sites and explore the different perspectives which bring so much value to libraries and LIS.

Our hopes is that this collaboration will be the start of many conversations between LIS students, students looking to join the library field, and professionals, both new and seasoned. As I’ve written in the past, we’re all in this crazy profession together and support comes in a lot of forms. We are definitely starting the year off with a bang.