Volunteer
Advance the profession by serving on one of ACRL's many committees, task forces, and editorial boards. Learn more here.
Attend a Committee Meeting
ACRL committee meetings are open to all ACRL members. Each division-level committee includes under the Resources section a link to its ALA Connect Community, where face-to-face and virtual meeting notices should be posted 10 days in advance of each meeting. If a committee is meeting at the upcoming virtual 2021 ALA Annual Conference, the meeting information will be included on the online scheduler.
Join a Section
ACRL has fifteen sections to help members individualize their ACRL experience through specialized programming, preconferences, discussion lists, recognition, and focused activities. Sections can be added free of charge for current ACRL members. To add a section to your ACRL membership, please download the detailed instructions.
Find Your Niche
ACRL's numerous discussion groups (DGs) and interest groups (IGs) serve as in-person and virtual forums for members to explore emerging issues. Many DGs and IGs meet virtually throughout the year or on-site at ALA Annual Conferences, and you can further connect with members and colleagues through ALA Connect.
Nominate a Member of the Week
ACRL’s Member of the Week feature on ACRL Insider highlights the breadth and depth of our membership. Interesting in sharing your story as a Member of the Week? Want to nominate an outstanding colleague? Fill out our nomination form and we'll be in touch!
ACRL Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Groups
ACRL Awards Program
ACRL's awards recognize and honor the professional contributions and achievements of your peers. This special recognition by the Association of College and Research Libraries enhances the sense of personal growth and accomplishment of our members, provides our membership with role models, and strengthens the image of our membership in the eyes of employers, leadership, and the academic community as a whole. Made possible by generous corporate support, the annual presentation of our prestigious awards and grants to these deserving individuals and institutions enables ACRL to honor the very best in academic librarianship.
ACRL's Awards program will be on hold for the 2021-2022 and 2021-2022 award seasons, during which time nominations will not be accepted or juried and no recipients will be chosen for any ACRL awards.
Present
ACRL membership groups are invited to hold ACRL Online Discussion Forums, which are free events offered by ACRL membership units on a wide variety of topics. If your ACRL group would like to host a Discussion Forum and use ACRL's Zoom room, please submit your request through the virtual meetings calendar form.
Write
Share your expertise and experience with your colleagues by writing an article, book, or blog post through ACRL's publication program. Opportunities are also available to translate ACRL's various standards, guidelines, and frameworks into other languages.
Mentor (or Be Mentored)
Having effective mentors is important for your professional and personal growth. Many mentoring and coaching programs are available through ACRL's sections, as well as the Dr. E. J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program, to help you get the most from this important relationship. Learn more here.
The ACRL College Libraries Section’s College Library Information on Policy and Practice (CLIPP) Committee invites you to submit a preliminary proposal for its CLIPP publication series. The CLIPP series allows library staff to share information on practices and procedures they have implemented to address common issues or concerns. Each CLIPP follows a set structure of three parts—literature review, survey results, and sample documents—and should both describe library best practices and provide useful, specific examples that libraries can refer to when developing similar policies and procedures of their own. Recent books published in the series include Academic Library Job Descriptions: CLIPP #46 and Open Educational Resources: CLIPP 45.
While we welcome proposals on any topic relevant for small and mid-sized academic libraries, we are specifically looking for proposals on the following topics:
CLIPP proposals are accepted throughout the year. You can find author instructions and more information about the CLIPP program on the ACRL website.
For questions or to submit a proposal, please contact ACRL Content Strategist Erin Nevius at enevius@ala.org.
ACRL invites proposals for monographs and collections of essays that address significant issues facing our profession and its role in higher education.
ACRL Publications in Librarianship (PIL) is a series of monographic and edited volumes that has reported on scholarly thinking in academic and research librarianship since 1951. The series encompasses single-authored or co-authored monographs as well as edited volumes, and books are peer reviewed and indexed. Books in this series typically run 200 to 400 pages, and many of them have grown out of discussions and conversations among colleagues, or from conference programs, resulting in multiple authors contributing to one book. While it currently has a number of projects under consideration, the PIL Editorial Board is always interested in proposals and manuscripts. To aid potential authors in planning and to ensure the timely review of proposals, a rolling review process is used. Proposals are encouraged by Nov. 1st, Feb. 1st, and June 1st, although proposals will be accepted on a continuous basis throughout the year. Learn more on the ACRL website!
Apply to serve as a peer reviewer for Resources for College Libraries
The Resources for College Libraries (RCL) editorial board seeks peer reviewers with diverse backgrounds and new perspectives to RCL, along with reviewers who can critically assess the RCL subject collections with attention to equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice in scholarly resources. Apply to be considered as a peer reviewer and participate in the editorial development of the ACRL/CHOICE core subject bibliography for academic libraries.
2022 ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey Now Open
ACRL is now collecting responses for the Academic Library Trends & Statistics Survey for fiscal year 2022. If you have participated in the past, thank you. More than 1,514 academic libraries contributed data last year, including 155 institutions which had not participated in the past. We hope that you will contribute your library’s data for the 2022 fiscal year. This period is defined as the most recent 12-month period that ends before October 1, 2022, that corresponds to your institution’s fiscal year.
The data collection period runs from September 2022 to February 28, 2023 on the submission website. If you have difficulty logging in or have additional questions, please contact acrlbenchmark@ala.org. Complete details are also available on ACRL Insider.
The ACRL Diversity Alliance unites academic libraries committed to increasing the hiring pipeline of qualified and talented individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. By working together and thinking more broadly, ACRL Diversity Alliance institutions will help diversify and thereby enrich the profession. Contact ACRL Program Manager for Strategic Initiatives Allison Payne at apayne@ala.org if you'd like to join or learn more.
The ACRL Residency Interest Group supports resident librarians, former resident librarians, and any interested parties to network, share their expertise, and promote resident librarian groups. To learn more, view their website and mailing list.
