• Feature Articles: A Lens on Our Profession
• Ellysa Stern Cahoy (bio), Michelle Guittar (bio), Mark Lenker (bio), and Maribeth Slebodnik (bio)

When we think of feature articles, we often envision content that is engaging, accessible, and practical. Feature articles provide an alternative to traditional, research-focused, refereed journal content. Rather than reporting on original research, a feature article may help stimulate discussion and debate among scholars, leading to new research questions and lines of inquiry. Moreover, feature articles help bridge the gap between academic research and practitioners by presenting complex ideas and findings in an accessible and appealing manner. These articles are a rich part of portal: Libraries and the Academy’s history. In this editorial, we explore the history of portal’s feature articles and illuminate our current features and their specific areas of focus. portal currently publishes three regular feature articles in each issue: Global Perspectives (edited by Michelle Guittar), Reports from the Field (edited by Mark Lenker), and Worth Noting (edited by Maribeth Slebodnik).

Feature articles align perfectly with portal’s mission of supporting and providing opportunities to authors. They often focus on practice and provide insight into a project or initiative and its impact on librarianship. As noted in portal’s Author Guidelines, feature articles are “edited but typically not peer-reviewed.” They are generally shorter than portal research articles, with features being around 3,000 words and research articles around 10,000 words.

portal identifies and solicits feature articles for publication in various ways. Manuscripts considered in portal’s traditional peer review process are sometimes recommended as feature articles. In 2021, 28 percent of submitted articles were suggested by reviewers to appear as features. Feature articles proposed for publication often have a practice-focused approach, center on case studies, or share efforts or initiatives that align with one of our feature areas. Additionally, feature articles are solicited through targeted requests from prospective authors or by portal feature editors proactively recruiting content for the journal. Suggestions can come from different sources, such as conference presentations, social media posts, news articles, and more. portal feature editors are always interested in receiving new ideas for forthcoming feature articles. [End Page 407]

The first issue of portal, in January 2001, contained two feature articles. “Isn’t Life Great? A Dot Com Delivers Access to the Wealth of Human Knowledge” provided an overview of Questia, an early Web-based online digital library, while “The Search for New Measures: The ARL LibQUAL+ Project—A Preliminary Report” shared information on a new assessment response to academic libraries’ data-driven needs. With these initial feature articles, portal achieved its goal of covering a range of content of interest to its audience of academic librarians. By the second issue of portal (April 2001), the organization of feature articles began to take shape. The April issue included eight book reviews, which became a regular component of earlier portal issues. In addition to the book reviews, two new feature article areas of focus were launched: Research: Theory and Applications, and Strategic Visioning.

Research: Theory and Applications focused on current research projects in librarian-ship and shared strategies for utilizing their results in practice for improved services. The feature also included interviews with researchers about their current and past research initiatives and put forth needed research agendas for discussion. Strategic Visioning provided individual perspectives on critical issues in libraries and higher education. In 2002, two additional features appeared: Information Technology Perspectives, centered on emerging technologies and their impact on higher education, and Information Standards, highlighting new metrics in the field. In the following years, Strategic Visioning appeared most regularly in portal, and all of these features remained in place until the mid-2010s.

In 2011, then-portal Editor Sarah Pritchard introduced a new feature called Reports from the Field, which aimed to bring attention to important issues and projects requiring a rapid response. She explained that this feature could take a variety of formats, including research project summaries, conference presentation recaps, or sharing new guidelines and standards. The first Reports from the Field article, “Three Years and Counting—The Economic Crisis Is Still with Us” by Charles Lowry, provided a time-sensitive analysis of current Association...

• 专题文章：透视我们的职业
• Ellysa Stern Cahoy（简介）、Michelle Guittar（简介）、Mark Lenker（简介）和 Maribeth Slebodnik（简介）

当我们想到专题文章时，我们通常会想到引人入胜、易于理解且实用的内容。专题文章提供了传统的、以研究为重点、经过参考的期刊内容的替代方案。专题文章可能有助于激发学者之间的讨论和辩论，从而引发新的研究问题和调查线索，而不是报道原创研究。此外，专题文章通过以易于理解和吸引人的方式呈现复杂的想法和发现，有助于弥合学术研究和实践者之间的差距。这些文章是门户网站的丰富部分：图书馆和学院的历史。在这篇社论中，我们探讨了门户网站专题文章的历史，并阐明了我们当前的特色及其具体关注领域。目前，该门户网站每期定期发表三篇专题文章：《全球视角》（由 Michelle Guittar 编辑）、《实地报告》（由 Mark Lenker 编辑）和《值得注意》（由 Maribeth Slebodnik 编辑）。

专题文章与门户网站支持作者并为其提供机会的使命完美契合。他们通常专注于实践，并深入了解项目或计划及其对图书馆事业的影响。正如门户网站的作者指南中所指出的，专题文章“经过编辑，但通常未经同行评审”。它们通常比门户研究文章短，专题文章约为 3,000 字，研究文章约为 10,000 字。

门户网站以各种方式确定并征集专题文章以供出版。门户网站传统同行评审流程中考虑的手稿有时会被推荐为专题文章。2021 年，审稿人建议 28% 的提交文章作为专题出现。提议发表的专题文章通常采用以实践为中心的方法，以案例研究为中心，或分享与我们的某一特色领域相符的努力或举措。此外，专题文章是通过潜在作者的有针对性的请求或门户专题编辑主动为期刊招​​募内容而征集的。建议可以来自不同的来源，例如会议演示、社交媒体帖子、新闻文章等。门户专题编辑总是对接收即将发表的专题文章的新想法感兴趣。[完第407页]

2001 年 1 月的第一期门户网站包含两篇专题文章。“生活不是很美好吗？互联网提供了对人类知识财富的访问”概述了早期基于网络的在线数字图书馆 Questia，而“寻找新措施：ARL LibQUAL+ 项目 - 初步报告”分享了有关新评估的信息满足学术图书馆的数据驱动需求。通过这些最初的专题文章，门户网站实现了涵盖学术图书馆员受众感兴趣的一系列内容的目标。到门户网站第二期（2001年4月），专题文章的组织开始形成。四月号包括八篇书评，成为早期门户网站的常规组成部分问题。除了书评之外，还推出了两个新的专题文章重点领域：研究：理论与应用和战略愿景。

研究：理论与应用侧重于图书馆学领域当前的研究项目，并共享在实践中利用其成果来改进服务的策略。该专题还包括对研究人员的采访，了解他们当前和过去的研究计划，并提出讨论所需的研究议程。战略愿景为图书馆和高等教育中的关键问题提供了个人观点。2002 年，出现了另外两个专题：信息技术视角（以新兴技术及其对高等教育的影响为中心）和信息标准（强调该领域的新指标）。在接下来的几年里，战略愿景最频繁地出现在门户网站中，所有这些功能一直保留到 2010 年代中期。

2011 年，当时的门户网站编辑 Sarah Pritchard 推出了一项名为“现场报告”的新功能，旨在引起人们对需要快速响应的重要问题和项目的关注。她解释说，这一功能可以采用多种格式，包括研究项目摘要、会议演示回顾或分享新的指南和标准。查尔斯·洛瑞 (Charles Lowry) 撰写的第一篇实地报告文章“三年了，经济危机依然存在”，对当前协会进行了时间敏感的分析……