One of the overwhelming things about being a manager or leader in an academic library is that the scope of things about which you really need to know something is vastly wider than your capacity for knowing things. It’s easy to feel like you’re constantly playing intellectual whack-a-mole: you realize that you need to understand network authentication better in order to keep your systems secure, and while you’re learning about that you start hearing about something called “generative AI” that may or may not have significant implications for the future of library services. New publishing models are constantly bubbling up, and with them requests for various kinds of funding support from your library – how should you respond? Better get informed, as quickly as you can, about the ever-shifting economics of scholarly publishing. And while all of this is going on, you’re also trying to deal with personnel issues, budget crises big and small, and “managing up” with your university administration.

And now, in the midst of all this, you have me telling you that there’s a bunch of stuff you need to be reading. Great.

But here’s the thing: leading in a library means more than just keeping an eye on what’s happening in the library, or even within the walls of your host institution. It also means keeping informed about what’s going on in the wider world of academia and of education policy. The good news is that you don’t need to dedicate hours of your day to boning up on these things – you can keep an eye on developments just by checking in on some key publications on a daily basis, watching for headlines that catch your attention and reading more deeply as you deem appropriate. Many of these publications will be happy to let you join an email list whereby you get a notification each morning of what’s being published that day, which makes it even easier.

Here are four such publications that I follow regularly (or pretty regularly), none of which has an explicit library focus:

The Chronicle of Higher Education. This is the New York Times of the American college and university scene, a weekly print and daily online publication that covers higher education issues with remarkable promptness and thoroughness and an admirable breadth of ideological diversity. You’ll get a nice mix of fact-based reporting and opinion, and there’s a good chance that you have a campus-wide site license already. As a library leader you need to know what your campus administration is concerned about, and the Chronicle is about as good a window on that as you could ask for. (Academe Today is the essential daily newsletter.)

Inside Higher Ed. For a somewhat more UK-centric overview, consider Inside Higher Ed, which is quite similar in orientation to the Chronicle but with more attention paid to developments in the UK (where it is published) and Europe. This can be a particularly worthwhile resource for library leaders with significant international involvements or at institutions that maintain a presence in Europe and the UK. (Inside Higher Ed offers both daily and weekly email newsletters, including titles focused on admissions and student success issues.)

The Scholarly Kitchen. This is the official blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and it offers daily posts on issues related to scholarly publishing, libraries, and scholarly communication generally. Given the intimate relationship between libraries, publishers, funders, and policymakers, I find the Kitchen an essential check-in every morning. (You can sign up for notifications whenever a new piece is posted. Full disclosure: I am one of the “chefs” who write regularly for the Scholarly Kitchen, but I am not paid and have no financial interest in promoting it.)

The Free Press. This might seem like an odd inclusion, but I’ve found the Free Press to offer unique and valuable insights on the intersection of American politics and higher education. Recent relevant articles include “How Qatar Bought America” and “China’s Spies at Stanford,” and while the Free Press has caused much consternation among many in the academic community by casting a gimlet eye on the generally progressive social/political culture of academia, in my view they do a pretty good job of telling the truth regardless of whose bull gets gored in the process. I don’t always agree with them either, but I find the Free Press a particularly valuable general-news outlet for people who want a different perspective on the higher-education scene.