Every year, the journal portal: Libraries and the Academy and the Johns Hopkins University Press choose an article for the Johns Hopkins University Press Award. This honors the best article in the previous volume of the journal. Kevin Smith, Director of Scholarly Communications for the Perkins Library at Duke University, won the award in 2011 for his article "Copyright Renewal for Libraries: Seven Steps Toward a User-Friendly Law," which appeared in Volume 10, Number 1 in January 2010. Smith joins us to discuss the award and his research.

Every year, the Press and the editorial board of portal: Libraries and the Academy choose one essay from the previous volume for an award. This year, an essay from Yale University Librarian Emeritus Scott Bennett was chosen for the honor. Bennett's article "Libraries and Learning: A History of Paradigm Change" appeared in the April 2009 issue and challenges librarians to align library space design with the ways information technology has changed how people learn.