"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") focuses on current and emerging topics that are strategically important to research libraries. The articles explore issues, share information, pose critical questions, and provide examples. This issue includes the following articles: (1) Special at the Core: Aligning, Integrating, and Mainstreaming Special Collections in the Research Library (Lisa R. Carter); (2) Patron-Driven Acquisitions and the Development of Research Collections: The Case of the Portuguese Canadian History Project (Michael B. Moir); (3) 'There's a Great Future in Plastics': Mainstreaming a Special Collection (Sean Quimby); (4) Integrating Special Collections into the Composition Classroom: A Case Study of Collaborative Digital Curriculum (Matthew Vetter and Sara Harrington); (5) The Eaton Collection and UC Riverside Libraries: A Study in Driving Alignment (Ruth M. Jackson); (6) The Confluence of Collections at Johns Hopkins's Sheridan Libraries (Liz Mengel); and (7) Metastatic Metadata: Transferring Digital Skills and Digital Comfort at UMass Amherst (Robert S. Cox, Danielle Kovacs, Rebecca Reznick-Zellen, Aaron Rubinstein, and Jeremy Smith). Individual articles contain endnotes.