Challenging, unprecedented, and extraordinary in almost every way, 2021 even surpassed the previous "annus horribilis," 2020. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to ripple humanity-wide, ceaselessly rebounding off, and cruelly amplifying, almost every kind of inequity and social challenge. A long overdue reckoning with the legacies of racism in the United States did not materialize in any truly transformative way, political discord worsened, and anti-science voices grew to dominate what should have been rational conversations about a coherent and collective response to a profound global health threat. It was within this context that the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) planned its 2021 meetings. This issue of "Research Library Issues" reflects on some of the topics explored in 2021 with a forward look to the conversations and work continuing into 2022. The four articles include: (1) Future States of the Research Library (Claire Stewart); (2) Library as Place (Kornelia Tancheva); (3) Impressions from a Former ARL LCDP Fellow of the Pandemons Class (Martha Alvarado Anderson); and (4) Mitigating Health Misinformation Potential Roles for Academic Libraries (Jeffery L. Loo and Erik T. Mitchell).