Non-profit global library cooperative OCLC and Ithaka S+R have published a new report, ‘University Futures, Library Futures: Aligning library strategies with institutional directions,’ which establishes a new framework for understanding the fit between emerging library service paradigms and university types. The report is available on the OCLC Research website.
Supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, project leads Constance Malpas, Lorcan Dempsey, and Rona Stein from OCLC Research and Roger Schonfeld and Deanna Marcum of Ithaka S+R, examined the impact of increased institutional differentiation in universities on the organisation of academic libraries and the services they provide.
As libraries move away from a collections model in which libraries measure their success by how large their collections are, this report puts a framework around library services, explores emerging patterns in different institutional settings, and gauges the importance of these services areas—now and for the future—according to surveyed library directors.
The work has three main components: a working model of U.S. higher education institutions; a library services framework; and comparison of both, to test the hypothesis that the services portfolio of libraries map onto the institutional priorities of their host university.
The first component developed institutional typologies that provide a nuanced description of institutional characteristics. This led to a model in which university emphases can be characterised in two dimensions: educational activity relative to three ‘poles’ - research, liberal education, and career-directed educational programs; and mode of provision - a traditional-residential mode and a new-traditional-flexible (or convenience) mode.
The second component developed a framework of library services, and then explored patterns of adoption of those services through a survey of university libraries. The framework covers nine key areas: Convene Campus Community; Enable Academic Success; Facilitate Information Access; Foster Scholarship and Creation; Include and Support Off-Campus Users; Preserve and Promote Unique Collections; Provide Study Space; Showcase Scholarly Expertise; and Transform Scholarly Publishing.
The third component tested the hypothesis by comparing the outputs of the first two components to see if libraries were, in fact, adapting to fit the institutional priorities of their institutions.
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