The UK’s Research Information Network (RIN) has released a guide, 'Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times', that focuses on how academic librarians are experiencing and responding to financial cuts in the current economic climate.
After a decade of growth in budgets and services, academic librarians now expect a sustained period of cuts over the next three to five years. As a result, librarians are being forced to reconsider the kinds and levels of service they can provide in support of their universities missions. Based on data gathered in the UK and internationally, and focus groups with senior librarians during late 2009, the guide looks at the value and financial position of libraries, and their strategies for dealing with challenging economic circumstances.
The new RIN guide shows how librarians are responding to the issues of balancing expenditure between information resources and staffing and how they plan to sustain levels of service, as well as developing new services to meet new needs. It demonstrates that library directors need the support of senior managers across the higher education sector as well as from publishers and other information providers, to help address the challenges and the opportunities, faced.
‘Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times’ is available at www.rin.ac.uk/challenges-for-libraries.
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