The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has established a broadly based task force to identify the trends and major issues crucial to the survival and success of academic libraries in the future. Over the past 18 months, the ACRL task force held a series of discussions around this theme. The top issues emerging from the ACRL process are noted below. The list represents the most often expressed issues and they are not necessarily in priority order.
Recruitment, education, and retention of librarians
Role of library in academic enterprise
Impact of information technology on library service
Creation, control, and preservation of digital resources
Chaos in scholarly communication
Support of new users
Higher education funding
ARL’s representative to the ACRL task force is Shirley Baker; Joe Hewitt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is on the task force representing IFLA. The discussion today is to surface your suggestions for additional ARL input into this process. As a point of departure for the discussion, the ARL developmental priorities are listed below; this is a statement that the ARL Board put in place to guide their stewardship of ARL resources.
Questions the group may discuss at this session include:
As you think about the future of the research library that you direct, do you identify with the issues raised in the ARL developmental priorities? Are there other issues that should be communicated to the ACRL task force?
Do the issues change if you shift your thinking to the future of communities of academic and research libraries in your state, consortia, or internationally?
The ARL Board monitors the horizon issues facing research libraries to anticipate where ARL program strengths will be needed. In July of 2000, the Board put in place a set of developmental priorities for ARL programs to guide the Board’s stewardship and development of ARL resources over the next three or so years; the statement was revised in February 2002. These developmental priorities provide a broad context within which the Association’s existing and highly valued programs should develop. In all cases, ARL programs are pursuing these longer-term goals in consultation with like-minded agencies in North America, and in many cases, internationally.
Enable member libraries to redefine their service roles in ways that are responsive to users and to a rapidly changing information environment.
Examples of opportunities for such redefinition include the following:
Enabling libraries to take on new institutional roles in advancing emerging systems of scholarly communication
Developing new measures for assessing library performance and contributions to higher education
Articulating emerging and anticipated needs for library space
Fostering a collaborative North American effort to create and manage digital library content, including the development of portals designed for the particular needs of higher education
Showcasing innovative approaches for library support of learning pursued at a distance from the sources of library materials and services
Help libraries ensure enduring, cost-effective, and integrated access to research materials in all formats to readers working both near to and at a distance from those resources and, to the greatest extent possible, support delivery of these resources and related services to the user's desktop.
Many of the access paradigms of research libraries--including some practices relating to bibliographic and archival records, document delivery, and preservation--do not transfer well, either operationally or financially, to a world in which information resources are relatively abundant, rather than scarce, or where the number of people engaged in higher learning continues to expand. A critical challenge before research libraries is to develop access paradigms that support the changing circumstances of higher education and emerging communication technologies.
Develop effective strategies to assist member libraries in recruiting talented staff in a changing demographic environment.
Central to this effort will be defining the core competencies for research library staff and identifying the means by which staff can acquire these skills. ARL must also help to develop a pool of library leaders who can motivate and direct efforts to adopt new service roles that are responsive to users and to put in place strategies to ensure broad, enduring access to research resources.