ARCL Report: Top Issues Facing Academic Libraries
Created at its March 2001 conference, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Focus on the Future Task Force released a report this month naming the top seven issues facing academic libraries. The report identified the key issues in academic libraries by collecting comments and suggestions from some 300 librarians. Task force chair W. Lee Hisle, vice chair of information services and librarian of Connecticut College, says the ARCL list represents the most commonly expressed issues, and notes that they are not necessarily listed in order of priority.
Top Seven Issues in Academic Libraries
Recruitment, education, and retention of librarians.
According to the report, "The need to find and retain quality leadership for libraries is a core issue for the future." With the reported trend that there are more librarians retiring than entering the field, the task force asserts the need for library education that supports the new roles of librarians in a digital information age. The report also cites low salaries and lack of diversity as "relevant subtoptics" in the sphere of recruitment, and calls for collective action.Role of the library in academic enterprise.
The report acknowledges that some librarians feel the campus library has been "marginalized" in this age of digital information, but recognizes that librarians "are dedicated to maintaining the importance and relevance of the academic library as a place of intellectual stimulation and a center of activity on campus." The report further asserts, "Librarians believe that it is essential that we emphasize information literacy instruction and the importance of the teaching role of librarians."Impact of information technology on library services.
"Should libraries house campus information commons? Should libraries report through an 'information czar,' rather than through the traditional academic hierarchy?" The task force comments on the difficulty of maintaining technological currency despite rising costs and shrinking budgets.Creation, control, and preservation of digital resources.
The task force calls for methods to determine what should be digitized and the development of bibliographic control mechanisms for digital materials. The report states, "...librarians want to ensure that digital materials are preserved appropriately and the permanent access to those materials can be provided.Chaos in scholarly communication.
In the face of changes to copyright laws, challenges to fair-use in digital collections, consolidation of the information industry, and increasing Internet use by student and faculty researchers, "the apparent lack of commitment by the commercial information industry to future access of information will be an ongoing challenge for librarians.Support of new users.
The report details difficulties in providing resources to new user groups, particularly students, due to organizational patterns of academic libraries. The report further says that librarians "observe the general and growing lack of literacy among students, along with flexible ethics that tolerate plagiarism and copyright violations and show a general lack of respect for scholarship and research.Higher education funding.
The report asks, "How can libraries provide access to the information students and faculty need when the cost of resources is rising so precipitously?" According to the task force, action must be taken to compensate for low librarian salaries, and increasing technology costs.
The Focus on the Future Task Force will present its findings at the ACRL National Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 10-13, 2002.
More about the ACRL report and Focus on the Future Task Force can be found at
http://www.ala.org/acrl/hislenov02.html and Library Journal News.
Posted November 26, 2002