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Biennially, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association, publishes a report on the top trends and issues affecting academic libraries in higher education. Harris (2016) used the trends and issues reported by the ACRL to inform a document and thematic analysis of publications written on Jamaican academic librarianship 2010-2016, to investigate the trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship. Harris’ (2016) paper however noted that a survey of the chief librarian in each library, regarding their perceptions of the trends and issues would be a useful follow-up to her study, and cited this as a limitation/implication of her paper. The purpose of this paper is to address the above limitation and is therefore the follow-up to Harris’ (2016) paper.

The chief librarians in five of the six local university libraries were surveyed to provide insights into the trends and issues in Jamaican academic libraries at the university level.

Acquisitions, budget, staffing, communicating value, digital preservation and curation, mobile environment, collaboration, scholarly communication, information technology, space, higher education, user behaviour and expectations and information literacy are the top trends and issues in Jamaican academic libraries at the university level.

This survey seeks to complement rather than contest Harris’ (2016) research. Perhaps a useful follow-up to both papers would be biennial updates. Additionally, a survey of the trends and issues in all types of academic libraries throughout the English-speaking Caribbean would be a useful follow-up.

This paper is of value, as it is the first survey of trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship. It enriches the existing document and thematic analytical research on trends and issues in Jamaican academic libraries by adding an empirical component. It also increases the number of publications, on trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship, from one to two, and allows voices from the English-speaking Caribbean (Jamaica) to be incorporated into the literature dedicated to trends and issues in academic libraries.

Observing trends and issues plays a key role in the success of any industry. Since 2010, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) has been publishing papers on top trends and issues in academic libraries in the USA, allowing for reflection, tracking, lesson drawing, adaptation, planning and direction. Such a publication is absent in the Jamaican library industry. This paper aims to examine the extent to which these trends and issues, as reported by ACRL, are evident in Jamaican academic librarianship.

Through document and thematic analysis of publications written on Jamaican academic librarianship 2010-2016, this paper highlights trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship.

There are similarities in the trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship and American academic librarianship; the similarities sometimes vary, however, in focus. Additionally, there are trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship not mentioned in the literature reviewed on American academic librarianship and vice versa.

A survey of the chief librarians’ perceptions regarding the trends and issues would be a useful follow-up.

This paper allows for reflection, comparison, benchmarking, lesson-drawing, planning and direction for academic libraries and other types of libraries in Jamaica and the rest of the developing world.

The gaps highlighted, particularly those with the most potential, can be discussed with the objective of exploring how these can be translated into new or revised services for the community of users.

This paper is of value, as there is no publication with an explicit focus on trends and issues in Jamaican academic libraries; this paper will be the first publication on trends and issues in Jamaican academic librarianship. In this regard, this paper makes an important contribution to the literature on academic librarianship generally, and to the literature on Caribbean and Jamaican academic librarianship, specifically.

Due to globalization, digitization and advanced technology, academic libraries are experiencing a tremendous change in their role and operations. The purpose of this study is to critically examine and establish the emerging trends of academic libraries in Kenya; this study also highlights some of the critical roles of the academic libraries in relation to the emerging trends.

This study adopted the literature review method to critically analyse and establish the various roles and emerging trends and issues in academic libraries in Kenya.

This study established that change is inevitable and that academic libraries are supposed to adapt to the emerging trending trends and roles, lest their function and service become redundant. Due to the fact that library users’ information needs and information-seeking behaviour are changing, academic libraries are supposed to devise new and innovative ways of reaching out to their clients.

This study has been able to comprehensively create a new viewpoint of the role and emerging trends of academic libraries in Kenya in regards to the changing and advancement of new technology.

In this paper, we refer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2016, where the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) was coined by Klaus Schwab, with the reference that it would be building on “the Third, the digital revolution” and would be “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”. While acknowledging that the 4IR will impact on everything, everywhere, including research and libraries, we conceptualize 4IR, and we compare current academic library services/trends in South Africa with 4IR requirements, through the analysis of 26 public university library websites.

Besides conceptualization of 4IR, a content analysis of websites of 26 public universities’ libraries in South Africa was achieved followed up with verification of the data by respective libraries through a preliminary research report circulated to them by email. 23 areas were identified as the trends in academic libraries, which included free Wi-Fi in the libraries; 24/7 study areas and access to library resources on and off campus; research commons; makerspace; borrowing ICTs (e.g. laptops); e-resources; e-catalogues; research data services (RDS; RDM, IR); open scholarship; information literacy and reference/bibliographic tools, library as a publisher, among others. Data obtained were captured in Excel and analyzed by the research questions.

The 4IR concept does not occur often in literature, in relation to academic libraries, but it is implied. The findings show that the libraries are responding well to the revolution through their services, with remarkable innovation and creativity on display. There was a 64% presence of the analyzed trends/services in the libraries, with emerging trends/services such as library as a publisher (4%), robotics/AI (4%), makerspace (8%), RDS (27%), borrowing of ICTs/devices (19%) and user experience (19%) scoring low, while information literacy and digital scholarship (e.g. IR) (88%), e-catalogue and e-resources (92%), group study area (85%) and off campus access (77%) scoring above 75%. The scatter of the trends/services among the university libraries is noted for knowledge sharing of best practice.

In order to improve accordance with trends, academic libraries have to be better resourced, accessed and used, as well as improve web visibility. The study expects library services to be responsive, resourced and accessible anytime and anywhere, and it provides a conceptual framework and a benchmark for further research and exploration in the country, region and perhaps elsewhere.

The study can be used for benchmarking current and future academic library services in Africa. The conceptual framework provides an agenda for theoretical discussions and deliberations.

The trends, framework and 4IR representations in the study can inform theory and practice in LIS, particularly in Africa.

Linking 4IR to current and future library services provides a tool for academic libraries services benchmarking and development and provides a conceptual framework for theoretical and practical debates and implementation. The study is quite current and appropriate for the ongoing discussions of 4IR implications to academic libraries.

This paper aims to explore Web 2.0 technologies usage and trends in the top 100 US academic libraries as exemplified through the academic library websites.

The top 100 universities were selected from the US News & World Report's (USNWR) 2013 ranked list's top 100 of the best colleges in the USA. Content analysis was used in terms of quantitative approach. A checklist was developed as the main research instrument based on other checklists and questionnaires. Each of the selected university library websites was visited within a period of two weeks to explore implementation and usage of web tools, including SNS, blog, RSS, wikis, podcast/vodcast, and social bookmarking/tagging.

All 100 academic libraries had a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter, making SNS the most widely applied Web 2.0 tool. The wiki was the least applied Web 2.0 technology, with a 34 percent participation rate. Blog was the second most popular tool with a 99 percent participation rate, followed by RSS and IM/Chat with 97 percent and 91 percent respectively. The vodcast and podcast had 47 percent and 46 percent participation rates respectively, while social bookmarking/tagging were also used by 39 percent of the academic libraries.

This study is completely based on publicly available data regarding usage of Web 2.0 applications. Web 2.0 tools used on library intranets were not analyzed for this study. Outcomes suggest that academic libraries are increasingly using Web 2.0 applications to promote themselves, enhance library services, and highlight resources to patrons.

This is the first research that draws an overall picture of the usage and trends of Web 2.0 applications in the top 100 US academic libraries. This study demonstrates some noticeable patterns regarding usage, trends, and adoption which are relevant to how Web 2.0 applications are perceived and used within academic libraries. The study provides academic libraries with helpful information to better meet their user needs by effectively applying Web 2.0. Additionally, library managers, librarians and other libraries may also find this research beneficial as they plan to deploy Web 2.0.

Academic libraries are experiencing numerous changes in their services due to high demands for digital resources and changes in users’ information needs and expectations. Many academic library users give preferences to Google, Google Scholar and other search engines on the internet when they search for information. As reference transactions are decreasing in many academic institutions, this paper aims to investigate the continuing need for mediated reference services in the technology-driven environment in academic libraries.

The authors have conducted a literature review to document and analyze the current trends in reference services in academic libraries. They have examined the relevant published literature through a series of reflective questions to determine whether the demise of mediated reference services is imminent in academic libraries. While this literature review is by no means an exhaustive one, the authors have provided a fairly comprehensive representation of articles to synthesize an overview of the history, evolution, and current trends of reference services in academic libraries.

This paper clearly demonstrates the importance of human-mediated reference services in academic libraries. It reinforces the need for skilled, knowledgeable professional librarians to provide effective and efficient reference services in a digital environment.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of current trends in reference services in academic libraries and analyzes the merits and demerits of these trends to establish the need for mediated reference services in academic libraries. The arguments used in this paper will be useful for library and informational professionals as validation for the need to hire skilled, knowledgeable reference librarians to provide reference services in a digital environment.

This paper critically looks at the current trends and practices in reference services through the published literature to determine the future need for mediated reference services in academic libraries. It offers important insights to demonstrate why professional librarians’ skills, knowledge and expertise are essential to provide efficient reference services in the digital age.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on major issues and trends of academic libraries and leadership in the changing nature of higher education. Changing environment of academic libraries has impacted significantly on the knowledge, skills requirement and role of the library leaders, and how organizations can maintain and manage the changing nature of academic libraries as well as leadership while effective leadership is extremely required for the library leaders and organizations are concern about future scenarios. The primary objective is to identify the key challenges in libraries, leadership skills and approaches of the leaders, their effective leadership traits and future perceptions are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to facilitate as how to develop effective and successful leadership for the academic libraries during the changing nature of higher education. The findings and recommendations in the paper are based on personal experience of leadership positions in an academic library as well as experience of library leaders across the world.

Academic libraries are facing similar challenges and issues across the world. This paper identifies that library leaders need to be effective communicators, strategic thinkers, visionary, and able to examine the new ways of working.

This paper discusses why academic library leaders need a set of new skills and how can they develop leadership skills and competencies in the changing nature of academic libraries.

The paper aims to discern, document, and analyze current staffing trends in college and university libraries.

The author gathered information from the literatures of library and information science and higher education.

The paper details six trends across public and technical services affecting librarians, non‐MLS professionals, and paraprofessionals. The presentation of trends is followed by a discussion of three concerns the author has about these trends.

The paper covers trends in college and university libraries but does not specifically address community college libraries. Community colleges may have similar issues, as well as unique trends; further research is encouraged.

Library managers will be able to compare developments in their libraries to the profession‐wide trends. They will also be able to link to a large body of literature on the topic.

This kind of comprehensive look at academic library staffing does not seem to have been published recently.

This paper explores trends over time in library staffing and staffing expenditures among two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States.

Researchers merged and analyzed data from 1996 to 2016 from the National Center for Education Statistics for over 3,500 libraries at postsecondary institutions. This study is primarily descriptive in nature and addresses the research questions: How do staffing trends in academic libraries over this period of time relate to Carnegie classification and institution size? How do trends in library staffing expenditures over this period of time correspond to these same variables?

Across all institutions, on average, total library staff decreased from 1998 to 2012. Numbers of librarians declined at master’s and doctoral institutions between 1998 and 2016. Numbers of students per librarian increased over time in each Carnegie and size category. Average inflation-adjusted staffing expenditures have remained steady for master's, baccalaureate and associate's institutions. Salaries as a percent of library budget decreased only among doctoral institutions and institutions with 20,000 or more students.

This is a valuable study of trends over time, which has been difficult without downloading and merging separate data sets from multiple government sources. As a result, few studies have taken such an approach to this data. Consequently, institutions and libraries are making decisions about resource allocation based on only a fraction of the available data. Academic libraries can use this study and the resulting data set to benchmark key staffing characteristics.