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Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of academic libraries’ operations. Consortia have come to assert considerable bargaining power over publishers and have provided libraries with considerable economic advantage. They interact with publishers both as consumers of publishers’ products, with much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, and, increasingly, as rival publishers themselves. Are consortia changing the relationship between academic libraries and publishers? Is the role of academic library consortia placing academic libraries in a position that should and will attract the attention of competition policy regulators? Competition policy prohibits buying and selling cartels that can negatively impact the free market on which the Canadian economic system, like other Western economies, depends. Competition policy as part of economic policy is, however, only relevant where we are concerned with aspects of the market economy. Traditionally, public goods for the greater social and cultural benefit of society are not considered part of the market economic system. If the activities of academic library consortia are part of that public good perspective, competition policy may not be a relevant concern. Using evidence gained from in-depth interviews from a national sample of university librarians and from interviews with the relevant federal government policy makers, this research establishes whether library consortia are viewed as participating in the market economy of Canada or not. Are consortia viewed by librarians and government as serving a public good role of providing information for a greater social and cultural benefit or are they seen from a market-economic perspective of changing power relations with publishers? Findings show government has little in-depth understanding of academic library consortia activity, but would most likely consider such activity predominantly from a market economic perspective. University librarians view consortia from a public good perspective but also as having an important future role in library operations and in changing the existing scholarly publishing paradigm. One-third of librarian respondents felt that future consortia could compete with publishers by becoming publishers and through initiatives such as open source institutional repositories. Librarians also felt that consortia have had a positive effect on librarians’ professional roles through the facilitation of knowledge building and collaboration opportunities outside of the home institution.

This chapter explores specializations within academic librarian practices, focusing on librarian research and collaboration. Academic librarian roles are transitioning from service providers to specialists, researchers, and collaborators. Roles have shifted to incorporate interdisciplinary research and collaboration; embedded librarianship; research data management expertise; information literacy instruction; and core curriculum development. In order to understand this shift in roles, a mixed methods research project undertaken with a Purdue University researcher and Purdue Libraries faculty that prompted the development of a research diagrammatic metaphor modeling the components of librarian-faculty collaboration. The model demonstrates the dynamics and roles in academic collaboration and interdisciplinary research. A generalization of the model applied to two librarian-faculty collaboration scenarios exemplifies how these components facilitate engagement and project management. Potentially the model could be operationalized to understand disciplinary differences and provide a framework of accountability for both faculty and librarians engaged in research projects.

Library buildings are routinely reimagined, remodeled, or built new to meet the changing needs of their community. The move from collection-centric to user-centric service models has generated numerous writings about the library as place and space. The one concept lacking in the scholarly discourse is the changing roles of librarians to meet the needs of these new spaces and places. How do librarians fit in the new equation? When addressing the professional identity of librarians, which aspect of their work will need to evolve and which will need to be let go? A critical facet of sustaining services in new spaces is the need to develop the sustainable librarian – to remove the stigma of the librarian as “jack of all trades, master of none.” In order to realize this new mindset of mastering our domain we need to begin reimagining our work. Some ways, this can be accomplished by writing increased flexibility into position descriptions and creating organizational structures to better support librarians within the new spaces. With these new developments to our professional identities, librarians may learn to employ entrepreneurial skills in order to continuously anticipate services and develop skill sets to aid the library’s ability to fulfill its purpose. The authors provide a literature review to discuss the changing role of the academic librarian to meet the evolution of the library building and services. We will provide an example through findings and practices of Grand Valley State University and how it reimagined roles in the early 2000s and continues to reimagine roles in a new building and a renovated branch library. The change of spaces and places in academic libraries to accommodate user needs and perceptions has impacted how academic librarians work in these spaces and places. Library administrators need to rethink workflows, and organizational charts by examining flexible workloads, cross-training initiatives, professional development around new skills, and the letting go of obsolete practices.

Originality/value – in this chapter, the authors will discuss how library leaders are charged with translating the new roles of their librarians to meet the needs of their community in these new spaces and how library leaders may look beyond the literature of the profession for ways to facilitate change.

It has been widely projected in the library literature that a substantial number of librarians will retire in the near future leaving significant gaps in the workforce, especially in library leadership. Many of those concerned with organizational development in libraries have promoted succession planning as an essential tool for addressing this much-anticipated wave of retirements. The purpose of this chapter is to argue that succession planning is the wrong approach for academic libraries. This chapter provides a review of the library literature on succession planning, as well as studies analyzing position announcements in librarianship which provide evidence as to the extent to which academic librarianship has changed in recent years. In a review of the library literature, the author found no sound explanation of why succession planning is an appropriate method for filling anticipated vacancies and no substantive evidence that succession planning programs in libraries are successful. Rather than filling anticipated vacancies with librarians prepared to fill specific positions by means of a succession planning program, the author recommends that academic library leaders should focus on the continual evaluation of current library needs and future library goals, and treat each vacancy as an opportunity to create a new position that will best satisfy the strategic goals of the library. In contrast to the nearly universal support for succession planning found in the library literature, this chapter offers a different point of view.

This chapter outlines libraries’ (and librarians’) changing identities in the new world of research mandates from funders, institutions, and publishers. As libraries respond to the demands of these mandates on their users at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels, they need to revise their approaches to relationship building and user engagement, as well as maintain flexibility in the face of changing roles and skill requirements. This chapter will (1) outline the changing scholarly ecosystem; (2) summarize major terms and concepts to understand the process of producing research outputs; (3) discuss the perspectives of the major players in the research enterprise; (4) present some of the challenges that research mandates and the changing research environment have brought to libraries; and finally (5) review ways in which libraries have successfully addressed them. The focus here is on the academic research setting, although many of the strategies outlined can be equally applicable in both non-academic research and non-research funding contexts.

Public librarians throughout North America now support physical activity. One sees this function in the emergence and diffusion of new programs and services, such as librarians checking out exercise equipment, as well as in librarians actually sponsoring exercise classes. This chapter focuses on understanding this type of work. The first part looks at five different frameworks – the library as place, community-led librarianship, whole person librarianship, community health, and recreation and leisure – that each in different ways enable one to understand how supporting physical activity could become part of the work of public librarians. Focus then shifts to understanding empirically how public librarians in the US and Canada enact and understand this work. Research shows that this role has become more integral and expected in youth services than in adult services. Library staff themselves are more likely to lead movement-based programs for youth than for adults. The discussion then shifts to the implications of this trend in terms of evidence-based practice and multidisciplinary discussions on how and why to increase physical activity throughout society. The conclusion suggests additional work needed to understand this and other poorly understood functions of public librarians.

Although there is great potential for diversity, library and information science (LIS) is a relatively homogenous profession. Increasing the presence of librarians of color may help to improve diversity within LIS. However, recruiting ethnic minorities into LIS has proven to be difficult despite various initiative including scholarships, fellowships, and locally focused programs. The central questions explored in this research can be divided into two parts: (1) Why do ethnic minorities choose librarianship as a profession? (2) What would motivate members of minority groups to join a profession in which they cannot see themselves?

The research was conducted through semi-structured, qualitative interviews of 32 ethnic minority students from one of four ethnic minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American) currently enrolled in an LIS graduate program. Eleven themes emerged from the data: libraries, librarians, library work experience, LIS graduate program, career plans and goals, education and family, support, mentors, ethnicity and community, acculturation, and views of diversity.

The findings seem to support many assumptions regarding expectations and career goals. The findings related to libraries, librarians, mentors, and support illustrate that many recruitment initiatives are starting in the right place. However, the most noteworthy findings were those that centered on identity, acculturation, and diversity because they dealt with issues that are not often considered or discussed by many in the profession outside of ethnic minority organizations.