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Writing in 1995, what seems from our vantage point an almost primitive moment in technological evolution, hypertext theorist, and fiction writer Catherine Marshall, with her colleague David Levy, presciently described modern libraries;The academic and public libraries most of us have grown up with are the products of innovation begun approximately 150 years ago. We would find libraries that existed prior to that time largely unrecognizable. It is certain that the introduction of digital technologies will again transform libraries, possibly beyond recognition by transforming the mix of materials in their collections and the methods by which these materials are maintained and used. But the better word for these evolving institutions is “libraries,” not digital libraries, for ultimately what must be preserved is the heterogeneity of materials and practices. As library materials and practices of the past have been diverse—more diverse than idealized accounts allow—so they no doubt will remain in the future (Levy and Marshall, 1995, p. 77).By reminding us that libraries were always much more than repositories of collated pages of print, Levy and Marshall highlight the characteristics of modern libraries that mark them not as something new and different, but as something wholly in keeping with the diversity of “traditional” library holdings. “Our idealized image of a library imbues it with qualities of fixity and permanence. This is hardly surprising, since the library is considered to be the Home of the Book, and books are by and large one of the more fixed, more permanent types of documents,” the authors write, but “libraries have always contained materials other than books. Special collections and archives are filled with unbound and handwritten ephemera—correspondence, photographs, and so on … [And] traditional libraries have long contained a diversity of technologies and media; today these include film and video, microfilm and microfiche, vellum and papyrus” (p.77). Now that libraries contain various forms of digital media as standard parts of their collections (electronic journals, electronic catalogs, digital images, digitized sound files), the distinction between “traditional” and “digital” libraries has lost much of its original use, and so has the distinction between traditional and new types of librarians, the stewards of the libraries in any and all forms.

Responding to growing market demands for corporate social responsibility, the Asset Management Working Group of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative created a legal framework in 2005 to integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues in institutional investment. It challenged the business world to think beyond fiduciary responsibility, toward measurement of both tangible and intangible assets. As an institutional force committed to the triple bottom line (environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically feasible), modern libraries serve by reaching outward, and can lead by looking inward. ESG practices enable libraries to clearly identify criteria, set goals, and measure and report progress for external and internal operations, and help garner support and sustain and fund broader programs and initiatives. Applying ESG thinking to library policies, strategic plans, and operational culture will create a sustainable efficiency for these goals, provide evidence-based support for all stakeholders, and generate effective intrapreneurship while fostering community partnerships. This chapter describes our tailored, real-time approach to this work at New Canaan Library. It is a road we are building one brick at a time, and there is value in paving it organically – drawing on and meeting the aptitudes and needs of employees and our community where we are – while also employing best practices borrowed from successful models.

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.

Purpose – This chapter will utilize the apprenticeship model developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in their Preparation for the Professions series to study how American Library Association (ALA)-accredited Master of Library Science (MLS) programs could be reformed to better integrate the interests of educators with those of the practicing profession and the public they serve.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The Carnegie model uses three “apprenticeships” to distinguish the three areas professional education must address, labeled in this chapter as knowledge, practice, and identity. Each of these three areas is explored as it relates to the education of librarians, with an emphasis on what constitutes the general knowledge, skills, and identity of librarianship. Examples of how these three components could be integrated into an MLS program are given.

Findings – Current ALA-accredited MLS programs differ widely on the number and content of required courses. Applying the model developed in the other Carnegie studies to the field of library education yields a clearer vision for the professional education of librarians and to a reorienting of the educational experience students encounter in their MLS studies.

Originality/Value – Using examples from other professional education programs allows library educators to see the means by which a holistic education is achieved in other professions. The novelty of this approach is in the breakdown of the various components of a professional education program. The tripartite approach to professional education also provides a useful framework around which to build an MLS program.

This chapter traces the history of digital libraries (DLs) in the United States through the funding sources that have supported DL research and development over the past decade and a half. A set of related questions are addressed: How have the mission and goals of funding agencies affected the types of projects that have been funded? What have been the deliverables from funded projects and how have the goals of the funding agencies shaped those deliverables? Funding agencies have exerted strong influence over research and development in DLs, and different funding agencies have funded different types of projects, with varying sets of concerns for driving the various fields that feed into DLs. This chapter will address the impact that DL funding has had on the development of research in the field of Library and Information Science, as well as on the practice of librarianship.

David Ellis is Professor in the Department of Information Studies at Aberystwyth University. He was previously lecturer and senior lecturer in the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield. He has a PhD and an MA in Information Studies from the University of Sheffield, and a BA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Durham. His PhD study of the information behaviour of academic social scientists represented one of the first attempts to apply a rigorous qualitative methodology to modelling the information seeking patterns of social science researchers and was subsequently extended to studies of scientists in both academic and industrial research environments. These interests were further developed in the course of the uncertainty in information seeking project carried out in collaboration with researchers at the University of Sheffield and the University of North Texas. Professor Ellis has published extensively in the information studies field, his work has been recognised as representing a distinct, substantive and methodological contribution to the fields of information behaviour and information retrieval research, and is widely cited in both. His current research interests are in the areas of information behaviour, information and knowledge management and information systems. Professor Ellis's professional activities have included service on the UK Research Assessment Exercise, Peer Review Panel for Library and Information Management, and Research Convenor of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review Panel for Librarianship, Information and Museum Studies. He is a member of the AHRC and the Economics and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review Colleges and Research Notes Editor of the International Journal of Information Management.

One of the library’s most enduring roles has been information provision. It remains especially important today as libraries transition from passive storehouses of books into active community living rooms that offer not just information but a variety of different user experiences. Some libraries have responded by implementing new approaches to information provision that appear to fit this new vision. One such approach is roving information service. Using portable forms of information technology for assistance, librarians now roam the library floor, meeting users where they are rather than the other way around. Its advocates laud its flexibility and user-centeredness. But do roving models support this new, user-centered vision of the library? The answer lies in a deeper understanding of the library floor as a social space and how roving models of service affect perceptions of “centeredness” within it. This report reviews the results of an exploratory, qualitative study involving three libraries: two that use a hybrid model of roving service and one library that uses a fully roving model. The study’s findings indicate that indeed roving service can help create user-centered forms of library space, but a library’s method of implementation will matter.

It is reasonable to assume the existence of a new “dynamic” that influences how to measure reference services in libraries and how we evaluate the reference librarians who provide those services. Traditional, face-to-face delivery of reference services is reported to be declining, and there is myriad evidence, albeit largely uncollated and little evaluated, which suggests reference librarians are delivering significant and increasing amounts of the services they render in network environments. These trends raise questions, in turn, about how well we understand the current state of affairs in reference services, particularly where the management and evaluation of reference services in network environments are concerned.

The purpose of this study is to investigate relevant circumstances and conditions bearing – directly and indirectly – on changes in the nature, form, substance, and effects of reference services – through the reference librarian experience. Specifically, this attitudinal study will account for and assess changes in reference services (in the context of a medium-sized private university with a national reputation for successfully integrating information technologies into the educational process), with the further aim of developing an understanding of how to capture statistics and evaluate reference services and personnel in this dynamic environment. Reference librarians at a second mid-sized public university library were also interviewed for comparative data analysis in this study. Select portions of this paper have appeared in other publications in shorter, focused, introductory articles.