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The growing use of teams to accomplish work in libraries has brought qualitative changes to the nature of work and leadership in library organizations. Collaborative work in team-based organizations and the rise of distributed leadership require different skills from traditional, hierarchically structured workplaces. The literature on team skills provides insight and direction for library human resources management practices. Growing research on emotional intelligence in the workplace also provides new guidance for selection and personnel practices. The literature in these areas can help library organizations more effectively select those who have the attributes needed to be successful in this new environment. It can also help library organizations shape training and developmental opportunities to enhance these critically needed skills.

This paper aims to discover the key challenges and identifies reasons for the changing behavior of academic libraries and the role of library professionals, and how can they manage those challenges in a time of change. The paper reveals the most important competencies in a reshaping environment of libraries and the best ways of dealing with change. Library professionals are struggling to reform their traditional ways of working and trying to boost their knowledge and skills as current demand for higher education. Organizations can play an important role to develop willingness for accepting change and reduce stress among employees and prepare them to accept new systems and reality by creating collaborative and supporting environments that provide opportunities for growth and improvement. All library professionals must have the eagerness to keep up with the emerging trends and prepare themselves to accept changes that would have a direct impact on the libraries and the role of library professionals. Academic libraries have similar issues and challenges around the world, those are outcomes of technological advancement, digital resources, innovative services and diversity in higher education; therefore, the role of library professionals is changing.

The research method is built on literature reviews from offline and online. The systematic literature review method is used to review full-text databases such as EBSCO, ProQuest, Library Literature and Information Science databases. Basic search options for keyword searching and advanced searching options have been used to retrieve the relevant papers on the right topic. A total of 113 papers were collected at the initial stage, but after their analysis in detail, they were reduced to 52 scholarly and peer-reviewed papers because the rest of the papers did not exactly express relevant content on the topic.

Library professionals are struggling to keep up with the new competencies and adopt the innovative system and reality because diversity is rapidly changing. The best ways of dealing with change include reform the traditional ways to new ways of working and create collaboration at all levels. Librarians are under pressure to develop new skills to deal with the current scenarios that are affecting the role of library professionals. Academic libraries have similar challenges in a rapidly reshaping environment that are needed to address by researchers and library professionals for the present and future of academic libraries.

This paper is a piece of opinion, 52 appropriate papers on the topic have been reviewed from the peer-reviewed journals, not all publications were included. The existing literature described that there is a need for growth and improvement of academic libraries and workforce in financial crises because they play fundamental roles in society by offering services and information resources, so library professionals need to be very aware of these implications.

The literature on this particular topic is relatively limited. Therefore, this paper is the first to offer a systematic literature review on the changing behavior of academic libraries and the role of library professionals. This paper provides insights into the concept of adopting change and dealing with challenges in a time of change. It adds value to the library and information sciences literature and delivers outlines for the library professionals.

As a result of rapid environmental changes, organisations of all types are rethinking their organisational structures in an attempt to provide greater effectiveness and efficiency. A few years ago business process re‐engineering (BPR) was considered the most promising way to restructure an organisation, but has become less popular as shortcomings associated with the process have become evident. Today, greater emphasis is being placed upon modifying the actual organisational structure. Most restructured organisations have moved away from rigid hierarchies to flatter, more flexible structures. Many of the same forces (including increased automation, changing information needs and expectations of users, reduced budgets and the need for staff to have more autonomy over their own work) that have precipitated the reshaping of other organisations have also affected academic libraries. This paper describes some of the factors leading to changes in the organisational structures of academic libraries and provides an overview of trends, excluding convergence, discernible in North America. The paper includes suggestions for steps to be taken to facilitate successful reorganisations, and comments on possible future developments that might radically alter the organisational structures of academic libraries.

This study aims to provide insight into the usage of metaverse technologies in libraries, examining their impact on library service user engagement and assisting in unique promotion and marketing techniques for the metaverse setting.

This study used a literature review approach to synthesize current scholarly material on metaverse technologies and their practical applicability in the library context. It gathered academic literature from Emerald, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar databases to construct a strong foundation for the study from journal articles, which were retrieved using the researcher’s “search string.”

Metaverse technologies are reshaping the idea of smart libraries, offering innovative approaches to interact with information resources and delivering users progressively immersive and dynamic learning experiences. This in-depth investigation adds to a better understanding of the emerging link between metaverse technology and library professionals. It bridges the gap between libraries and users, transcending geographical boundaries and enabling libraries to serve a global audience. It anticipates metaverse-infused academic libraries welcoming new methods of engaging with their users with interactive capabilities to create a unique environment to explore library resources in an interactive marketing approach.

The metaverse is not only the future but also the future of libraries. This research fills the gap by advancing the literature on cutting-edge library technologies and empowers users to become reflective and well-informed information producers. It also helps library stakeholders engage with their audience in new and impactful ways and explore innovative marketing strategies tailored to the metaverse environment.

The purpose of this study is to explore the key challenges of academic libraries in times of changing nature of higher education system and how library leaders can manage the challenges when effective leadership is highly required for academic libraries today. As the time is changing, the kinds of challenges that library leaders face have also changed. Author of this study explores the methods and approaches, which are more effective ways of managing challenges in the reshaping environment of academic libraries. At the same time, change has become a permanent part of academic libraries and they need leaders who are able to lead and manage change efficiently, bring theories into practices, find innovative solutions to challenges, creative thinkers, effective communicators, collaborative mindset and self-motivators.

The selective publications have been reviewed to find the best ways to leading changes and managing challenges in academic libraries. The approaches and methods in this study are based on personal experiences of author as director of the university libraries and experiences of library leadership worldwide are conversed.

Academic libraries are facing similar challenges around the world. The author found that academic library leadership needs innovative skills and competencies, effective communication abilities and a new way of thinking to deal with challenges and create willingness to adapt the changes. Kotter’s leadership manage change model may apply for creating and implementing organizational change in academic libraries.

Literature on this topic is comparatively limited. Consequently, this manuscript adds value to the publications of library and information sciences and offers the literature in the field of leadership challenges and manage change in the academic libraries. It also provides guidelines to academic library leadership universally, and how can leaders work with change effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the main reasons for change, why change is necessary and how library professionals can adapt to change. Academic institutions are rapidly changing around the world where libraries are facing similar challenges and adapting change is a demand for growth and improvement. Library administrators need a clear vision and strategic plan to meet the upcoming challenges, they must have self-confidence, ability to work with diversity. Library professionals need to show flexibility and a willingness to develop new skills, they also need to adopt new ways of working and dealing with the academic community.

The literature review is built on resources from offline and online full-text databases such as ProQuest, EBSCO, Emerald, Library Literature and Information Science databases. This paper is based on a systematic literature review method which includes 50 research articles and 5 print books. A total of 109 articles were collected at the beginning stage but after their analysis in detail, they were reduced to 50 articles as the rest of the articles did not exactly focus on adapting to change in academic libraries. Basic keyword and advanced searching options have been used to retrieve the relevant literature on the topic from peer-reviewed and scholarly resources.

Changes are the result of organizational restructuring, user expectations and accessibility to a growing range of digital content, so library professionals are under pressure to adopt change in academic libraries and introduce new services and technology. Library professionals need to change traditional ways of working and boost their knowledge and skills, collaborative attitude, redesign and policies and procedures and create a willingness to adapt to the change. Challenges can be managed if an individual has a keen interest and eagerness to keep up to date with the current knowledge and emerging trends in academic libraries.

Appropriate literature on the topic was reviewed systematically, not all publications were included. Literature on this topic is relatively limited so more research and publications are needed to deal with current and future scenarios of academic libraries.

This paper offers a useful overview of the ways and approaches used to adopting change by library professionals and the approaches that can be used in the current and future settings of academic libraries. Suggestions and recommendations can be used in the field of LIS, as well as library professionals may apply in the academic and research libraries to effectively change.

This paper focuses on the concept of adapting to change in academic libraries, rather than responding to change. This piece of opinion contributes to library science in the area of how to manage and implement change, suggests ways and frameworks which can be used to adopting change by library professionals.