Redefining Academic Library Roles: How Trends in Higher Education are Driving Change
1. ACRL President’s Program | 27 June 2015
The Power of Mindset: Fostering Grit on the Way to New Roles
Redefining Academic Library Roles:
How Trends in Higher Education are Driving Change
Constance Malpas
OCLC Research
3. • Increasing fragmentation, stratification of HE sector
elite, middle, convenience on different paths
• Fiscal constraints: limited public funding, growing
reliance on tuition for operating costs
renewed emphasis on student success
• Learning, research workflows transformed by
technology
flipped classroom, online learning, open science
• More attention to managing performance, reputation
learning analytics, research management
Key Trends in Higher Education
4. • 26,606 academic librarians in US (NCES, 2012)
Represents 16% of all US librarians
• Represent <1% of total college, university and
professional school employment in US (BLS, 2014)
Very small part of very large industry
• Majority of US academic libraries (66%) support
‘4 years +’ institutions (NCES, 2012)
Market segment most influenced by expectations from
‘Golden Age’ of US higher education (1945-1970)
Libraries and US Higher Education
Change will be hard. And necessary.
5. M. Van der Werf and G. Sabatier. The College of 2020: Students. Chronicle Research Services, 2009.
1. Elite – brand-name private colleges/universities, public flagships
global reputation, ‘student experience’, social/business elites,
large endowments
1. Middle – regional public and private universities, small liberal arts
emulate experience, amenities of elite with fewer resources
2. Convenience – community colleges, for-profit private providers
emphasis on career-ready credentials, online education
8. American Sociological Review Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 147-160
Organizations adopt similar practices to gain legitimacy
(without necessarily improving efficiency)
Cf. Matthew S. Kraatz “Learning by Association? Interorganizational Networks
and Adaptation to Environmental Change” The Academy of Management Journal
Vol. 41, No. 6 (Dec., 1998), pp. 621-643
10. My research was
accomplished with card
catalogues stored in the
university’s biggest building,
the library, along with
copies of the Readers Guide
to periodical Literature,
bound in green hardcover
on shelves near the
reference desk. When the
library closed, I had to find
something else to do.
K. Carey (2015), p. 87
Johnwilliamsphd “Glenn G. Bartle Library Tower” CC-by-nc-sa
11. "Gelman GWU Air" by Pjn1990 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Organizational similarities…more than skin deep
"WidenerLibrary HarvardUniversity Springtime" by Unknown. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
http://www.thehoya.com/campus-buildings-impart-character/
12. No...
a disruption of the institutional isomorphism
that makes colleges/universities and their
libraries look alike
The ‘End of Academic Libraries’?
http://www.collegerank.net/amazing-college-libraries
The ‘50 Most Amazing College Libraries’ built on the same model
Org. charts, too.
13. Education & Related Expenses per
FTE Student, 1990-2010
W.G. Bowen and E.M. Tobin Locus of Authority: The Evolution of
Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education Princeton
University Press, 2014. Figures 3 & 4.
A widening gap between elite
and general educational offer at
private 4-year institutions
…and at public 4-year institutions
Remember: this is where
most academic librarians are
14. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Doctoral/Research
Master’s I and II
Baccalaureate
Baccalaureate/Associate’s
Associate’s
Allocation of Library Expenditures
by Carnegie Classification
Salaries and Wages Information Resources Operating Expenses
Source: NCES Academic Libraries Survey, 2012. Derived from Table 8.
Library staff will need to
support different
institutional priorities
>70% of expenditures
for staff
>40%
15. Operational goals will evolve
cataloging metadata management
curation creation, publishing
customer relationship management
community engagement
reference
bibliographic
instruction
data literacy, visualization
integrating library, student support svcs
assessment custom analytics
acquisitions discovery, facilitated access
Old roles Emerging needs
16. New roles in a reconfigured library organization
Elite, research:
Brand management - personal and institutional
Digital scholarship, creation and curation
Coordinated stewardship
*Outreach/Community Engagement Specialist
Middle
Convenience
Pre-packaged content for competency-based learning
Library integration with student/learning support
*Adaptive Learning Specialist
Facilitated collections – cooperative management
Visible library contribution to student success
*Preemptive Support & Response Specialist
*UX Design Librarian
*Creative Learning Specialist
*Neighborhood Liaison & Public Education Specialist
*”New roles” from S.Bell, L, Dempsey, B. Fister (ACRL, 2015)
17. Locus of operations will shift
Shared
• Elite will selectively affiliate around cooperative solutions, retaining
‘distinctive’ local services that contribute to brand, prestige
• Middle will rely on blend of cooperative and commercial sourcing
• Convenience will increasingly rely on commercial
NB! reliance on commercial doesn’t mean ‘no librarians’
think of travel nursing, on-demand staffing in a variety of sectors
infrastructure
services
staffing Specialist cataloging
Preservation
…
DDA profiling
Shared print
…
Shared storage
Shared ILS
…
22. Greg Woodhouse “El Camino Real Bell (165/366)” CC-BY-NC
Old roads,
new ways . . .
23. SM
Together we make breakthroughs possible.
Thanks for your attention.
Constance Malpas
OCLC Research
malpasc@oclc.org
ACRL President’s Program | 27 June 2015
Notas do Editor
Four year drought
http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet02
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes254021.htm#ind
This is what makes change hard, and necessary.
Predictions largely borne out…
Driving a wedge
Private, for-profits: more institutions and more enrollments
Professional norms created incentives to make academic libraries and librarians look more and more alike.
75% of academic library community aligned around similar model of what constitutes appropriate service and staffing.
Sees traditional academic library as part of outmoded understanding of HE infrastructure
GW campus and library viewed as a pastiche of traditional iconography of a great university (Bologna, Harvard)
Places blame (in part) on elective system promoted at Harvard which requires proliferation of infrastructure to support a ‘university of everything’
A memory of undergraduate experience at Binghamton University, late 1980s.
Suzzallo
U OK
Boston College
Widener
Applegate now Chair of the Dept of Library and Info Science at IUPUI School of Informatics
convenience: certification, work or transfer-ready
stretched middle: + career/profession-ready
elite: + institutional reputation, student experience
Creative Learning Specialist “identify and communicate with other faculty those pedagogies, methods, and assessments that will best help integrate research skill development into the curriculum.”
UX Design Librarian “shapes the ways in which users experience the process of discovery, of the creation of knowledge, and of the use of resources, tools, data, and more in the context of the work of the user.”
Neighborhood Liaison and Public Education Specialist “focus is on extending the education mission of the academic library to the neighborhood”
Outreach/Community Engagement Specialist “connecting with high school students and their parents at the schools…to create more recognition for his or her institution and to demonstrate that the library is an active participant in contributing to student success”
Preemptive Support and Response Specialist “monitors student performance on research assignments and identifies as-risk students who need additional attention and personalized assistance”
Adaptive Learning Specialist “works with instructors to customize an adaptive learning process for the student”