Dr. Celia Rabinowitz, Assistant Vice-President for Academic Engagement & Director of the Mason Library at Keene State College, reached out after reading my piece How Do Academic Libraries Spend Their Money? Like many academic librarians who contacted me in response to that
post, Celia’s email noted the complexities of library structures, budgets, and staffing.
In an effort to hear directly from academic librarians, I asked Celia if she’d be willing to share some of her thoughts and experiences in a Q&A.
Q1: What are the big trends and challenges related to academic libraries that you think our broader higher ed community needs to understand?
I think about my response to this in two ways. One represents the trends and challenges most of us in academic libraries are reading about. The trends include declining circulation of print materials, increasing demand for streaming services, the role of the library in data stewardship and in supporting open-access publishing, and new models for journal access, such as transformative agreements, among others. Challenges include addressing the balance of in-person and online/remote services that fit your campus as we slowly emerge from pandemic…
