Academic Libraries: Their Rationale and Role in American Higher Education

by Gerard B. McCabe, Ruth J. Person

Overview

At the end of the 20th century, college and university libraries face enormous challenges and opportunities. As campuses move into the information age, the mission and role of the library is being redefined. While the amount of information libraries need to acquire continues to increase, the resources available to do so are insufficient. Moreover, administrators need to assess the relationship between the library and the computer center, as both fight for limited resources.

This book offers academic administrators and librarians a better understanding of the issues facing the library during this time of change and the role of the library in the evolving campus of the future. Chapters are written by expert contributors, who reflect a range of perspectives and experience. The authors treat such current and emerging issues as the future of printed material in the library, the role of the library in instruction, the library and the larger campus community, the training and development of personnel for the future, library expenditures at a time when technology quickly becomes obsolete, and the future of academic libraries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313285974
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/18/1995
Series:	Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science , #84
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

GERARD B. McCABE is Director of Libraries at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and the Series Adviser for the Greenwood Library Management Collection. His books include Insider's Guide to Library Automation (1993), Academic Libraries in Urban and Metropolitan Areas (1992), Operations Handbook for the Small Academic Library (1989), and The Smaller Academic Library (1988), all published by Greenwood Press.

RUTH J. PERSON is Vice President for Academic Affairs at Ashland University. She is the author of several professional papers on library management.

Table of Contents

The Academic Library: Its Place and Role in the Institution by Joanne R. Euster
What Community Colleges Need from Their Libraries by David R. Dowell and Jack A. Scott
Benign Neglect of the "Heart of the College": Liberal Arts College Deans Look at the Library by Lloyd W. Chapin and Larry Hardesty
The Library and the Provost by Peter E. Wagner
Professional Education for Academic Librarians by Anne Woods Worth and Mary Westerman
Training and Development for Library Staff by Tom Wilding
Selection, Career Paths, and Managerial Development in Academic Library Administration: Forecasting the Needs of the Twenty-first Century by G. Charles Newman
Funding Academic Libraries by Carla J. Stoffle and Kathleen Weibel
Academic Collections in a Changing Environment by Ronald F. Dow, Salvatore Meringolo, and Gloriana St. Clair
Designing Effective Library Organizations by Charles T. Townley
Forecasting, Forestalling, Fashioning: The Future of Academic Libraries and Librarians by Jordan M. Scepanski
A Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences: A Shamelss Knock-off with Apologies to Galileo by Paul M. Gherman and Robert C. Heterick, Jr.
Bibliography
The Academic Library in Higher Education: A Selective Annotated Bibliography by Rashelle S. Karp, Rita Rivera, and Sherry Engle

Editorial Reviews

The Age of Anxiety has created a boom in the publishing of self-help books. Library Anxiety, now an occupational hazard in academic libraries, seems to have created a market for individual and collective pronouncements, generally reassuring, on "The Future of the Academic Library." This is one of the better examples of the genre. The waterfront is covered and covered by people of genuine achievement and insight. It would take more space than LJ allots to even list the titles of the papers and their authors, but you can be assured that not only are the usual suspects (professional education, funding, the future, collections) to be found herein, but also some faint surprises (an essay on the attitude of liberal arts deans to "their" libraries; others on "the library and the provost" and on community colleges and the "electronic library"). There is also a lengthy, excellent annotated bibliography. The 12 chapters and the bibliography are, in the main, the result of a joint or multiple authorship. Of the 22 people involved, 16 are librarians or library educators and six are nonlibrary academics of one kind or another. Each of these essays can be read with profit by academic and library administrators, librarians, and library educators. Especially commendable are the papers by Joanne Euster, Anne Woodsworth and Mary Westerman, and Jordan Scepanski, but the editors are to be congratulated on a compilation of consistent quality and general levelheadedness.-Michael Gorman, California State Univ. Lib., Fresno

Library Journal

Explores issues in the changing nature of the academic library, for academic administrators and librarians. Essays describe the place of the library on the campus today, library needs in community colleges, and liberal arts college deans' perspectives, and address training and education for library staff and librarians, funding and budgetary concerns, and the future of academic libraries and librarians. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews