Digital technologies should be considered a method of preservation for library materials. Current conservation strategies of restoration, deacidification, and microfilming are expensive, and they limit access. Digitization offers improved access while preserving materials and reflects a change in the library role from depository of printed…

Reviews the traditional academic library services offered to faculty researchers and describes patterns of the academic research process. A more active librarian role in the research process is proposed, to be accomplished through understanding research in the information transfer process and the role of the researcher. (17 references) (CLB)

Responses to a questionnaire exploring faculty perceptions of academic librarians on campus are analyzed in terms of faculty-librarian contacts, usefulness of librarians, importance of academic subject background, and status. Results indicate that librarians are seen as professionals with a service function rather than as full-fledged academic…

Three major topics are discussed in this essay conveying a vision of what the university library should be like in the twenty-first century: (1) librarianship as a scholarly discipline; (2) politics and the university library; and (3) the library as an active agent in the life of a university. (EJS)

Addresses the importance of planning for integration of information-processing technology--particularly microcomputer software and hardware--into higher education in general and academic libraries specifically, and enumerates specific skills that academic librarians have developed which could enhance the library's role as the campus center for…

On the eve of a major change in communications media (from printing to widespread electronic publishing), this article reexamines and projects into future the library's fundamental role as a social institution. Discussion covers three environmental trends, library as an institution, and public policy and economic choices. Twenty references are…

This essay suggests several criteria by which academic libraries' standards and processes might be judged: appraisal of interinstitutional cooperation, acceptance of new technologies, preservation of materials, role of library in total educational process, involvement of librarians in general unversity governance, and role of faculty users in…

Explores value conflicts and ethical dilemmas arising from the more substantive role required of the academic librarian by technological developments. Discussion focuses on the interactions of social values, values of professional librarianship, and personal values of the librarian and the user, with the ethical requirements inherent in…

Examines the question of whether faculty or librarians should have primary responsibility for collection development in academic libraries. The findings of recent collection evaluations are presented, and the need for cost effective collection policies that combine the expertise of faculty and librarians is discussed. (16 references) (CLB)

Describes the Scholar's Workstation project, a campuswide computerization project at Brown University, and assesses its effects on the role and operation of the institution's libraries. Suggestions are provided for other libraries whose institutions are exploring the possibility of a similar venture. (CLB)

This essay suggests that conversation, crucial for human life in society and intrinsic to nature of libraries, may be the appropriate model for providing guidance, means, and context for change in academic librarianship. The business model, missions and goals, collection development, bibliographic instruction, and organizational considerations are…

Proposes that the concept of the traditional reference desk as the center of reference services in academic libraries is a tradition that should be examined in light of new technologies and changes in the way people find and use information. An alternative or supplementary model is delineated. (Author/CDD)

New technologies for generating, storing, and transmitting information will radically change information flow on college campuses and in society at large. University librarians will need to design environments for storing and retrieving these new types of information that will continue to nurture the life of the mind and support scholarship.…