Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Library Planning

In February 2008, CLIR convened 25 leading librarians, publishers, faculty members, and information technology specialists to consider this question. Participants discussed the challenges and opportunities that libraries are likely to face in the next five to ten years, and how changes in scholarly communication will affect the future library. Essays by eight of the participants—Paul Courant, Andrew Dillon, Rick Luce, Stephen Nichols, Daphnée Rentfrow, Abby Smith, Kate Wittenberg, and Lee Zia—were circulated to participants in advance and provided background for the conversation. This report contains these background essays as well as a summary of the meeting.

Ithaka's 2006 survey of faculty members sought to determine their attitudes related to online resources, electronic archiving, teaching and learning and related subjects.  This study affords the opportunity to develop trend analysis of many measurements collected in the 2003 and 2000 faculty surveys. As in the past, Ithaka developed a robust set of disciplinary and other demographic analyses that have allowed them to learn more about how best to serve the needs of different types of faculty members. Findings include;

The author gives a statistical picture of what the ARL libraries workforce looks like currently and will look like in the future.

"In 2006 the ACRL Executive Committee asked the ACRL Research Committee to determine ten assumptions about the future that would have a significant impact on academic libraries and librarians. In the ensuing months, members of the Research Committee reviewed previous similar reports; surveyed ACRL committees, councils, and sections; conducted literature reviews; and reviewed the ACRL Environmental Scan of 2003. What emerged was a long list of statements that, after deliberations, was shortened to the ten most pertinent assumptions. These assumptions identify present conditions that the committee feels will have a significant impact on how academic libraries and librarians plan for the next ten years."

"Speaker after speaker in the audience posed variations on that scenario Monday at a session of the American Library Association’s annual conference that was part roundtable, part “Ask Amy.” During “The Art of Persuasion: Strategies for Effective Communication with Chief Academic Officers,” organized by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the provosts and vice presidents for academic affairs on the panel shared a list of their do’s and don’ts when approaching new college officials in their positions. "

With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CLIR offered workflow redesign support to teams from six institutions that are part of consortia. This volume documents their work. These institutions were pioneers. Now the issue of workflow redesign appears to be on the minds not only of librarians in small institutions, but also of many librarians in research libraries. We hope that this publication can be the beginning of describing changing work patterns, and that it can be followed by additional publications, both in print and through the CLIR Web site, on imaginative ways of providing good services in a shifting environment.