Research Libraries in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Libraries are a key resource in maintaining research, funding and teaching capabilities of research extensive universities today, but they rarely receive significant research attention, treated instead as a kind of “add-on” to other considerations. Yet research libraries and their search and linking capabilities are changing the way in which faculty and students alike work, and some suggest, the way in which we even think, about knowledge, knowledge production, and our relationships with the world. Libraries—and librarians—are undertaking roles which go far beyond collecting, cataloguing, storing and retrieving information, and are now working as knowledge producers themselves. As well, librarians in research extensive universities are now key to organizing new information and knowledge, creating new accessibility paths for faculty and students. This chapter also considers the role of major research libraries in teaching in the knowledge economy; contributing to the development of new metrics for evaluating libraries, their collections and their services; the economics of collections and collection development, including space and space renovation which meets new teaching needs and modes; the role of funding and development; the creation and expansion of digital libraries and archives; and libraries’ contributions to the creation of research collaboratives across time and space.