Academic Librarians Respond to Budget Crisis

Hale Library, Kansas State University
Source: Wikipedia Commons
A stunning, latter-day example of
Richardsonian Romanesque architecture

Link to November 22 Chronicle of Higher Education post, "Libraries Innovate to Counter Cuts". (via ALA tweet)

Excerpt: At many university libraries, the toxic economy has eaten away at staffing levels and at collections-and-acquisitions budgets. It has deflated endowments and disrupted plans to build new facilities and upgrade equipment.

But in response, librarians are doing more than tightening their belts. Some see the crisis as a chance to change the way they do business. It has spurred efforts to dream up ambitious solutions to big problems, such as collaborative storage networks that let libraries share the costs of housing valuable but burdensome print collections. The money pinch has also heightened the appeal of open-access content.

The worst of times, some say, may help make the path to better times clearer. "We joke here, and we've heard it at other places, 'Don't let a good crisis go to waste,'" says Lori A. Goetsch, dean of libraries at Kansas State University and president of the Association of College and Research Libraries. "It has maybe moved things forward at a pace that we might not have been able to otherwise."