‘Libraries Are the Great Equalizers’

Without librarians, a library building is merely a warehouse of stuff. It’s the librarian who makes a library what it is.

And the library profession, much like the library itself, is undergoing profound change. As many of the activities of the library have moved online, the librarian has had to adapt to keep up with broader shifts in technology, society, and demographics, all of which have had profound implications for the people entering the profession and the skills and qualifications it requires. Only about a third of the people working in libraries even identify as librarians, according to the Association of College and Research Libraries.

In a new Chronicle report, “The Library of the Future,” we examine the changes affecting this critical institution, which is at the heart of many campuses. Such changes are affecting the nature of librarianship, the way space is used in library buildings, and how scholarly materials are produced, collected, and made accessible.

In response to a request for librarians’ insights on those shifts, more than 160 of them told us how their jobs and the role of the library had been transformed, and what still needed to change. Here is some of what we heard:

Q: What do you see as the value of libraries, and what do they need to do to stay relevant?

“Libraries are the great equalizers in combating the digital divide and the information divide. I want to help advance the commitment of diversity to all in fostering lifelong information-literacy skills; technology imagination and innovation; strategic researching; and transforming libraries into indispensable learning environments for promoting multicultural awareness in all libraries.”

— Kimberly M. Gay, head of the department of reference and information services, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University

Q: What do you see as the value of libraries, and what do they need to do to stay relevant?

“I believe libraries are one of the last standing institutions that are part of the public good. Nowhere else can you go and just exist without the obligation of consuming or purchasing something. Unfortunately, libraries, both academic and public, are severely underfunded, yet are expected to solve many of society’s ills. Librarians and library workers are expected to go beyond their job duties, from social work and administering Narcan to Covid testing.”

— Junior Tidal, associate professor and web-services and multimedia librarian, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York

Q: What do you see as the value of libraries, and what do they need to do to stay relevant?

“Libraries need to act more quickly to show our value to our institutions, so that our budgets aren’t cut because ‘everything is online and students have been searching the web for years, so they can find anything.’ We should have curricula that we can present — not just a random set of information that might be useful, but a series of sessions that will build students’ knowledge in specific ways, with class time to practice skills.”

— Carol Shannon, informationist, A. Alfred Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

On being a second-career librarian:

“My original career goal was to go into child/adolescent psychology and become a counselor … There are so many parallels between counseling and librarianship. Students come to you in both professions with a problem to solve, and you as the professional teach them what tools they can use to solve them … This is similar to the discovery process of research. As a librarian I love being present for those ‘aha!’ moments students have while discovering something new.”

— Giovanna R. Colosi, librarian, School of Education, Syracuse University; subject instruction lead, Syracuse University Libraries

On librarians and data mining:

“Text and data mining is a research method where researchers go through a database and download massive quantities of text automatically to then analyze for evidence of things like relationships, public sentiments, etc. It’s catching on in many academic disciplines now … An increasing amount of my time is devoted to helping researchers navigate all this.”

— Jeffrey A. Knapp, communications librarian, Pennsylvania State University Libraries

On being a librarian with a Ph.D.:

“I have my Ph.D. in learning, design, and technology, and my main student population at Penn State is World Campus. This means that one day I might be helping a student in Asia access a book for their class, and the next day I am building a module to be used across all English rhetoric and composition classes. If I knew this position existed in the library, I would have imagined myself in a library!”

— Victoria Raish, online-learning coordinator, Penn State University Libraries

Q: What do you think about diversity in librarianship over all? Why does the profession struggle to attract a more diverse work force?

“Hiring in any organization costs time, money, energy, and effort to vet, train, and employ new staff members. CUNY invests in these resources with the intention of retaining valuable employees to grow and succeed in the job and/or profession. Here is where I struggle: Many of my library colleagues/friends work to progress in leadership roles within their respective departments, yet advancement opportunities are few and far between.”

— Nilda A. Sanchez-Rodriguez, associate professor and chief architecture librarian, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of City University of New York

Q: What do you think about diversity in librarianship over all? Why does the profession struggle to attract a more diverse work force?

“Modern American libraries are rooted in a history of white supremacy and exclusion; the lack of diversity in the field today is a consequence of that design. True change will only take place when leaders are willing to make sacrifices, relinquish power in pursuit of equity, and center Bipoc [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] voices. This is difficult for some to hear, but all the other small steps only serve to appease the guilt of the privileged. Token scholarships and decolonized collections mean little when most institutions have yet to hold themselves accountable in more important structural areas like recruitment and hiring practices.”

— Shiva Darbandi, director, Joanne Waxman Library, Maine College of Art & Design

Q: What do you think about diversity in librarianship over all? Why does the profession struggle to attract a more diverse work force?

“The library profession has a negative public-relations image when compared to other professions. … It is a complicated issue that can be resolved by inclusive-minded, proactive librarians and management who are comfortable with diversity and change.”

— Adwoa Boateng, library liaison, Colleges of Science and of Health Sciences and Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology

Q: What do you think about diversity in librarianship over all? Why does the profession struggle to attract a more diverse work force?

“I can’t speak for the whole library profession and their connections to the queer community, but over all the engagement seems spotty. … I see some glimmers of growing diversity in librarianship. I’m a member of a gender-variant Slack group, and seeing new members join, students in library school, points to a sea change in library employee diversity.”

— Mark Bieraugel, business librarian, Orfalea College of Business, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo