(2 Nov 2026) “Optimization” has become something of the watchword of this decade. From health influencers issuing protocols to get the most out of your inhalations to YouTube videos made for algorithmic performance rather than the people viewing them, optimization has left the confines of business schools and become the common sense of the age. This hasn’t been without pushback. Famously, the “slow” movement, encompassing everything from slow food to slow librarianship, has challenged the logic of optimization for eroding core values in the name of efficiency.
In his video series for LibTech Insights, “The Optimized Library,” Sam Suber, Electronic Resources Coordinator at Moraine Valley Community College Library, has made a powerful case that optimization can be an important tool for libraries to save on budgets while preserving institutional and professional values. Suber has expanded the argument underlying this series in Choice’s latest white paper, “The Optimized Library: Prescriptive Foundations for Resource Stewardship in an Era of Fiscal Austerity,” where he demonstrates how libraries can use their data resources to “transform difficult decisions into strategic, defensible actions that maximize institutional value.”
To learn more about his white paper and where optimization fits into the contemporary library landscape, we had a quick Q&A with Sam here.
