(30 Mar 2023) The Ithaka S+R Library Survey has examined leadership and strategic perspectives in the field by surveying library deans and directors nationally on a triennial basis since 2010. The research project’s overarching goals are to provide the library community with a valuable data source to inform decision making and track the emerging opportunities and challenges leaders face in steering their organizations. In fall 2022, we surveyed library leaders at not-for-profit four-year academic institutions across the United States, with a response rate of 42 percent based on 612 responses.
In this sixth iteration of the project, we continued to track high-level issues of strategy, leadership, budget, staffing, and institutional alignment. We also introduced new batteries of questions related to broader trends in higher education, including remote and hybrid learning, talent retention, and research data management, and expanded our coverage of open access and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA).
Key Findings
- Priorities continue to shift from collections to services. A third of library deans and directors project an overall decrease in expenditures directed towards general collections, especially print resources. Services to support research and teaching and learning are growing priorities, and doctoral institutions in particular are interested in building or expanding research data management services.
- For roughly half of respondents, convincing campus leaders of the library’s value proposition remains a challenge. While over 72 percent of library deans and directors report high levels of confidence in their own ability to articulate their library’s value proposition in a way that aligns with the goals of the institution, only 51 percent are confident other senior administrators believe in this alignment.
- Student academic success remains a top priority across institution types. Deans and directors see the library contributing most strongly to increasing student learning and helping students develop a sense of community, rather than to other metrics such as addressing student basic needs or improving post-graduation outcomes.
- Information literacy may not have kept up with today’s needs. While information literacy instruction is a core priority, less than half of respondents are confident their library has a well-articulated strategy for combating misinformation or disinformation.
- Many library deans and directors are grappling with talent management and recruitment challenges. Nearly a fifth of respondents anticipate reducing staff in access services and technical services, metadata, and cataloging within the next five years. Furthermore, deans and directors are currently struggling to recruit personnel for roles in technology and programing, DEIA, cataloging and metadata, and indicate they are most likely to consider outsourcing cataloging and metadata and technology and programming skills.
- Confidence in library and institutional DEIA initiatives is waning. While directors indicate these strategies are a high priority, only a quarter are confident their libraries have well-developed DEIA strategies, down from over a third in fall 2020.
- Deans and directors see an increasingly open future—one they believe will result in an increase in costs for their institution. Roughly one quarter of deans and directors across institution type believe transformative agreements are a great mechanism for moving their institutions into the future of open access. Yet, a third of directors do not see libraries and publishers as allied with one another when it comes to open access developments. Directors believe an increasingly open future will not result in cost-savings.
The report is here.
