Visions of value: Leading the development of a view of the University Library in the 21st century

Publication date: September 2019Source: The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 45, Issue 5Author(s): Gavin Boyce, Angela Greenwood, Amy Haworth, Jacky Hodgson, Chris Jones, Gary Marsh, Maria Mawson, Rosa SadlerAbstractOver the course of 2018 the University of Sheffield Library conducted a series of interviews and workshops with stakeholders as part of a strategic project to reflect on the value of the university library in the 21st century. Using a mixed methodology, participants were asked to reflect upon the future Higher Education (HE) environment for the university and, for academic participants, their discipline. In this context participants were also asked to reflect upon the future value of the University Library in a series of questions designed to elicit value statements using a tool which the project group have called the ‘Wheel of Value’. The resulting reflections upon the future environment have been grouped into four categories reflecting the drivers for change; Digitalisation, Student Experience, Diversification and Collaboration recognizing that there is considerable overlap and interconnection between these. The reflections on the future value of the library are presented by Wheel of Value higher order categorization. This approach proved useful in eliciting responses from participants in the face of recognized difficulty in getting beyond current views of the library and the approach is recommended to other universities looking to carry out a simil...
Source: The Journal of Academic Librarianship - Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: research