New Librarianship in Action: Applying the Framework to Foster Innovation in Academic Research Libraries

The publication of Lankes’s Atlas of New Librarianship (2011) sparked a vibrant new movement in how to frame, fulfill, and communicate the timeless mission of libraries. “New Librarianship” holds that “The mission of librarians is to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” This paper explores the major principles of the “New Librarianship” framework, and specifically considers how they can be applied in an academic research setting to foster library innovation and increase community engagement. The Colorado School of Mines’ Arthur Lakes Library is examined as a single case study for exploring and realizing the principles of “New Librarianship” within an academic setting. Over the past two years, the Arthur Lakes Library of the Colorado School of Mines has been able to rapidly transform by directly applying the principles of “New Librarianship” to a STEM-intensive research library. This qualitative case study examines the process of developing a new mission, vision, values, and strategic direction for an academic library based upon the “New Librarianship” framework. Challenges, successes, and emerging best practices from the ongoing experience are examined. Many academic libraries still approach the practice of librarianship from the fairly traditional vantage point of collections and services. The “New Librarianship” framework provides a muchneeded lexicon for understanding and conveying the truer, broader mission of libraries, as well as for guiding strategic library direction. The “New Librarianship” framework can serve as an impactful theoretical foundation for recasting and repositioning the role of the library within a university setting, and to accelerate academic library innovation. This case study is limited to the specific application of the framework to a single academic environment. It is hoped that this study will motivate others to examine the potential of “New Librarianship” for fostering rapid academic library transformation on a broader scale