Juggling Collections and Connections to Community: Changing Role of Libraries

The traditional role of the academic librarian has long been the support of the university’s needs through instruction, collection development, and research assistance. Over the decades, this role has evolved to match the needs of the 21st century university. At Leonard H. Axe Library, the challenge has been to balance the print and electronic collections at a university whose programs do not draw enough on library resources while also creating meaningful connections with students and faculty. To increase collection relevancy and make meaningful connections, the library has been creating opportunities for patrons to be content-creators and to engage with library resources and services in new ways, with the benefit of empowering users to be invested in the future development of the library space. This approach allows us to share with the university community the wide variety of library resources and services that can be both informative and fun