Reading w/Dan: Aligning the Research Library to Organizational Strategy

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Aligning the Research Library to Organizational Strategy by Danielle Cooper, Catharine Bond Hill & Roger C. Schonfeld for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and Ithaka S+R © 2022 (https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/aligning-the-research-library-to-organizational-strategy/)

Cover image of "Aligning the Research Library to Organizational Strategy"

Overview

A colleague of mine recently shared with and encouraged the University Libraries’ IT leadership to read Aligning the Research Library to Organizational Strategy. This report authored this April by Danielle Cooper, Catharine Bond Hill & Roger C. Schonfeld for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and Ithaka S+R, provides an examination of university senior leadership’s impressions their library’s alignment with institutional strategies. Through a mixture of interviews, focus groups and literature review, the authors identified four common strategic directions for research universities:

  • “The pursuit of growth, particularly in the STEM research enterprise
  • At public institutions, efforts to engage the state, both through its political system and its population;
  • Redressing relationships with the historically marginalized, with significant variation between Canadian and US institutions in terms of how this priority is framed; and
  • Defending the residential experience, which remains core to the educational strategy of most universities.”

The authors are careful to note that the results are based upon analysis of ARL and CARL institutions, acknowledges differences and dynamic between American and Canadian institutions, and that there are leadership perspectives both within and outside of individual institutions.

Expectations of the libraries and library leadership

The posits that there are three general perceptions or expectation of university libraries and library leaders:

  • “Some university leaders have comparatively modest expectations of the library…Many of them appear to be hoping that their library will maintain the status quo — continue to serve students and faculty more or less as it always has done…”
  • “Others feel that the library could offer substantially more value to their institution than it does and are discouraged by the pace of change…”
  • “Still others see their library as an innovative partner in the strategic directions of their institution. These leaders are able to cite tangible value that the library adds to the university, typically through new services of one type or another.”

For those libraries seen as a partner for strategic impact, the university leaders consulted indicated expectations for their library’s leadership. Some expectations that may be being met, while others aspirational, include:

  • “The most important characteristic sought by university leaders was for the library director to act not as the chief manager of the library but rather as a university leader with responsibility for the library.”
  • “A second characteristic sought by university leaders was for the library director to push the library beyond its traditional responsibilities to serve the current and emerging needs of the university”
  • “A final characteristic sought by university leaders was for the library director to take responsibility for resource stewardship… We heard several times that the library…was too meek in cutting costs for long-standing roles that have become decreasingly valued relative to the university’s needs, and as a result insufficiently redeploying personnel resources to address new priorities.”

The report further examines the organizational context for library leaders from both strategic and political perspectives:

  • “To be successful, library leaders must navigate within a multipolar university leadership context with the complexities of faculty governance.”
  • “Library leaders must seek to support the strategic agenda outlined by the president while also typically reporting to the provost.”
  • “Chief information officers are in some cases strong allies of the library, looking for opportunities to collaborate and respecting the areas of expertise that both bring. In other cases, CIOs see the library as a flailing legacy organization that needs dramatic reform, perhaps under their own leadership.”
  • “While senior research officers are rarely hostile to the library, few of them see meaningful contributions the library can make to their strategic objectives, and in some cases when libraries try to do so SROs express frustration that the library should “stay in its lane.”

A menu of possible strategic directions

Based upon the aforementioned “…common strategic directions and key trends in research practice and support, [they] proposed a menu of strategic directions from which research libraries may wish to choose:

  • An accelerated pivot to STEM
  • Double down on humanities and distinctive collections;
  • Focus on student needs and student success;
  • Redress relationships with historically marginalized groups;
  • Serve the needs of the political entity that funds or controls the institution; and/or
  • Make scientific communication fit for purpose”

These bullets are just the various “courses” available on the menu, to which they detail options for which an institution can identify with and/or select to engage.

Interesting insights

There are too many insights to quote here, and I encourage folks to read the report for oneself; however the following are a handful that particularly resonated with me:

  • “There was relatively little reflection on the possibility that technology may have important impacts on research labor by, among other things, enabling considerably more remote work.”
  • “Universities tend to be differentiated in terms of whether their STEM programs, and growth strategies, are more focused on the engineering or the biomedical fields, with some institutions being equally weighted in both”
  • “In a handful of cases, university leaders reflected on the position of the humanistic fields relative to the sciences, and several discussed the importance of humanistic scholarship. But the humanities fields were not framed as a plank in the institutional growth strategy”
  • “…universities must significantly reorient how they provide computer science education across their undergraduate, graduate, and professional offerings, as well as to their faculty and staff…”
  • “The need to broaden pedagogical approaches to computational thinking may present an opportunity for academic libraries and other campus support units, but only insofar as they can be successfully integrated into the core curriculum.”