The Strategic Positioning of Academic Libraries: Global Challenges, Local Politics and Strategy Development

The Strategic Positioning of Academic Libraries explores the influence exerted by trends in higher education and the wider world on the position of academic libraries, alongside an analysis of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It provides an essential foundation for effective library strategy formulation and positioning in a highly dynamic and competitive environment. Examining a complex mix of global volatility, campus uncertainty, societal change, and technological shifts, all generating new pressures and opportunities, this book is a practical guide to understanding the situation of academic libraries and advancing their positioning in parent institutions. Chapters cover

• the historical evolution of academic library positioning;
• the global political, economic, social and technological context;
• the changing higher education environment;
• an in-depth SWOT analysis of academic libraries;
• positioning strategies for successful academic libraries; and
• an academic library positioning toolkit.

John Cox is University Librarian at the University of Galway in Ireland, a post he has held since 2009. He has 30 years of experience at leadership level, dating back to 1993 when he became Head of the Information Service at the Wellcome Centre for Medical Science, based at the Wellcome Trust. Projects led include planning for a new library building at the University of Galway, digitization of the Abbey and Gate Theatre archives, and Irish consortium negotiations with publishers.