The Impacts of COVID-19 on Academic Library Budgets: Fall 2020
The pandemic has wrought profound disruption on the academic sector. Today, we share findings from a major research project about the budget situation in US academic libraries.
The pandemic has wrought profound disruption on the academic sector. Today, we share findings from a major research project about the budget situation in US academic libraries.
On Friday, Ithaka S+R released the latest cycle of our long-standing US Faculty Survey which has tracked the changing research, teaching, and publishing practices of higher education faculty members on a triennial basis since 2000. Here we discuss the latest results.
Yesterday, Ithaka S+R published findings from our triennial survey of library deans and directors at academic institutions in the United States. The report examines the strategic directions of academic libraries as well as their staffing and spending plans for the coming years. The pivot towards new research, teaching, and learning services, and towards distinctive collections, is continuing, although it is encountering some headwinds.
Although journals, other serials, and reference have made a large scale transition away from print, we must not assume that the same path will inevitably be pursued for other components of collections. A combination of business models, reading practices, and other user needs will play the biggest role in determining the prospects for the printed monograph. Today, it seems that a dual-format environment may remain before us for some time, and there will be advantages for the libraries, publishers, and intermediaries that can develop models for monographs that work best in such an environment.