Legacy Missions in Times of Change: Defining and Shaping Collections in the 21st Century

On Wednesday, November 6, from 2:00 – 3:00 pm, Oya Y. Rieger will speak on “Legacy Missions in Times of Change: Defining and Shaping Collections in the 21st Century” at the Charleston Conference. She will be joined by the University of Kentucky Libraries’ Antje Mays. For more information and to register, please see the conference website.

Despite the rapidly changing information and technology landscape, collections continue to be at the heart of academic libraries, signifying their role in providing access to our cultural heritage. But in an increasingly networked, distributed, licensed environment, how do we define the library collection? What do collections imply? What is involved in building a collection? The first part of the session will characterize the evolving nature of collections and highlight some of the factors behind these changes and their impact on the notion of collections. The evolving nature of collections is a reflection on how collections are defined and what it means to build a collection or develop a collection policy given the current information ecology and trends in research and pedagogy. In the second part,  the session will invite a lively discussion of how academic libraries of different sizes and with varying budgets are developing strategies to understand and meet the resource needs of their constituents. Session participants will see live-poll responses in real time on the shared presentation screen. Live-poll entries and discussion highlights will be captured and shared in the post-conference slides and proceedings.