I quote from the Spring 1997 Editor’s Page of The Society for Historians of the Early America Republic.

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis- Anonymous
Ch, Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes, turn and face the strain- David Bowie [1]

As we deal with closing branch libraries on our campus, we can re-imagine what our University Libraries provide students and faculty. A new book by David W. Lewis (discussed in his webinar) Reimagining the Academic Library [2] exhorts us to concentrate on library space and  preserving digital scholarship while using the disruption of library finances to change practices and processes to deliver resources.

“What product or service can help students and faculty do more effectively, conveniently and affordably a job they’ve been trying to do in their scholarly lives?”

MIT has a task force charged with the future of the modern library. See their idea bank at The Future of Libraries. [3]

The Aspen Institute report Libraries in the Exponential Age Moving from the Edge of Innovation to the Center of Community  encourages us to use design thinking in this reimagination process.

CH CH CH CH Changes …new service models and resources will come to our academic library. We are not alone in this, and it is a good reminder to all on campus and in the land of higher ed that “Times change, and we change with them.”

— Kimberly Hoffman

[1] “Editors’ Page.” Journal of the Early Republic 17, no. 1 (1997): 131-34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3124646.

[2] Lewis, David W. 2016. Reimagining the academic library.

[3] “The Future of Libraries | Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”, https://future-of-libraries.mit.edu/.