The Academic Library's Challenges with Stakeholder's Influence in a Digital Age, 2017

Academic libraries, like the universities they serve, face an ongoing challenge to achieve the best possible outcomes for stakeholders. Each library serves a variety of user groups whose specific needs exert influence on the services and resources provided in the digital age. These groups are a library's "stakeholders," who are affected by the library, and have an interest or an investment (or both) in how well the library achieves its mission, goals and objectives. Major stakeholders of the library are the students, faculty, and the general public. Libraries facing pressure to justify budgets and expenditures must analyze changing stakeholder expectations and consider how to successfully meet them. Libraries must also embrace the worth of their programs and services that they offer. This paper will provide a review of recent scholarship to identify overall worth, challenges, current student, faculty and community expectations faced by 21st Century academic libraries and how libraries might address them. This paper was presented at the 2017 Georgia Library Association Conference at Columbus, Georgia.