Shadow Duel between Stereotypes: Perspectives on the Core Mission of Academic Libraries

405 Perspectives concerning the makeup of the core mission of academic libraries and the relative balance between its two major components – physical and virtual resources, vary widely leading to false expectations and unnecessary apprehensiveness. One false expectation is the assumption by some that books are headed rapidly to the junk heap of history. Anthony Grafton (Daedalus, Winter 2009) presents an entirely different picture, noting that Princeton University’s Firestone Library processes a mile of printed material each year while Oxford’s Bodleian handles 5.2 kilometers. Grafton clearly appreciates the essential value of electronic resources to his teaching and research but insists on paying due homage to the continuing importance of books in the humanities and the social sciences. The appreciation of electronic resources is not unusual in the work of humanities and social sciences faculty, some of whom are anxious about what they perceive as a sort of creep away from support for the physical resources in their respective libraries by campus and library administrators. They may be wrong or worried needlessly but the perspective remains. The focus on “library as place” as a social, cultural, and learning center may seem to imply a revised mission in which the word “books” does not appear prominently. University of Chicago sociologist Andrew Abbott has not been reticent about his advocacy for books and their essential qualities (see “The Future of Knowing,” University of Chicago Alumni Association talk, June 6, 2009, as well as his article “The Traditional Future: A Computational Theory of Library Research in College & Research Libraries, November 2008). Shadow Duel between Stereotypes: Perspectives on the Core Mission of Academic Libraries