Guest Editorial

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Perspectives concerning the makeup of the 
core mission of academic libraries and the 
relative balance between its two major com-
ponents – physical and virtual resources, 
vary widely leading to false expectations 
and unnecessary apprehensiveness.

One false expectation is the assump-
tion by some that books are headed rap-
idly 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 re-
sources 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 An-
drew Abbott has not been reticent about 
his advocacy for books and their essential 
qualities (see “The Future of Knowing,” 
University of Chicago Alumni Associa-
tion talk, June 6, 2009, as well as his article 
“The Traditional Future: A Computa-
tional Theory of Library Research in Col-
lege & Research Libraries, November 2008).  

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

Abbott chaired a campus task 
force charged with prepar-
ing options for the design 
of a future library. Five years later at a 
groundbreaking ceremony celebrating 
“Building the Library of the Future at the 
Heart of the Campus,” he remarked that 
“this library stands for our belief that at 
least one crucial variety of knowing – the 
variety that dominates the humanities 
and social sciences – is something other 
than just storage and retrieval.”

It may well be that our discussion 
about the future of academic libraries oc-
casionally distorts the reality of what is in 
fact happening. Grafton refers to this as 
the “shadow duel between stereotypes.” 
Thus, as we move forward, we should 
continue to include faculty and students 
in the conversation so that those with false 
expectations and those with unnecessary 
apprehensiveness are corrected when 
wrong and relieved when worried.

Late last year Syracuse University’s 
dean of libraries Suzanne Thorin faced an 
angry faculty concerned about her plan to 
send part of the book collection to a facil-
ity 250 miles away in Patterson, N.J. The 
situation led to meetings, to discussion, 
and to collaboration. At the conclusion, 
Thorin stated, “It’s good to hear people’s 
voices.” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 
November 12, 2009)

May we all remain mindful of the legit-
imate concerns of faculty and students as 
we seek the appropriate balance between 
our physical and virtual resources and 
as we strive to avoid undetected or over-
looked creep away from our core mission.

Charles Martell
Dean & University Librarian Emeritus

California State University, Sacramento