Reinventing Our Work: New and Emerging Roles for Academic Librarians

ABSTRACT Technology, globalization, and increasing competition for students, faculty, and research dollars have significantly affected the teaching and research efforts on our campuses. In response to meeting new and emerging user needs, libraries are crafting new roles and responsibilities for librarians by both reinventing more traditional positions as well as creating new job roles that require skill sets that, at present, are not learned through library and information science education and training. This paper will examine the impacts, benefits, and tensions that this changing workforce has on academic libraries, with a particular focus on a content analysis of selected job vacancy announcements in the last decade.