Building a Future-Ready Library: Lessons and Challenges from the BCUL 2024 User Survey

Digital transformation, the proliferation of scientific publications, and the recent emergence of artificial intelligence have contributed to changing how students, teachers, and researchers access and interact with information. In a rapidly evolving academic landscape, the Unithèque site of the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire Lausanne is facing a decline in physical loans and limited visibility into its users' practices. The library must assess the relevance of its collections and their development, the effectiveness of their availability, and its integration within the university, for which it acquires resources but remains institutionally peripheral. The central challenge is to understand how the library's collections and services can stay relevant and accessible in this changing context. In 2024, the BCUL conducted a survey of the entire university population to investigate these issues. The online questionnaire, developed in collaboration with the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, examined users' interactions with the collections across study, teaching, research, and leisure activities. The analysis was segmented by respondent profiles (students, teachers, and researchers) and their respective disciplinary fields. The survey yielded 1,678 responses from 21,023 invitations, resulting in a comprehensive dataset on both physical and digital use of the collections. Descriptive and segmented analyses identified differences in user practices, points of friction, and opportunities to optimize the composition and availability of collections, as well as the library's service offerings. The analysis revealed two main modes of library use: as a learning space for students and as a documentation hub for teachers and researchers. Key findings included: the problem of resource unavailability and inaccessibility, which puts library collections in competition with other channels for resource acquisition; divergent preferences for digital or physical formats depending on the type of resource; and the enduring role of the physical library in facilitating serendipity. The resources used in teaching are predominantly accessed via a university platform rather than the library, thereby restricting the ability to track the use of library-provided materials. Additionally, the library encounters difficulties in promoting its services and offerings. These observations led to the development of recommendations and the design of an action plan, the first steps of which were presented at the LIBER 2026 conference alongside the survey results. These steps will focus on monitoring the collections’ availability, the consequences regarding acquisition policies, and cooperation between the library and the teaching and research staff of the University of Lausanne, illustrating how university libraries can strengthen their role and impact in an unpredictable landscape.