The Reinvention of the U.S. Academic Library: 1990 to 2025 [Hardcover]

Focusing on U.S. academic libraries,The Reinvention of the U.S. Academic Librarybegins by providing a concise history of the traditional role and function of academic libraries from their earliest times up to the dawn of the Digital Age and the spread of digital technology into all aspects of academic research and scholarly communication. This introduction is followed by chapters analyzing how digital technology has transformed, over the course of a few swift decades, not only the role and function of academic libraries, but also the nature of scholarly communication itself.

Specifically,The Reinvention of the U.S. Academic Librarywill consider how digital technology has changed the way academic libraries:
- Acquire and exercise bibliographic control over collections.
- Provide equitable access to information. Allocate and utilize library space. Instruct and guide students, faculty, and others.
- Relate to the larger academic and scholarly publishing communities. Sustain scholarly communications.

Focusing on U.S. academic libraries, Rewiring the Academic Library begins by providing a concise history of the traditional role and function of academic libraries from their earliest times up to the dawn of Digital Age and the spread of digital technology into all aspects of academic research and scholarly communication.

Donald A. Barclayworked as an academic librarian from 1990 until his retirement in 2022, during his library career holding positions at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, the Texas Medical Center, and the University of California, Merced. Barclay began working at the University of California, Merced in 2002, before ground was broken on what would become the first (and thus far only) new U.S. research university of the twenty-first century. The unique opportunity of creating an academic research library from the ground up at a time when digital technology was expandl“-