"Distinctive Signifiers of Excellence": Library Services and the Future of the Academic Library

6 In a recent essay outlining principles for rethinking the future of library collections, Dan Hazen, Associate Librarian of Harvard College for Collection Development, notes that “[research] libraries have traditionally built their reputations on the basis of their collection size and also the depth and breadth of rare book holdings and their special collections.” Even in light of digitization programs allowing broader access to content once considered scarce, he argues, local ownership of “unique artifacts, as well as uniquely comprehensive collections, remain primary measures of quality” among research libraries.1 One finds a similar sentiment in Celebrating Research: Rare and Special Collections from the Membership of the Association of Research Libraries, which called each collection profiled a “distinctive signifier of excellence.”2 There can be no question that a great library must provide access to great content, but do the seismic changes afoot in the ways in which access may be gained to content (including that found in unique artifacts) require us to ask new questions? For example, when access to content is no longer scarce, what are the services that will stand as the “primary measures of quality” and “distinctive signifiers of excellence” in the academic library? What effect might a broader understanding of distinctive services have on our appreciation for a range of libraries beyond those with the largest collections? In his introduction to Celebrating Research, Nicolas Barker wrote that ARL members “want to be known for their “Distinctive Signifiers of Excellence”: Library Services and the Future of the Academic Library