Sustainability Challenge for Academic Libraries: Planning for the Future

Maria Anna Jankowska is Social Sciences Librarian in the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA; e-mail: [email protected]. James W. Marcum is University Librarian at Fairleigh Dickinson University; e-mail: [email protected]. ©Maria Anna Jankowska and James W. Marcum There is growing concern that a variety of factors threaten the sustainability of academic libraries: developing and preserving print and digital collections, supplying and supporting rapidly changing technological and networking infrastructure, providing free services, maintaining growing costs of library buildings, and lowering libraries’ ecological footprint. This paper discusses the multidimensional issues of sustainability in academic libraries and identifies needs for designing an integrated framework for sustainable strategies in academic libraries. Additionally, the paper presents a synthesis of existing literature on the increasingly popular topic of “green libraries” and prepares a background toward developing a framework for sustainable strategies in academic libraries.