Trendspotting - Looking to the Future in a Post-Pandemic Academic Library Environment

Abstract

In March 2020, the Covid-19 global pandemic meant that libraries had to respond and react quickly in order to adapt services as best they could. It is generally accepted that academic libraries, for the most part, were able to do this very effectively due to having already positioned themselves within a fully functioning digital environment (Appleton, 2021; Bullington et al., 2021; Falt & Das, 2020). Not wishing to speak too soon, but at my university campus, it feels as if we are starting to return to some sort of normality with Covid-19 restrictions being gradually lifted in the United Kingdom and indeed in other parts of the world. This has allowed me to start thinking about what this now means for the future of academic libraries. There has been plenty written about the post pandemic higher education environment and the ‘new-normal’ for academic libraries, and how some of the changes forced upon academic libraries during the pandemic (e.g., digital-first policies, online teaching, hybrid information environments, etc.) may actually be beneficial in the longer term, as well as being responses to the global Covid-19 outbreak (Appleton, 2020; Blake, 2020; Carlson, 2021; Cox, 2020). The 2021 special issue of New Review of Academic Librarianship focused on the acceleration of the digital shift in academic libraries, as a significant outcome from some of the changes that academic libraries had to make. Examples from that particular issue include case studies on the impact of the digital shift on library learning and instruction (Avon, Houston, Nunes, & Perkins, 2021), on digital content acquisition (Brine & Knight, 2021) and on student engagement (Matizirofa, Soyizwapi, Siwela, & Khosie, 2021). It is likely that some of the experiences we are having now will shape how academic libraries continue to develop in a post-pandemic world, and it would be interesting to see whether there are common trends emerging across geographic boundaries, as we move into a new era for academic libraries. Certainly, before the pandemic, academic libraries and their professional associations used environmental scanning techniques in order to spot trends across the sector, which in turn helped to inform strategy and development at local, national and international levels. The last set of top ten trends identified by the Association of College and Research Libraries Research Planning and Review Committee was published early in 2020, just before any Covid restrictions and library closures were enforced (ACRL, 2020). The ACRL top ten trends tend to be used as a barometer for many academic libraries with regard to highlighting the big issues of the day which need to be strategically addressed. SCONUL, in the United Kingdom also periodically commissions research into national academic library issues ( for example: Baker & Allden, 2017; Pinfield, Cox, & Rutter, 2017) in order to highlight trends and to aid strategic development. The latest example from SCONUL is a report published in 2021 about trends in the physical usage of academic libraries, and whilst this report has been published as part of their ‘Libraries after Lockdown’ work, the research was largely carried out before the pandemic (Cox & BensonMarshall, 2021).