Despite the rapidly changing information and technology landscape, collections
remain at the heart of academic libraries, signifying their enduring importance in
providing access to our cultural heritage. Given broader trends in research and the
current information ecology of an increasingly networked, distributed, and licensed
environment, building collections and developing collection polices is increasingly
ambiguous. These trends impact librarians in form of ever-expanding portfolios,
diffusion of effort, weakened sense of focus, and a rising sense of persistent yet unmet
needs for developing new skills. This paper outlines current research on collection
trends and summarizes the interactive exchanges from the 2019 Charleston Conference
Lively Session (https://sched.co/UZR5). Through live polling, session participants
identified key trends in libraries and collections: Key trends included business models,
budget constraints, consortium deals, continued importance of subscribed content, access
vs. ownership, digitization of unique local collections, digital humanities, digital
scholarship, library publishing projects, growing library investments in Open Access
(OA), and collection diversification efforts with a view to equity and social justice.
Among emerging library services, data services and digitization ranked highest in
importance. The most-cited wish-list items included transformative deals, stronger
campus partnerships, more OA projects, reduced copyright barriers in sharing homegrown
digitized video content, as well as skill development in Counter 5 and data analysis.
Existing physical and digital preservation programs received only lower-middle strength
ratings. Among long-established library characteristics, collection policies, subscribed
content, interlibrary loan, and consortial borrowing and lending retained enduring value
and high rankings in importance. Tensions continue between ownership, borrowing, and
access.