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January 14, 2008, 12:16 PM ET
Librarians at For-Profit Institutions Seek to Be Heard
Librarians at for-profit academic institutions are serving notice: They’re real librarians and they’re tired of being ignored. A group for librarians who work at for-profit institutions recently formed within the Association of College & Research Libraries, and members gathered Sunday morning at the midwinter conference of the American Library Association to share their concerns.
One problem the librarians have is that state library consortia exclude their institutions from membership. The librarians say that’s unfair, especially since their students — as state taxpayers — help to pay for these consortia. In addition, many libraries at trade schools and other for-profit institutions have unusual collections, in areas like cooking or art, that could be shared more broadly if the institutions were members of consortia.
Another concern: Some library vendors — such as JSTOR, the nonprofit digital archive of scholarly publications — are barred from selling their services or products to for-profit colleges.
Why do for-profit colleges face these hurdles? The librarians at the morning discussion said state rules and previously-negotiated contracts may require the state consortia and the nonprofit vendors to deal exclusively with libraries at nonprofit institutions. Still, the librarians at for-profit colleges are hoping they can work together to become more accepted within academe. —Andrea L. Foster
Categories: American-Library-Association-Phildelphia-2008
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