The call was made at the 42nd Annual General Meeting and Conference of University Librarians Ghana (ULG), hosted by the University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (USTED) in Kumasi from 30 September to 1 October 2026.
Academic Libraries
News about Academic Libraries
Penn Libraries union alleges administrators bargained in bad faith – The Daily Pennsylvanian
The charge, submitted to the National Labor Relations Board on Sept. 24, alleges that Penn has engaged in Bad Faith Bargaining. The workers — organized as Penn Libraries United under Local 590 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees — have been negotiating for their first contract since February 2025.
Facing Cuts Likely to Worsen Under Trump, Academic Librarians Urgently Organize
Facing Cuts Likely to Worsen Under Trump, Academic Librarians Urgently OrganizeAs the war on higher education looks to heat up, academic libraries will likely be the first on the chopping block.
Dunlap and his colleagues are not alone in taking the brunt of the waves of budget cuts rolling through higher education due to declining public spending, the “demographic cliff,” and the reduction of a college education to a commodity that is valuable only to the extent that it directly produces a high-paying white collar job.
Dissent: Libraries Are For Studying, Not Protesting | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson
Dissent: Libraries Are For Studying, Not Protesting
An organized group with signage and symbols “studying” in the library disturbs the normal function of the space: actual studying. Perhaps this form of protest is comparatively less disruptive. Be that as it may, it is disruptive nonetheless.
Unbundling Profile: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing its largest journal contract as overwhelmingly positive
This is part of a series of profiles detailing the experiences of institutions that have unbundled or canceled big deal journal contracts. The aim of the series is to provide insights, lessons learned, and inspiration to libraries to consider a similar move.
MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing its largest journal contract as overwhelmingly positive. MIT has long tried to avoid vendor lock-in through big deal contracts and, in 2019, maintained individual title-by-title subscriptions to approximately 675 Elsevier titles. In 2020, they took the significant step of canceling the full Elsevier journals contract – all 675 titles – leaving users with immediate access to only pre-2020 backfile content. Since the cancellation, MIT Libraries estimates annual savings at more than 80% of its original spend. This move saves MIT approximately $2 million each year, and the Libraries provide alternative means of access that fulfills most article requests in minutes.
Thousands of scientists publish a paper every five days
Thousands of scientists publish a paper every five daysTo highlight uncertain norms in authorship, John P. A. Ioannidis, Richard Klavans and Kevin W. Boyack identified the most prolific scientists of recent years.
We e-mailed all 265 authors asking for their insights about how they reached this extremely productive class. The 81 replies are provided in the Supplementary Information. Common themes were: hard work; love of research; mentorship of very many young researchers; leadership of a research team, or even of many teams; extensive collaboration; working on multiple research areas or in core services; availability of suitable extensive resources and data; culmination of a large project; personal values such as generosity and sharing; experiences growing up; and sleeping only a few hours per day
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Can Science Solve the Mystery of the Concrete Book?
When a sledgehammer isn’t really an option.
THE SLAB OF CONCRETE IS more than a foot tall, ten inches wide, and two inches thick. It weighs about 20 pounds, and it is cataloged in the University of Chicago’s library system as a book.
Libraries, museums, and universities must include hip-hop culture in their programming in thoughtful, authentic ways
Many of these institutions have begun to embrace this marriage of ideas. Hip-hop curricula, archives, conferences, and fellowships now have homes in even the nation’s most venerable academic institutions, including Cornell University, Harvard University, Duke University, and many more. Libraries across the country, from small towns to the New York Public Library, have welcomed hip-hop programming, as have storied institutions such as Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
From Legacy Institutions Must Welcome Hip-Hop Into Their Halls
Amazon Sells Way Fewer Books To Academic Libraries Than People Think
Is Amazon taking over the academic library industry? That’s what a new study from a higher-education-focused non-profit takes a look at, and their findings might surprise you as long as you haven’t read the title of this article too closely.
For the study, Ithaka S+R gathered acquisitions data from 124 U.S. higher education institutions in fiscal year 2017 along with data from 51 institutions covering between 2014 and 2017. The report has more than one interesting takeaway about the under-examined world of academic literature, but here’s the big one: Amazon isn’t anywhere close to controlling the academic library market.
From Amazon Sells Way Fewer Books To Academic Libraries Than People Think
‘Keep the Damned Women Out’ – Fifty years of coeducation at American colleges
Coeducation was a means to shore up a first-rate student body. It was not the result of a high-minded moral commitment to educate women. It was about what women could do for previously all-male colleges — how women could help elite universities renew their hold on the “best boys.” Women, in short, were there to improve the experience of men.
From ‘Keep the Damned Women Out’ – The Chronicle of Higher Education
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