Volume 40, Issue 4

The Danish Ministry of Culture and Danish universities have pursued a policy of consolidation of research libraries. The wish to benefit from economies of scale was an important factor. Sustainability was another factor, the point being that the consolidation of scattered library-professional competencies will establish a secure basis for the necessary development of new library services to higher education and research. A distinctive feature are mergers, and a significant result is the current Det Kgl. Bibliotek/Royal Danish Library (RDL) which delivers service to five of the eight Danish universities. In this article, RDL’s strategy and governance are outlined.

After the merger of three universities, Aix-Marseille University became the largest French-speaking institution in 2012. This article outlines how the libraries have been adapted and reorganized since. All the more since the national context leads to strong changes for higher education and research. The Documentary Service’s strategies have focused on modernizing the network (buildings and service offer), accompanying the change and strengthening the link with users, actions that are part of the university’s overall strategy and support its mission.

Several higher education institutions in Lyon, France, are engaged in a merger to create a new Université de Lyon in a complex and moving environment. Within this framework, four university libraries are working towards their merger. Both the larger project and the libraries are facing critical key points and strong opposition in the very near future that could threaten their very existence.

Kirsty Lingstadt and Dominic Tate discuss approaches to change, cooperation and collaboration within the University of Edinburgh’s library service. We consider organisational context, strategy development, digital skills, equality, diversity & inclusion, the impact of COVID-19 and workforce planning. We discuss planned and organic change and provide short case studies reflecting on recent experiences of changes to the library’s organisation and services, and the importance of cooperation and collaboration with the aim of developing and improving library services.

The authors of this article have been managing a large change project at the university library of Freie Universität Berlin since January 2019. At the time of writing this in the summer of 2020, the project is about halfway completed. With this text, we would like to give some insight into our work and the challenges we faced, thereby starting conversations with similar undertakings in the future.

Zusammenfassung Als eines der letzten Bundesländer hat Hessen seine drei Staatsarchive in einem zentralen Hessischen Landesarchiv vereinigt. Die aktuelle Organisation des Landesarchivs hat sich über einen langen, 2003 initiierten Prozess entwickelt. Die Diskussion über den besten Weg dieser Organisationreform brachten wiederholt externe Gutachter voran. Die Führungskräfte haben ihren Kolleginnen und Kollegen erfolgreich Wege der Partizipation und der Selbstverortung eröffnet. Schließlich erkannten sie, dass im Rahmen des Veränderungsprozesses auch für mehr Vertrauen in die neue Organisation geworben werden musste. Daraufhin wurden gezielt Aktivitäten zur Stärkung einer neuen Corporate Identity entwickelt.

Bibliotheek De Krook, the new public library of the Flemish city of Ghent, opened in 2017 and sees thousands of visitors every day. This article explores the architecture of the building, the use of technology and the structural collaboration between the library and other organisations to offer not only a large collection but also services and activities for the public. Finally, it focuses on a few necessary changes that have been made since the opening.