Online For-Profit Colleges and Universities and the Evolving Role of Academic Librarianship

Abstract

This presentation reports on a survey of academic librarians and their attitudes on several interrelated professional issues in the online for-profit college and university environment. Librarians from this sector offer a unique perspective on librarianship best practices for online educational delivery. They also present a clearheaded understanding on the impact of profit-based decision making on academic librarian values, responsibilities, and sense of professional duty. In addition to the survey results, this presentation discusses how academic librarianship has responded to the growing prevalence of virtual education delivery, and what roles the for-profit model might proffer for academic librarians going forward.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• online education
• for-profit colleges and universities
• librarianship

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the input and feedback on this project from Laura Donahue, Priscilla Coulter, Molly Fischer, Judith Jablonski, and Erin Richter-Weikum.