Libraries Face Hard Choices Amid Constraint

Lack of financial resources, staff capacity challenges and maintaining existing staffing levels are the top three constraints on libraries’ ability to make desired changes, according to Ithaka S+R’s latest triennial U.S. Library Survey. Some 81 percent of respondents—all library deans and directors at four-year, nonprofit institutions—flagged financial challenges, in particular.

Those constraints sit in tension with the evolving expectations for libraries in this era of artificial intelligence, social disconnection and structural change for academe: According to the same survey of 483 library leaders, fielded in late 2025, just three in 10 (31 percent) agree that their library strategies are the same as they were three years ago. Some 88 percent say it’s highly important that the library serve as a third space for students to gather and socialize; another 72 percent say it’s highly important that the library help develop students’ AI literacy skills. And while nearly all respondents (93 percent) are confident in their own ability to lead their library through times of organizational change, only about half that share (42 percent) agree that they’ve received sufficient guidance on this from their college or university administrators.

Still, library leaders’ top priorities haven’t changed from the last two survey cycles: Upward of 90 percent still say providing a physical space for student learning, study and collaboration is of high or very high importance, while 98 percent say the same of helping students develop research, critical analysis and information literacy skills. Some 81 percent report that their library’s core values are the same as they were three years ago.

“The survey shows that library budgets are still under pressure,” said Tracy Bergstrom, senior program manager for libraries and scholarly communication at Ithaka S+R. A third of library leaders (32 percent) expect that their library’s operating budget will decrease in the next five years, she noted, even as most of those leaders report having already made cuts to subscriptions, staff and professional development.

Among all respondents, 78 percent say they’re likely to cancel one or more journal packages in the next licensing cycle, reflecting continued budget uncertainty. Asked where they’d invest a surprise 10 percent budget increase, the plurality of respondents say new employees or redefined positions.

The story of libraries in 2026 isn’t just one of scarcity. Library leaders are “responding to shifts in institutional priorities and adapting to advances in generative AI,” Bergstrom said. Ithaka S+R has worked with 58 libraries over the last year through cohort projects on AI literacy, for example; this month it’s starting a project with 21 more to explore the potential for integrating AI into administrative processes.

At the same time, she said, “we have seen a move towards service provision and away from some other traditional areas.” And in the current budgetary environment, “library leaders will need to make some difficult choices.”

Amy Fry, an e-resources management librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who’s blogged for the Association of College and Research Libraries, described a pattern across institutions where she’s worked over the last decade: prioritization of technology-forward hires and more work for reference, instruction, collection development, cataloging and acquisitions staff.

“Many would argue that technology, electronic resources and the increased availability of outsourcing for cataloging and processing means that libraries no longer need the same amount of human work hours dedicated to traditional activities,” she told Inside Higher Ed. Yet, in Fry’s experience, that underestimates the complexity of managing and helping users with digital collections, and the continued relevance—and workload—of traditional roles.

Some 26 percent of survey respondents report feeling burned out a few times a week or more. Respondents’ sense of their staff’s morale is lowest where libraries have undergone staff cuts or furloughs within the past three years.

According to federal data, the number of librarians, curators and archivists working in higher education fell 12 percent from 2014 to 2024, to 38,313. That’s compared to a 1 percent decline in all college and university staff and an 8 percent decline in instructional staff over the same period.

Russell Michalak, director of library and archives at Goldey-Beacom College in Delaware, who’s written about library downsizing, said that librarians “are very good at adapting, but adaptation has limits when expectations expand faster than staffing, funding or decision-making structures.”

Michalak’s own library’s efforts to build student literacy, agency and ethics around AI use recently received the American Library Association’s 2025 Library Instruction Round Table Innovation in Instruction Award—evidence, he said, that libraries are “uniquely positioned to guide students through emerging technologies in ways that center critical thinking, equity and responsible use.”

But recognition is not the same as resources.

“If colleges and universities value student success, ethical AI use, information literacy, access to knowledge, critical thinking and inclusive learning environments,” he said, “then libraries need to be resourced as central partners in that work rather than understood only through older models of library service.”