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This paper aims to demonstrate that academic library cooperation is not only limited to work with other institutions but also includes partnerships with related campus units. The primary goal of interdepartmental collaboration is to enhance student success, a common institutional priority in the twenty-first century.

The paper offers examples of successful library/campus collaboration along with goals, advantages, disadvantages and challenges of such activity. Elements necessary for success as well as the importance of project assessment are emphasized.

Many opportunities for cooperation exist, especially with student development, centers for teaching excellence, information technology, academic departments, writing centers and more. The Information Commons model in particular offers the academic library many opportunities for shared services. Based on the successes of many colleges and universities, libraries are encouraged to consider and undertake partnerships with other student and faculty support services.

The paper incorporates an overview of the literature of library/campus cooperation along with the author’s experience to provide a roadmap for future projects at any college or research library.

Libraries and library professionals face multiple challenges in meeting user needs in the second decade of the new millennium. This is particularly true in academic libraries where students and faculty demand and expect fast, easy, and seamless access to information as well as flexible, comfortable places to work alone as well as collaboratively with colleagues, friends, classmates, and instructors. These same patrons often require the assistance of information specialists to navigate a library’s increasingly large array of online resources. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper provides historical context and reviews recent trends in the area in the area of learning and study spaces in academic libraries. It also cites the successful information commons at the author’s home institution, Loyola University Chicago, examining its first six years of operation and projecting changes in its next half decade.

The past 15 plus years have seen a major shift in philosophy in the USA and in other parts of the globe in terms of the importance of “library as space” in enhancing the role of the college and university library. As a result, academic institutions, at the urging of librarians, have created spaces known as information commons, learning commons, research commons, etc. in response to user needs for access to technology, group work, social interaction, and knowledge creation.

The information commons in all its forms has not been static, indeed it has matured, adapting over time to changing technologies, patron needs, and pedagogies.

In spite of the great strides that have been made in recent years in improving Mexico’s transportation and communication systems, obtaining material through interlibrary loan is still often difficult. Focuses on two relatively small but successful programs that have been organized by the Grupo Amigos and the Transborder Library Forum (Foro). Both programs are important due to their international focus, but the latter program is particularly interesting due to changes that are being made at the Mexican coordinating library to allow end users to prepare their own ILL requests via the library’s Web page. Compares the two programs and speculates on the future of interlibrary loan in Mexico.

The honor of editing the 30th volume of Advances in Librarianship posed a challenge of how to acknowledge changes in the profession over three and a half decades, while continuing a tradition of identifying new trends and innovations. The series aims to present a variety of aspects of the field of librarianship through the publication of critical articles and surveys, based on the published literature, research in progress, and current developments, relating to all segments of the profession and related topics. Contributing authors are encouraged to address provocative and stimulating topics that will ensure that trends are identified and research results of interest are made available quickly in a rapidly changing profession. Though authors in the past have been encouraged to add an historical perspective, those contributing to this volume were invited especially to celebrate the history of the past 36 years by reflecting, as appropriate, on advances made in their topic since the first volume of the series was published in 1970.

The field of librarianship has undergone traumatic shifts (mostly downward) due to the global financial meltdown that began in the fall of 2008. While libraries were not mentioned in the motion picture, Inside Job (Marrs & Ferguson, 2010), they were, and still are, deeply affected by the worst recession since the Great Depression. Worse yet is that current dialogues and negotiations about declining library budgets show promise of continuing well into 2012. Permanent reductions to budget support for libraries by all levels of government in the United States have resulted in library closures, loss of staff, reduced material purchases, deferred maintenance, and fewer or altered services in all types of libraries. Library associations experienced similar strains with the Canadian Library Association facing a budget crunch and the American Library Association giving staff a week's unpaid furlough in 2010. Five library systems in Illinois sought government approval to consolidate into one system and some consortia/networks merged or, like Nylink (NY), simply closed their doors.

The response to the call for chapters about mergers, acquisitions, collaborations, partnerships, and joint ventures proved to be rich and resulted in an unprecedented number of proposals. Furthermore, the range of proposals illustrated both variety in scope and a broad range of topics. As a result, the material accepted for publication was split into two volumes. This volume includes those chapters deemed broadest in nature, while Volume 37, to be published later this year, will present material of a narrower and more focused nature and mostly in the form of case studies at the operational level. At a time when the volatile nature of the world economy calls for new approaches to business, these volumes provide an interesting panorama from the nonprofit sector of libraries and information services about the world of mergers and acquisitions (M&A’s) as well as the less riskier, but equally dramatic, activities of collaborations, partnerships, and joint ventures.

What influence do funders have on advances in librarianship? The idea to devote this 31st volume of Advances in Librarianship to this question arose from a conversation between the co-editors during which they wondered if the library and information science (LIS) professions were influenced in similar ways as other disciplines reportedly are by the agencies and foundations that fund research in their fields. The notion of the influence of funding is not new. Mangan (1999) notes that the focus of the American Association of University Professors’ meeting held in May 1999 was on the influence of corporate funding on medical academic research. The increase in corporate funding is due at least in part to a decline in government funding, the author notes that often with this type of funding, “the sponsors decide what will be studied, how the research will be conducted, and how and whether the findings will be published” (p. 14). Approaching the same notion from a different perspective, Goldfarb (2008) tracked the academic output of 221 academic researchers who had received funding from the NASA aerospace engineering program in 1981 in order to explore whether research with specific usable outcomes has a negative impact on scholarly publication. Overall the findings of this study support previous studies that concluded that academic research efforts in the United States are responsive to social and technological needs. Further, Goldfarb notes that commercial outputs of research, such as those that result in NASA type studies, complement academic output.