Strategic change in higher education libraries with the advent of the digital library during the fourth decade of Program

This paper sets out to review how the business of libraries in higher education has changed with the impact of the digital library during the latest decade of Program, in which the content of the journal swung decisively from being primarily about library management systems to primarily being about digital library issues.

An article is taken which typifies the changing emphasis of Program and then the systemic changes underway in libraries are looked at more broadly, placing the digital library in its context of scholarly publishing, higher education policy and user behaviour.

The business of libraries is changing, primarily as a result of change in the scholarly publishing industry.

This is a review article based on a literature review and operational observations.

The observations build on the author's original work on business planning for digital libraries, and are based on experience of library and information services management in The Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain.