NAPCU

NAPCU Libraries Annual Directors Conference
2 -4 November 2011
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
Coeur d Alene Resort

To its diverse constituencies, the academic library is ever more like the elephant of Indian legend and its blind examiners. A complex creature of many parts, it is typically perceived and (mis?)understood from the limited perspective of each person’s particular role on campus, academic discipline, specific needs, or past experiences. While it’s probably true that many grasp more than just a single part of the elephant, it’s likely that few – even among our staffs, and perhaps not excluding ourselves – apprehend all its components and functions or comprehend the beast in its entirety. Compounding the challenge this presents is the fact that the elephant is evolving at an unprecedented pace: sprouting new parts, adapting to new functions or environments, filling changing ecological niches. As library directors, we’re challenged at once to manage this increasingly complex creature and to guide—or design – its evolution. And then we’re challenged to communicate how we’re managing and how our libraries are evolving to diverse constituents often as partial in their comprehension and limited in their expectations as were those six blind men of legend.

Join us at the 2011 NAPCU Directors Conference to share experiences and ideas with colleagues on how we’re managing and evolving our respective elephants. While we won’t aspire to take on all their parts – or “eat the whole elephant,” to mix the metaphor somewhat – we’ll consider multiple and very different facets, with emphasis on the new and on the old-but-changing. And we’ll consider how we reach out to those varied constituencies.