Libraries in the Strategic Plans of Spanish Universities

Spanish universities are changing in the face of their full integration, in 2010, into the European Higher Education Area. The library, considered a key factor in this transformation, also needs to make a transition to a new model, called a Learning and Research Resources Centre (LRRC), responding to the new educational needs based in the Bologna reforms. This paper aims to analyze the strategic plans of Spanish universities and to establish whether they consider the library a key element for change and, therefore, a priority. Also, we study whether the emerging library conforms to a traditional model or aims to become a LRRC as proposed and fostered by the Spanish university libraries' network, REBIUN. The analysis is mostly based on the 74 Spanish universities' strategic plans. Each one of them was thoroughly analyzed, creating relevant groups, based on what information they deal with. Libraries, judging by their thin presence in strategic plans, do not exist as agents of change in most Spanish universities. This is an indication that, even nowadays, they do not have the necessary institutional support to become an information system that is basic and necessary in the Bologna reform. Libraries also need to make a transition to a new model, called a Learning and Research Resources Centre (LRRC), responding to the new educational needs.

Libraries in the Strategic Plans of Spanish Universities Articles