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Understand the model. Design what comes next.

Two ways to align your academic library with institutional priorities: assess and redesign its operating model, or use a new building project to rethink the library it will house.

01 / Assess and redesign

A clearer view of today. A deliberate model for tomorrow.

This framework begins with a focused diagnostic of the current library. Where the findings point toward deeper change, a second engagement develops the future operating model and the path toward it.

Level A · Start here

Library Operating Model Diagnostic

For institutions examining whether the library’s current arrangements fit academic priorities, available resources, and changing needs. Understand how the library works today, what it costs, and where its current arrangements may need attention.

What we examine

  • Alignment with institutional priorities and academic needs
  • How collections, technology, staffing, spaces, services, and partnerships work together, and what they cost
  • Staffing, professional expertise, and service commitments
  • Essential dependencies and operational risks
  • Stakeholder expectations and institutional support

What you receive

  • A concise executive assessment of the current model
  • A reusable decision dashboard linking library resources to institutional priorities
  • Opportunities for near-term improvement
  • Priority decisions and options for further investigation

The diagnostic provides a basis for action on its own. It can also establish the scope and rationale for a deeper redesign.

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  1. Diagnostic
  2. Institutional decisions
  3. Redesign
Level B

Operating Model Redesign

Translate the assessment into a library model designed to advance larger institutional goals.

The redesign begins with what the institution needs its library to accomplish. We consider how access, expertise, services, technology, and partnerships can be organized to support those ends within realistic resource constraints.

What we develop

  • Clear institutional purposes and service priorities
  • Alternative operating scenarios and their tradeoffs
  • Recommendations for access, technology, staffing, and partnerships
  • Financial and implementation implications
  • A phased transition roadmap with responsibilities and safeguards

The result is a proposed operating model with an explicit rationale: what it supports, what it requires, and how the institution can move toward it.

Discuss a redesign

02 / Rethink the library

A new building is an opportunity to rethink the model inside it.

For institutions planning a new academic library, a major renovation, or a substantial reconfiguration of library space.

A building project creates a rare opening to reconsider how the library contributes to institutional life. It also raises a consequential question: how much of the inherited operating model should the new space carry forward?

This engagement examines the future library before existing arrangements become fixed in the building plan. Together, we consider how spaces, services, collections, professional expertise, and partnerships can form a coherent model around institutional priorities.

Operating model

  • Academic Priorities
  • People and Partnerships
  • Spaces & Possibilities
  • Systems & Subscriptions

Questions we work through

  • What should the future library make possible for the institution?
  • Which existing capabilities and commitments should carry forward?
  • Which arrangements should change before they are embedded in the new space?
  • How should physical collections, digital access, and learning spaces work together?
  • Which partners and activities belong within the library?
  • What staffing, technology, and recurring resources will the future model require?

What you receive

  • A strategic concept for the future library
  • A proposed relationship between spaces, services, and the operating model
  • Recommendations for carrying forward or changing existing arrangements
  • Operating implications to inform institutional and architectural planning
  • Priorities for transition from the current library to the future one

This work informs the institutional brief for the building and supports collaboration among library leaders, campus stakeholders, and the architectural team.

Discuss your building project

Where should we begin?

Start with the Library Operating Model Diagnostic

You need a clearer understanding of current costs, capabilities, dependencies, or options before making consequential decisions.

Start with a library rethink

A building project is underway or on the horizon, and you want the future library’s purpose and operating model to help shape the planning.

Begin with the decision your institution faces.

An initial conversation can clarify the situation, the questions that matter, and the most useful scope of work.

Discuss your library