Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe the problems, which academic libraries in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada have faced since the 1990s. These problems are mostly caused by environmental changes in higher education. In this study, only discussed are the problems that academic libraries in various countries have commonly experienced, but not unique ones libraries in each country has due to its own national, societal, cultural, academic or informational situations. Major problems include continuing decrease in library expenditures, changing role of libraries themselves, changing nature of library collections, development of information technology and technological infrastructure on campus, steep increase in prices of scholarly journals, and relative decrease in purchasing powers of libraries. These problems are all closely inter-related, and seem to require more comprehensive and systematic strategic solutions carried out by the national or government intervention, rather than individual libraries.