Current trends and issues affecting academic libraries and leadership skills

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to reflect on major issues and trends of academic libraries and leadership in the changing nature of higher education. Changing environment of academic libraries has impacted significantly on the knowledge, skills requirement and role of the library leaders, and how organizations can maintain and manage the changing nature of academic libraries as well as leadership while effective leadership is extremely required for the library leaders and organizations are concern about future scenarios. The primary objective is to identify the key challenges in libraries, leadership skills and approaches of the leaders, their effective leadership traits and future perceptions are discussed. Design/methodology/approach - The aim of this paper is to facilitate as how to develop effective and successful leadership for the academic libraries during the changing nature of higher education. The findings and recommendations in the paper are based on personal experience of leadership positions in an academic library as well as experience of library leaders across the world. Findings - Academic libraries are facing similar challenges and issues across the world. This paper identifies that library leaders need to be effective communicators, strategic thinkers, visionary, and able to examine the new ways of working. Originality/value - This paper discusses why academic library leaders need a set of new skills and how can they develop leadership skills and competencies in the changing nature of academic libraries.