The mission of the SPU Library is to provide collections, instruction, tools, spaces, and personnel to advance teaching, learning, and scholarship at Seattle Pacific University. The library’s Annual Report for 2011-2012, which is available from the library website, is a record of the library’s work to fulfill this mission during the last fiscal year. Highlights include:

• Positive assessment of library resources, services, and space.
• Enhancement of the library’s educational role.
• Increased access to and use of the University Archives.
• New training, technologies, and learning spaces facilitated through the Tech Desk.
• Successful public programming.

Changes in communication technologies are transforming libraries in significant ways. (I shared some reflections on “The End of the Book” in the spring issue of SPU’s Response magazine.) But transformation includes both continuity and change, and the library’s Annual Report demonstrates how, through a combination of tradition and innovation, the library remains central to the discovery, creation, and sharing of knowledge at SPU.

–Michael Paulus, University Librarian