The future of AU Library

Should AU Library be part of The Royal Library in the future? This question has been subject to a consultation process at AU, and Aarhus BSS has just submitted its joint consultation response.

On 1 January, the State and University Library and the Royal Library merged under the name “The Royal Library”. For this reason, the senior management team and the AU Board have recommended a company transfer of AU Library to The Royal Library. Just before Christmas, the senior management team initiated a consultation process at AU amongst academic and administrative staff as well as students in order to ensure a solid basis for the final decision.

This consultation process has now finished, and the school has just submitted its joint consultation response (in Danish only) on the basis of the consultation responses (in Danish only) from the school’s departments, the School Board of Studies and the Academic Council. The consultation response expresses concern that a transfer of AU Library might reduce the high quality of Aarhus BSS’ current library services, which is both well-functioning and subject-specific. The consultation response thus recommends that the subject-specific parts of the library services be transferred to the individual faculties in order to maintain the high academic quality and the close connection to the academic environments and the faculty management team.

The consultation response now forms part of the further processing of the matter, and AU’s board is expected to make the final decision in April 2017 based in a recommendation from the senior management team.