The Library and the Computer Center: Organizational Patterns at Land Grant Universities

The relationship of the academic library with the campus computing center has been an issue since at least the late 1970s. The issue was discussed at length in the 1980s with little effect on existing organizations. Interest in the issue was rekindled in the 1990s, when a number of institutions merged or aligned the library and the computer center, with varying results. The literature assumes or asserts that it is the norm for academic libraries and computing centers to be merged or administratively aligned. A census of land grant universities contradicts such a view. For this homogeneous group of large state universities, the traditional organization, in which the library dean reports to the provost and the computer center is a separate organization, still prevails overwhelmingly.