Analyzing external environment for an academic library

I work at an academic library, which serves over 8400 students and 1500 faculty and staff. 65% of the student population is 24 and under, with 35% of the students aged 25 and up. As a regional campus within a big university system, the library enjoy the benefit of resources sharing among different campuses. Below is the analyze of external environment for my library.

Economic trends:

• Slow economic recovery increase number of community patron whom utilize library services and resources
• Subscription price for electronic materials (i.e. serials and databases) continues to increase
• Economic recovery will increase funding for the campus and funding for library resources

Demographic trends:

• Increase number of traditional students, who grow up in the digital environment
• Digital divide between junior and senior faculty; junior faculty is more tech savvy and prefer electronic resources, while senior faculty prefer print materials.

Technological trends:

• Digital born is comfortable with information being available on the Internet, they tend to bypass the library when they look for information to fulfill their information need.
• Increase number of students process the latest technologies like smartphone, e-readers etc.

Ecological trends:

• Concerns about books that being weeded or withdraw from the collection, will they be dumped or recycled?

Social-cultural trends:

• Addition of student housing increase the need of leisure/recreational reading materials.
• Increased diversity in students and faculty body requires acquisition of materials in different languages.
• Research preference of students and faculty gears toward electronic resources

Political-legal trends:

• Copyright law have direct impact on faculty and students use of electronic resources subscribed by the Library
• Complexity of licensing for journals and databases increase due to merger of vendors
• Change in state education requirement impact degree programs which the Library support

Competitive trends:

• Online search engines continue to improve search capability and enhance user interface
• The new Education and Arts building provide the latest technologies and an attractive environment for students and faculty to study