The Liberal Arts of the Future: Centering the Library
October 23, 2025
Chris Barth at the Current Topics in Higher Education event
At the latest Current Topics in Higher Education event, Bryn Mawr Vice President and Chief Information Officer and Director of Libraries Chris Barth led a discussion on "The Liberal Arts of the Future: Centering the Library."
The topic is of particular significance as an early draft of the College’s strategic plan calls for "renovating or building the library of the future as the academic core and intellectual convening space for the campus."
The hour-long, highly interactive session invited faculty, staff, and students to share ideas about the role Bryn Mawr's libraries might play in shaping teaching, learning, and research in the years ahead. Using Mentimeter, participants responded in real time to a series of prompts that explored what inspires them about libraries, how libraries connect a community, and what makes Bryn Mawr's libraries distinctive.
Before opening the discussion, Barth outlined the broader context in which academic libraries are evolving — shifting from repositories of information to dynamic, participatory spaces that foster collaboration, creation, and discovery. He then offered three "vision points" for the future of Bryn Mawr's libraries:
Inspire. Libraries should spark curiosity and creativity by offering experiences that encourage engagement with knowledge, ideas, and one another.
Connect. The next-generation library should be a place where people, disciplines, and ideas intersect — supporting a community of learning, exploration, and discovery.
Be Bryn Mawr. Rooted in the liberal arts, the library should reflect the College’s essence and ethos — a space where anyone who enters immediately feels that both they and the library belong to Bryn Mawr.
As attendees shared words and ideas — from "welcoming" and "collaborative" to "digitally forward" and "beautifully Bryn Mawr"— themes began to emerge around flexibility, accessibility, and the continued importance of quiet study alongside active, tech-enabled spaces.
"The library should be a place where you can intellectually wander," Barth said near the end of the event. "It should be a place that inspires us all to think in ways we otherwise wouldn't have."
Feedback gathered during the session will inform ongoing discussions about the role of the libraries in the College's strategic and campus-planning efforts, ensuring that the library of the future remains a space that reflects both Bryn Mawr's traditions and its forward-looking spirit.
