Serving the professional staff in higher education

research faculty along with other aspects of higher education have changed over years, there has been an increase in the sophistica­ tion and number of professional staff in higher education. Their information needs have corre­ spondingly increased. In academic libraries, the traditional client mix has been primarily composed of faculty and students. While not recommending a major change from that priority, I do want to raise the question of whether or not your library could and should serve your institution’s staff at a high level. Who is this staff and why do they have increasing information needs; what is characteris­ tic of these needs; and what supplemental methods using existing collections and resources could bet­ ter serve these important potential or existing clients? A recent U.S. Employment Opportunity Com­ mission study found that those employed to per­ form academic support functions in higher educa­ tion who were not part of the teaching faculty increased by more than 60% between 1975 and 1985.1 Reasons for the increase in academic sup­ port personnel and other areas of the institution go beyond the changing nature of faculty. Some of the high growth areas in higher education professional