The theme of our March print issue—which should have hit your mailbox last week—was education, or the roles that print plays in various educational environments. Look for these articles to appear on WhatTheyThink over the next few weeks, or go on over to PrintingNews.com.  

In higher education—colleges and universities—we have been tracking the growth of wide-format graphics on campuses, and the opportunities for signage and display graphics in university settings. But there is one negative print-based trend taking place on academic campuses, one that had started more than a decade ago but—to use what has become a cliché—was accelerated by the pandemic: a downsizing of print collections in academic libraries.

Last year, Library Journal conducted a massive global study called The State of Academic Libraries. Sponsored by ExLibris, a provider of ebooks and other electronic resources for libraries, it included responses from a worldwide sample of 1,843 college and university libraries in 78 countries. There were six language translations of the survey available: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Korean, and it covered such topics such as budget changes for library cataloging, collections and resources, technology purchase criteria, library challenges, affordable learning initiatives, resource sharing, and other short- and long-term trends. The final report was released at end of 2021, and there were four regional spin-off reports that looked at the state of academic libraries in Latin America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and a smattering of Pacific Islands), and Asia. (Full disclosure: I wrote these reports.)