Higher Education is under increasing pressure to improve undergraduate education while reducing costs. New information and telecommunication technologies are providing tools for the demanded transformation. Instead of focussing on the implications of these tools for the library, librarians must take a leadership role in helping the faculty and other support professionals make the necessary changes. To do this will require that librarians expand their conception of their educational role from skills instruction and even information literacy concepts to engaging with faculty and other campus professionals in the actual design of the new instructional courses or packages and their delivery mechanisms. Librarians must also embrace the knowledge management/electronic publishing roles as a means for enhancing the scholarly information distribution system while reducing costs. The education and knowledge management roles are not radical departures from what we currently conceive as our function. However, to make this small leap does require a rethinking, a paradigm shift, from a focus on collections to a focus on the needs of the members of our communities. Successfully making this shift, and the resulting dramatic change in our prorities and activities, will lead to an enhanced role for the library and more meaningful work for librarians.
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