A new report released today, Survey of Academic Library Technology
Leadership: The LMS, Discovery & Automation, presents a detailed national
portrait of how academic libraries are managing their core systems and
emerging automation tools. The study draws on responses from 33 academic
libraries, predominantly in the United States, with results analyzed across
institutional size, type, tuition band, Carnegie classification, and
leadership role.
*LMS Consolidation and High Satisfaction*
The survey finds strong stability in the library management system
landscape. Alma/Primo is the dominant platform, used by 51.52% of
institutions, with expected adoption rising to 60.61% over the next three
years. FOLIO shows modest growth, while Sierra and Voyager continue to
decline. Nearly 73% of respondents are satisfied or very satisfied with
their current LMS, and 70% do not anticipate migrating within five years.
*Integration Burdens and Discovery Friction*
Despite overall stability, integrations remain a significant operational
challenge. A combined 60.60% of respondents rate integration maintenance as
high or moderate effort, especially at larger institutions and research
universities. Discovery layer friction is also common: broken links and
search relevance issues affect more than half of libraries, making them the
most persistent discovery problems reported.
Staffing and Customization Patterns
Only one third of institutions maintain a dedicated systems integration
specialist, though combined dedicated/shared capacity rises to nearly 90%
among the largest institutions. Discovery interface customization is
widespread, with 69.70% of libraries customizing periodically or
continuously.
*Cautious AI Adoption*
AI driven features have yet to gain broad traction. Two thirds of
respondents are neutral about AI integration in their LMS, and 81.81%
report rare, no, or uncertain use of AI enhanced metadata creation tools.
Views on AI generated article summaries are mixed: 48.48% find them at
least somewhat valuable, while an equal share is skeptical.
*Leadership Perspectives*
Open ended comments highlight recurring challenges in system migrations,
including underestimated staffing needs, data quality issues, and
coordination gaps with vendors and partner institutions. Leaders also call
for standardized APIs, vendor maintained connectors, better link
diagnostics, and more intuitive interfaces to reduce integration burdens.
Received on Wed Sep 02 2026 - 09:56:49 EDT