Corporate social responsibility of higher educational institutions in the twenty first century: the support role of academic libraries

Abstract

Academic libraries are integral part of their parent institutions. They play the role of providing information materials and rendering services that will meet the information or research needs of the academic environment they are situated. As a managerial ethical obligation universities engage in social responsibility to their various stakeholder groups such as students, faculty, university community, local community or society, parents (or families of students), government, alumni etc. The 21^st century academic libraries as support system to their institutions, provides social roles to the user community and the society at large. The paper therefore addresses topical themes like- corporate social responsibility of academic institutions, areas of corporate social responsibility of academic institutions, academic library social responsibility, academic libraries’ contribution to university social responsibility and challenges to social responsibility functionalities in academic libraries. The paper concluded that academic libraries play a crucial role in social responsibility. Despite this, the literature points out several challenges that hinder their functionality. On the basis of these challenges recommendations were proffered. This paper contributes to the body knowledge by filling the gap in the literature in the area of social responsibility in academic libraries.