The iconographic power of a college or university library expresses a purpose not just to collect, but also to organize, preserve, and make knowledge accessible. Today, on the campus of virtually every higher education institution the library occupies a central position. In its placement and prominence, the academic library conveys its integral role in supporting higher education’s core missions of research and education. Part of a library’s function has always been to guide users to information—to provide members of an academic community with tools for thoughtful inquiry. Libraries and librarians have exemplified the ideal of a higher education that combines knowledge in depth with contextualized understanding of different fields and domains. The very fact of developing and managing a collection conferred on librarians a degree of authority and influence in shaping the process of research and education.