Introduction

Until the mid-2000s, social capital was often seen as too materialistic or transactional an encapsulation of the valuable work academic libraries do. The term, however, is increasingly being accepted by the library community as a useful description of a resource which academic libraries possess in abundance. The inclusion of the term capital signals the possibility of higher returns from future efforts and conjures up measurements of gain and loss that can be applied to human behaviour and activities. The work of academic libraries has often been removed from the language of the marketplace, with preference instead given to the broader good that we contribute without explicit consideration given to the costs associated with that service. Social capital and academic libraries, nonetheless, share a common root in that both are predicated on enhancing co-operation to advance the interests of a larger unit that relies on various types of bonds to sustain activity.

As academic libraries seek to transition their value proposition to greater engagement and inclusion amid the shifting scholarly and pedagogical practices that constitute higher education, social capital offers a robust framework for exploring the nature of the exchanges we make as part of broader productivity networks that serve faculty research and teaching, student learning, information access and scholarly production. As this chapter argues, social capital can be understood in a more expansive way than merely as a rational economic choice that would alter our behaviour and purpose. Social capital can instead be seen as an intrinsic human characteristic that accords with people’s natural preferences and is thus a way of making explicit those activities and behaviours that organically inform academic librarianship.

Social capital first intersected libraries in its more proper, historical context where scholars such as Bourdieu, Putnam and Coleman sought to explain how cultural privileges and societal strengths are preserved through the social workings of a community that allow the perpetuation of important, valuable characteristics.