Individual librarians and their personal leadership are contributing to changes in the library profession and the expanding career opportunities available to academic librarians. Not long ago many librarians saw their careers as limited to the confines of their library's four walls. There is a growing range of opportunities for librarians to hold influential positions outside of the library.

Libraries have been an integral part of American higher education since 1636, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony's college at Cambridge was founded and then, two years later, took the name...