ABSTRACT
In 2007, George Mehaffy, vice president for academic leadership and change at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), told academic librarians about his work on campuses through the American Democracy Project, emphasizing that he saw academic libraries as citizenship centers. Academic libraries also provide comfortable, inviting, neutral, safe spaces conducive to democratic discourse spaces where citizens can work together to solve public problems. At the nexus of multiple academic disciplines, academic libraries are well positioned to prepare future generations as leaders of an increasingly complex and divided world. Although notable efforts to deepen the civic work of academic librarians abound, conversion of the nation's 5,000 academic libraries into civic agents remains in its infancy. Now is the time for academic libraries to assume their rightful role in creating a new generation of informed citizens capable of acting to address complex, urgent social problems.
