This landmark handbook is the essential guide to the academic librarian's role. This text synthesizes a huge and complex area of professional practice into one single handy resource. It offers practical and pragmatic advice in the form of checklists, ideas for innovative practice and definitions of common terminology. This approach sits alongside analysis and reflection on issues, challenges and exploration of possible future developments. International case studies in each chapter offer you insight into real situations and real decisions and will inspire you to try different ways of working. The chapters cover all critical aspects of the role, divided into the three key themes: people, collections and services; Who are we? Understanding the role of an academic support librarian; Who are they? Understanding the needs and behaviours of the users of our services; Developing and leading academic support services teams; Communication, advocacy and promotion; Collection development and building living collections; Interpretation and promotion of the collections; Knowledge management and evolving collection development roles; Managing a collections budget; Information services and connecting people with information; Research support services; Librarians as lecturers and information literacy training; and, Innovation and enterprise. This is an indispensable text for academic librarians, at all levels of their career, as well as managers of subject librarian teams. It offers an unrivalled overview of the academic librarian's role for students studying library and information courses and provides academics with an insight into the services they provide.