I’ll never forget that meeting. Earlier in my career, I was attending some kind of gathering for mid-level campus leaders, led by someone at the VP level. Not only can I not remember the name of that person, I can’t even remember the topic of the meeting. What I do remember is that at some point, the person leading the meeting asked a question about setting priorities, and I offered an answer based on the assumption that students are always our top priority. The VP gave me a bit of a funny look and said “Well, no — students are important, but research is our top priority.”

I was (as I should have been) embarrassed. Although not the library dean, I was serving in a leadership position in the library, and I really should have understood that on the all-important “Which comes first, students or research?” question, this particular institution’s answer was “research.” But for some reason, it had never really occurred to me that students might not be the #1 priority for any college or university. Maybe it’s because no college or university is ever going to come out and say, in a public document, “You know what? Students are great and we’re grateful to have them here, but really, our primary focus is research and that’s what our faculty understand we expect of them first and foremost.” But still, if I’d been doing my job better I would have had a better understanding of my institution’s strategic orientation.

The reality is that every university has to decide for itself whether students or research are the top priority. Now, I realize that some readers are going to chafe at that assertion. “Come on,” you might reasonably respond, “why can’t the university value both equally? Does a focus on one really have to mean neglect of the other?”. And of course the answer to the latter question is no — the fact that your institution focuses primarily on research doesn’t mean that you have to neglect your students, and that fact that someone else’s institution focuses primarily on teaching doesn’t mean that its faculty doesn’t do research.

When the library has to make tough choices about resource allocation, the needs and priorities of the library’s institutional sponsor should always be clearly discernible in the outcomes of those choices.

But this is the lesson for leaders: just because you can do both doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter which is your top priority. You have to know what your priorities are, because there will be times when you do have to make tough choices between them. Being a research-first university doesn’t mean you don’t care about your students, and being a students-first university doesn’t mean you don’t care about research — but when you really are faced with a choice between spending $1 million on a dorm renovation and spending that $1 million on lab renovations, you’d better be clear on which of those things represents the most mission-aligned option.

What does this have to do with academic libraries? Everything.

First of all, wise library leaders are always keenly aware of their host institution’s priorities and looking for ways that the library can move those priorities forward.

Second, the library’s own mission and strategic goals should always reflect those of the library’s host institution. When the library has to make tough choices about resource allocation — which is pretty much all the time — the needs and priorities of the library’s institutional sponsor should always be clearly discernible in the outcome of those choices.

Third, within the library itself the leadership needs to be thinking not only about what the library’s priorities are, but also about how those priorities will be expressed through the library’s programming, policies, and culture. Leaders need to be prepared to express those priorities publicly, repeatedly, and in multiple formats — and should try not to feel too frustrated about how many times such expressions are needed. No matter how many times you talk about those priorities, someone in the library will express surprise and believe they’re hearing them for the first time. Just roll with it. Be grateful that they’ve heard.

So this moment would be a great opportunity to ask yourself: which does my host institution set as its highest priority — students, or research? How do I know that? Do my library’s policies, practices, programming, and culture reflect that order of priorities? And if not, what needs to change?