The value of values

Purpose – The paper's aim is to provide insights into issues encountered in maintaining library technologies and electronic collections on a limited budget and with limited personnel. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses real‐world experiences and evidence from the body of literature to provide commentary on the importance of clearly defined missions and goals in an era of shrinking budgets and changing user expectations. Findings – Having a clearly defined library mission statement with underlying goals and outcomes is vital in this time of accountability and assessment in higher education. Librarians must be mindful of the need to connect the goals and outcomes to the overall institutional goals in order to provide measurable and meaningful value. Originality/value – The paper examines one library's struggle to establish an identity in an era where traditional methods of determining value are no longer suitable. The article uses dialogue from departmental meetings coupled with evidence from the library literature to state the importance of finding and communicating value in an era of accountability.