Creative Destruction, Done Right

Published on 22 April 2026 at 08:13

Rethinking Innovation in Academic Libraries

We talk about innovation in academic libraries as if it needs to be controlled—carefully implemented, assessed, and aligned.

But innovation has never really worked that way.

Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction: the idea that systems evolve not just through improvement, but through disruption—when new ideas and technologies push against, and sometimes replace, what came before. In many ways, libraries have benefited from this. Open access challenged paywalls. Digital collections reshaped access. AI is beginning to transform how writing, research, and discovery happen.

So creative destruction isn’t something to resist.

If anything, we need to take it seriously.

Why Change Feels Slower Than It Should

And yet, in higher education, disruption rarely looks like destruction.

It looks like layering.

It looks like coexistence.

It looks like new systems emerging while old ones remain firmly in place.

Scholarly communication makes this clear. We have open access alongside subscription models. Preprints alongside peer review. AI-supported writing alongside traditional composition. Nothing has fully disappeared. Instead, we’re working in a space where transformation is happening—but not all at once.

This isn’t failure.

It’s the reality of how change unfolds in complex systems.

Adding Another Lens: Viral Justice

This is where Ruha Benjamin’s work becomes useful—not as a replacement for creative destruction, but as an additional way to understand how change actually takes hold.

In Viral Justice, Benjamin focuses on how small, intentional actions spread across systems. Change doesn’t always come from sweeping disruption; it often comes from practices that move outward, are taken up by others, and accumulate over time.

Placed alongside creative destruction, this reframes how we think about innovation in libraries.

It’s not just about what gets disrupted.

It’s about how disruption happens—and who it benefits.

Because most of us are not in positions where we can dismantle systems overnight. We’re working within constraints—limited staffing, competing priorities, and institutional cultures that are often slow to shift. But that doesn’t mean we’re not shaping change.

We are.

Practicing Change Through CALM

Often, that work begins with communication—making visible what is often invisible. A small instructional shift, a new way of framing AI in the classroom, a partnership with a single faculty member. These moments matter not just because they happen, but because they are shared, discussed, and taken up by others.

It requires adaptability—not in the sense of constant change, but in the willingness to start small. One assignment redesigned. One tool reframed. One class approached it differently. These are not compromises; they are strategies that create space for experimentation.

Over time, these shifts become sites of learning. Not just for students, but for us. We begin to see how people actually engage with tools, where confusion happens, where resistance emerges, and where something new begins to take hold. Innovation, in this sense, is less about implementation and more about collective sensemaking.

And all of this is a form of management, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Not management as control, but as coordination—aligning efforts, building relationships, and sustaining momentum without always having formal authority.

Where Creative Destruction Actually Happens

This is where creative destruction takes shape—not as a single moment, but as a series of shifts in practice.

We redesign one assignment so students engage AI critically instead of passively.
We introduce a tool and frame it as something to question, not trust.
We collaborate with one faculty member, and that work spreads.

These are small moves. But they do something important: they change how people interact with systems.

And that’s how systems begin to shift.

The Opportunity for Academic Libraries

We often describe libraries as support units, but in practice, we sit at the center of change. We work across departments, disciplines, and student experiences. We see where systems fall short, and we’re often the ones experimenting with how they might work differently.

The question isn’t whether we innovate.

It’s how we do it.

Because not all innovation is equal.

Some of it makes systems more efficient. Some of it reinforces what already exists. And some of it—when done well—actually expands access, deepens learning, and redistributes who gets to participate.

That kind of innovation doesn’t come from adopting tools quickly. It comes from how we frame and use them.

Innovation in Constrained Environments

Let’s be honest: many librarians are working in systems where new ideas are met with resistance, where workloads leave little room for experimentation, and where change is expected but not always supported.

In those spaces, creative destruction doesn’t disappear.

It becomes quieter.

You create a pocket of innovation in one class.
You support a colleague who wants to try something new.
You model a different way of approaching a problem.

And over time, those pockets connect.

Change doesn’t always come from sweeping initiatives. Sometimes it comes from accumulation—from small actions that, together, start to shift what’s possible.

What to Take With You

Scholarly communication is changing.

But it’s not being torn down and rebuilt overnight.

It’s being reshaped—slowly, unevenly, and often through the kinds of small, intentional interventions that don’t always get labeled as innovation.

Creative destruction in academic libraries isn’t about waiting for the system to collapse or be replaced.

It’s about recognizing where you already have the ability to reshape it.

Not everywhere. Not all at once.

But in the spaces you control—how you communicate, how you adapt, how you learn alongside others, and how you manage change as it unfolds—those choices matter.