Three Takeaways for Academic Libraries from the 2026 Library Systems Report

Marshall Breeding offers insights into the library systems market

Posted on June 10, 2026 in Blog Posts

Our favorite part of June isn’t the alarmingly hot days or the iced coffee we quaff to keep the heat at bay, but independent library consultant Marshall Breeding’s Library Systems Report. The report covers for-profit and nonprofit organizations that create library research products, particularly library system platforms and integrated library systems, and draws on survey data from a wide array of vendors. (Check out our past coverage of the 2023, 2024, and 2025 reports.) Breeding’s report spans the full spectrum of vendors, both domestic and abroad, so we wanted to draw out the key takeaways of the report for research and academic libraries on the state of the market.  

📄 Read Breeding’s full report.  

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💸 Financial austerity is a two-way street. 

Although talk of AI bookends the report (and we’ll get to it in a moment), the real story that Breeding tells in this year’s report is one of the “brutal economic headwinds” facing both libraries and vendors. It hardly needs to be said, but most libraries and research institutions are feeling pressure from funding and grant cuts. This financial environment, naturally, makes it difficult for organizations to invest in new technology, putting vendors on a tightrope between innovation and cost control. 

“Impact” is the keyword that unites libraries and vendors in Breeding’s report. Libraries need to demonstrate their strategic impact to their universities to make the case for their funding, and vendors need to prove that their products will have a clear return on investment. Breeding makes the interesting suggestion that analytical tools might fit this gap by helping libraries gather new varieties of data to show their impact beyond traditional transactional measures, which may be in decline. 

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💻 AI is the subplot, not the story. 

Libraries are in a difficult place with AI. Many libraries are uncomfortable with integrating AI unless AI-powered tools demonstrate the level of accuracy and usefulness to earn their trust. Despite librarians’ professional qualms, the students and researchers who use their institutions have come to enjoy and expect key features of commercial AI, such as natural language search, in their research technologies. Companies are interested in developing AI products and services to meet the needs of their customers and their institutions, and gain a competitive edge in the market, but face both professional and, especially, financial hesitance from their customers in adopting them. 

Although it has elements of gridlock, this situation is not a standstill. What is clear is that the relationship between libraries and AI is secondary to and contingent on libraries’ ongoing financial precarity. Libraries may be open to experimenting with and adopting AI tools and services, but simply can’t afford them. Another, more alarming way this tension between libraries, AI, and financial precarity plays out, Breeding speculates at the end of the report, is through AI-driven workforce reductions, which are sweeping through other industries. A grim possibility.

🏢 The library technology industry is stable. 

Although austerity and AI shape the ongoing dynamic between vendors and libraries, the library technology industry, in Breeding’s view, is very stable. Of course, this stability is mainly due to the fact that there’s little room left for consolidation. We are unlikely to see an acquisition on the level of Clarivate’s 2021 purchase of ProQuest for $5.3 billion. And although it’s theoretically possible that a tech giant might eye a library technology company, Breeding thinks it’s unlikely at present. For the coming year, the industry itself looks stable, even as the dynamic between libraries and vendors continues to develop. 

➡️ Read Breeding’s full report. 

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