The Southern Miss Bower Academic Center: A Recent Academic Library-Athletics Partnership

In 2019, A. Blake Denton published a literature review that identified and described 35 partnerships between academic libraries and athletics programs at higher education institutions in the United States, 20 of which were established for library marketing and development purposes. Recognizing that the literature documenting marketing and development partnerships was dated, he published a study in 2021 that provided updated, more comprehensive accounts for eight participating institutions and an analysis of the evolving nature of their relationships over time. This third article analyzes the partnership at the University of Southern Mississippi that resulted in the relocation of the athletics program’s Bower Academic Center to Cook Library. Building on the foundation established by both publications, the present case study provides three main contributions to this niche of library and information science literature: (1) documents and analyzes a previously unknown academic library-athletics partnership; (2) revises the literature concerning these relationships; and (3) offers several applications for practitioners interested in establishing similar arrangements at their institutions.