Mentoring in academic libraries implies a belief in the future of library employees, systems, the profession, and the principles that libraries uphold. It signifies a commitment to the broader institution and to higher education's values of exploration, discovery, critical examination, and knowledge generation.

Academic Library Mentoring: Fostering Growth and Renewal presents a cross-section of mentoring thought and practice in college and university libraries, including mentoring definitions, practice fundamentals, models, programme development, surveys, and analysis. Across three volumes, it explores library mentoring programmes and the lived experiences of library faculty, librarians, library staff members, graduate library and information science students, and library student employees.

Volume 1, Fundamentals and Controversies, details effective mentoring skills and behaviors, mentoring models, dysfunctional mentoring relationships, conflicts of interest in mentoring, and, through a feminist lens, power differentials in mentoring. Chapters on diversity, equity, and inclusion call for library personnel to understand the exclusion some experience in the profession and to implement more inclusive mentoring practices.