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And They Were There — Reports of Meetings
And They Were There — Reports of Meetings 2021 Charleston Conference
Column Editor: Ramune K. Kubilius (Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu>
Column Editor’s Note: Thanks to the Charleston Conference attendees, both those who attended on-site and virtually, who agreed to write brief reports highlighting and spotlighting their 2021 Charleston Conference experience. The conference moved to a hybrid format in 2021 and that presented both opportunities as well as challenges for registered attendees. All registrants had the opportunity to view recordings, to re-visit sessions they saw “live,” or to visit sessions they missed. Without a doubt, there are more Charleston Conference sessions than there were volunteer reporters for Against the Grain, so the coverage is just a snapshot. In 2021, reporters were invited to either provide general impressions on what caught their attention, or to select sessions on which they would report. There are many ways to learn more about the 2021 conference. Some presenters posted their slides and handouts in the online conference schedule. Please visit the conference site, https:// www.charleston-hub.com/the-charleston-conference/, and link to selected videos, interviews, as well as to blog reports written by Charleston Conference blogger, Donald Hawkins, https:// www.charleston-hub.com/category/blogs/chsconfnotes/. The 2021 Charleston Conference Proceedings will be published in 2022, in partnership with University of Michigan Press. — RKK
Our Work Impacts Your Work: Outreach Strategies to Promote “Invisible” Library Operations
Presented by Hannah McKelvey (Montana State University) and Rachelle McLain (Montana State University) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/Z8Q2SnmeBDH3A9j7k
McLain and McKelvey discussed the development and presentation of a series of faculty-focused workshops on topics related to collection development. Consisting of six workshops, the goals of this series include increasing transparency around the acquisitions process; understanding how faculty use library resources; and increasing faculty support for the library’s collections decisions. The presenters have partnered with Montana State University’s Center for Faculty Excellence and use the CFE’s and library’s communication channels to promote the workshop series to faculty. The workshop series began in Fall 2021 and is scheduled to continue through the end of the 2021-2022 academic year. While the presenters found a high degree of support and enthusiasm for the workshop series from the CFE, faculty, and their library coworkers, participation has not been as high as they had anticipated based on that support. They are optimistic that participants will take what they learn back to their departments and colleagues and that participation will increase in the future, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes and faculty gain more bandwidth for professional development.
LONG ARM OF THE LAW REPORT FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2021
The Long Arm of the Law
Reported by Natalie Henri-Bennett (Auburn University) <neb0021@auburn.edu>
Presented by Lila Bailey (Internet Archive), Ann Okerson (CRL, Moderator) and Kevin L. Smith (University of Kansas) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/HgkFLcoCQENQLp4po
Smith, Dean of Libraries and Professor of Law, discussed the legality of legislation proposed and passed in New York and Maryland, respectively, that requires affordable electronic book licensing options for public libraries. These laws address the iniquity of some publishers licensing only to academic libraries but not public libraries. Smith discussed the challenges to these laws brought by The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Senator Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, both of which argued that §301 of the Copyright Law takes legal precedence. Smith concludes by saying that their overall argument may backfire: placing publishers in the sights of antitrust legislation. Bailey, Policy Council for the Internet Archive, discussed the issues surrounding the copyright infringement case filed against them by four publishers. Bailey explained that the Archive temporarily suspended the 1:1 lending protocol for the Digital Lending Library in order to serve teachers whose classroom books were left in schools following lockdown. Bailey referenced established library practices and international human rights laws in defense of the Internet Archive. She then described the small scale of materials in dispute. The publishers list only 127 books in the lawsuit, but ask that 1.4 million Internet Archive books in physical and digital form be destroyed. She said that libraries have the right to buy, own, and preserve their materials, but that licensing agreements do not allow for such freedoms. “That’s what the lawsuit against the Internet Archive is really about,” Bailey says. “It’s about the right for libraries to own our collections [and] to perform our traditional functions like preservation and lending regardless of media type.” (Recording time 45:33). She closes by proposing that publishers support digital ownership.
This session is available for viewing in the conference
YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/90YaKo4dbhg
Charleston Conference blogger, Donald Hawkins, wrote
a blog post about this session: The Long Arm of the Law - Charleston Hub (charleston-hub.com)
Whole Book ILL: On the Road Toward a Scalable Solution
Reported by Susannah Benedetti (University of North Carolina Wilmington) <benedettis@uncw.edu>
Presented by Sylvia Bonadio (Brill), Allen Jones (The New School), George Machovec (Colorado Alliance), Lisa Nachtigall (Oxford University Press) and Whitney Murphy (ProQuest) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/ANjzQN2982r4Jpgfq
Presenters described an exciting new pilot involving libraries, publishers, and vendors that allows whole eBook interlibrary loan (E-ILL) – a milestone and major industry shift. Six publishers and four library cohorts (serving 625,000+ users) are using the ProQuest LibCentral platform to provide intra-cohort lending of ebooks. Libraries load ProQuest MARC records into the catalog, and patrons discover and request an eBook. The lending library generates a time-limited URL that is shared with the borrower. The lending library loses access to one concurrent access during the loan, after which the link expires and the concurrent license is reactivated. Highlighted benefits include data for publishers and libraries about what titles are loaned vs. what is used; the opportunity for publishers to disseminate their authors’ work under controlled stewardship, thereby not “selling a single book to the entire state of California”; the ability to make decisions on purchasing at time of need; and the opportunity for publishers to learn how ILL works in practice and “get under the hood.” The pilot allows libraries and publishers to break the ice and see what is really possible with intra-cohort lending, and use it as a sizing opportunity for a long-term, scalable E-ILL product.
A Conversation on Streaming Video Acquisition: Post-Pandemic Acquisition Processes and Sustainability of License Models in Academic Libraries
Reported by Angela Strait (Marshall University, Huntington, WV) <strait@marshall.edu>
Presented by Cathy Austin (Mississippi State University), Manuel Ostos (Pennsylvania State University), Julia Proctor (Penn State University Libraries) and Leigh Tinik (Penn State University Libraries) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference: Virtual Meeting Details (pathable.co)
This conversation was hosted by four academic librarians. Purchasing models for academic libraries and video content are very different than individual and public library models. While all video can be expensive, streaming video is extremely expensive for academic libraries, and while more vendors are making platforms available, the pricing models are really hard to swallow from a budget standpoint. Financial resources are already strained by the COVID-19 pandemic, and resources may not be licensed for presentation in an academic library or classroom. The many avenues to explore and discuss were offered in this informative presentation, including vendor contracts, and how to best make your users aware of the services available and how to use them. Presenters also discussed how they managed to make streaming video content available to users when their universities shut down during the pandemic. These same strategies can still be utilized now that our society is trying to get back to normal. A lengthy, informative question and answer session winds down the presentation, and several files and slides are available in the presentation area.
Presented by Katy Aronoff (Ex Libris / ProQuest, Moderator), Kathleen Bauer (Trinity College), Kate McCready (University of Minnesota Libraries), Alison Roth (ProQuest, now part of Clarivate) and Elijah Scott (Florida Virtual Campus) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference (pathable.co)
How does your academic library compare to your peer libraries across North America? What are the emerging trends in today’s academic libraries, and what are institutions doing to prepare for tomorrow? A group of library leaders discussed these questions — and more — in a Charleston panel discussion titled “State of The Academic Library: Library Leaders Share What Makes Institutions Thrive.” The panel was conducted — fittingly — in a hybrid setting, and featured Elijah Scott, Executive Director of Library Services for the Florida Virtual Campus consortium; Kathleen Bauer, Director of Collections, Discovery and Access Services at Trinity College; and Kate McCready, Interim Associate University Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Their discussion was moderated by Katy Aronoff, Senior Director of Solutions Architecture at Ex Libris/ProQuest. Their lively conversation was based on the results of the third-annual “State of Academic Libraries” report, conducted by Library Journal and commissioned by Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company. Not surprisingly, some of most critical issues that emerged in both the survey and the discussion were funding and collection development; diversity, equity and inclusion; remote learning; and learning affordability. Each topic was tackled by all three panelists, who discussed the different way their libraries are responding. You can find a full writeup of the session by this reporter in the ProQuest blog site here.
Libraries and Literacies: Navigating the Intricacies of Media, Science, & Data Literacy
Presented by Dan Chibnall (Drake University), Sarah Morris (Emory University), Zina O’Leary (The Australia and New Zealand School of Government) and Rosalind Tedford (Wake Forest University) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/hry3uPBDN2HzNEXh7
This session opened with an acknowledgment of how the information environment around the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of our information ecosystem. The session focused specifically on media, science, data, and
algorithmic literacy; each panelist focused on a specific facet of one of those literacies. O’Leary discussed the need for students to see science and the way it is reported in the media as something that does not exist in a vacuum. She made the point that students need to be willing to ask questions about the data they see and use. Morris talked more broadly about media literacy and the nuances and differences in the definitions of mis-, dis-, and mal-information. She argued that one-shot instructions sessions are not always the best forum to teach students how to grapple with these topics. Chibnall focused on science literacy and teaching students to be able to act as translators who can communicate science information to members of the public. He talked about using the pandemic to highlight how scientific information moves at a different pace than the news and society. Tedford discussed data literacy and algorithmic literacy. She noted that because of the examples of bad information students are seeing, they are more engaged now than they have been in the past.
NEAPOLITAN SESSION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2021
Early Career Researchers: How the Pandemic Shaped Their Views on Publishing and the Library
Reported by Ramune K. Kubilius (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu>
Presented by Suzie Allard (University of Tennessee), Cris Ferguson (Murray State University, Moderator), David Sims (University of Tennessee), Carol Tenopir (University of Tennessee) and Anthony Watkinson (Ciber Research) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference: App Home (pathable.co)
The session featured findings from an ongoing international 8 country research project looking at early career researchers (ECRs), with the most recent focus framed by the backdrop of the pandemic. First, a synopsis was provided of earlier interview results from pre-Pandemic (Part 1), dating back to 2015-2018. Then, what role will libraries have in 5 years? A “tale of extremes,” either pro-library or libraries as a gateway to journals and a place to put dissertations. The reality check for librarians is that ECRs don’t give libraries much thought since researchers focus on their own specific needs- data repositories and indexing data. Surveyed researcher quotes indicated that some also don’t see a role for libraries in the open access, rather than subscriptionbased journal world. (An interesting mention was made about relationship management.) Interestingly, most interviewees didn’t think that the pandemic changed their behaviors, though some shared that they had more time to write, dissemination was all digital, workarounds were found for networking, and they see the increasing role of social media. U.S. and U.K. ECRs had similar views and practices, while ECRs in other countries were more varied. Unsurprisingly, ECRs love gold OA, but greatly dislike APCs; some are seeing the benefits of transformative agreements. Regarding scholarly publishing trends and the central role of journals in 5 years — the timespan was deemed to be too short to see major changes. So, there is much to continue learning in future studies (and Charleston Conference presentations), about ECRs, their communication behaviors, and attitudes. (As noted in the last presentation slide, more information can be found at: Ciber-research.com/Harbingers-2).
Well this completes the Session Reports we received from the 2021 Charleston Conference. The General Reports can be found in the February 2022 issue of ATG (v.34#1, p.30-33), and the first portion of Session Reports can be found in the April 2022 issue of ATG (v.34#2, p.46-52). Visit the Charleston Hub at https:// www.charleston-hub.com/membership-options/ to subscribe to ATG online. Current subscribers can view the ATG archives at https://www.charleston-hub.com/media/atgall/. Again we’d like to send a big thank you to all of the attendees who agreed to write short reports that highlight sessions they attended. Presentation materials (PowerPoint slides, handouts, etc.) and recordings of most sessions are available to Conference Attendees on the Charleston Conference event site at https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/. Or visit the Charleston Hub at https://www.charleston-hub.com/thecharleston-conference/. — KS
