AI in libraries: Engaging responsibly with new technology
Track: Technology
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Yasmeen Shorish She/Her Director of Scholarly Communications Strategies, James Madison University
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in libraries and archives as a powerful tool for enhancing metadata, improving search and discovery, recommending resources, powering library chatbots, and more. However, AI systems may incorporate surveillance technologies that threaten user privacy, and AI often reflects the biases of our society due to biased training data—for example, facial recognition technology is worse at recognizing the faces of people of color if training data is predominantly comprised of white faces. Our poster will outline the activities of an IMLS-funded project that examines this tension between innovating library services and protecting library communities. The poster will: (1) review the landscape of AI in libraries, (2) highlight new case studies solicited by our team that illustrate ethical considerations and challenges during the implementation of AI projects and tools, and (3) give preliminary results from participatory workshops with library users. In the coming year, these and other activities will be synthesized to create an AI harms analysis tool that can guide librarians and archivists through responsible AI software development and technology implementation, in alignment with our professional values.
Beyond Documentation: Using Dynamic Online Tools for Staff Training & Support
Track: Metadata & Collections
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Many library departments provide online documentation of work processes for staff in the form of wikis, LibGuides, or other web pages. However, when it comes to training student workers and new staff, that documentation may not be enough. Incorporating dynamic and interactive online tools can assist with many aspects of new staff training such as initial onboarding, answering questions, and documenting workflows in a more step-by-step manner with detailed examples.
The presenters will show how their use of online project management and group communication tools facilitated self-paced orientation and mentoring for new cataloging staff. The use of asynchronous elements supplemented traditional one-on-one training sessions and aided general communication between trainer and trainee. This poster session will demonstrate how this was accomplished using interactive training tutorials, shared documents, screen sharing, and instant messaging software. This training toolbox could be adapted and utilized in any area of the library.
Building a harmonized librarian onboarding program
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
We are a large multi-branch academic library system that frequently welcomes new User Services librarians. Until recently, each branch developed its own onboarding program for hires. This practice created inequities in training among liaison librarians as there was uneven treatment given to issues of system-wide importance. Anecdotally, this led to some liaison librarians feeling less supported than their colleagues. We also suspect that this may have had an impact on librarian retention. To solve these disparities, three branch heads collaborated on analyzing current onboarding practices, identifying gaps between units, and building a common, structured, EDI-informed program around three main areas: position responsibilities, academic tenure-track contributions and expectations, and creating opportunities to learn from colleagues across the system to help new librarians feel part of the community.
Bulk metadata cleanup with OpenRefine
Track: Metadata & Collections
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
This poster will illustrate a project undertaken to normalize descriptive metadata for more than 70 digital collections. It will describe the three main project objectives: improving metadata quality for current users, preparing metadata for migration, and readying metadata for linked data applications. A brief section on project management will cover the project scope, stakeholders, and tracking tools. The main section will describe three OpenRefine normalization methods, with examples: recorded operations, GREL expressions, and reconciliation services. Finally, a brief conclusions section will note challenges (automation limitations and time estimates), outcomes (cleaner facets and embedded URIs), and opportunities (enhancements that support diversity, equity, and inclusion).
Chick Lit: A Cataloger’s First Exploration in Critical Cataloging
Track: Access & Equity
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Catalogers of all levels come across terms they may not agree with. I experienced this with the term ‘Chick lit,’ which made me want to dive deeper into the term and its use as a subject heading. Exploring those terms and balancing access with potential harm is all part of critical cataloging. With a limited study of my institution’s metadata, I look at the trend of ‘chick lit,’ how it is defined in LOC’s subject heading authority record, and the history of the term to investigate the following questions. When and how did this term become popular? Is it outdated? Would the term harm access with negative connotations and implication of gendering the targeted audience? Are there other terms that have or could replace it? Part of this project is subjective, exploring my own thoughts on the subject heading while acknowledging how my own bias and background affect my opinions.
Collections Assessment Without Over-investment: Developing an Iterative, Tiered Approach
Track: Metadata & Collections
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Ian Knabe
Collection Assessment is often focused on ensuring value for the purchase or subscription cost, but what about softer costs associated with managing a subscription, or even the staff time involved in assessment? In trying to spin up a comprehensive and holistic assessment process, we developed a tiered process based on institutional priorities that aimed to make the process more transparent, ensure appropriate investment of staff time, and provide a modular format that can be adapted to different resources, metrics, and/or priorities.
Custom Classification for a Children’s and Young Adult Literature Collection
Track: Metadata & Collections
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Autumn Faulkner She/Her Interim Head of Cataloging & Metadata, Michigan State University
Michigan State University’s Children and Young Adult Literature Collection was recently reclassified from Library of Congress Classification (LCC) to a locally-developed system with the specific aim of improving discovery via shelf-browsing.
LCC was initially chosen because the collection is housed within the main library as a specialty sub-collection, rather than in a curriculum materials center or a dedicated education library. However, as the collection expanded and usage increased, it was evident that the LCC approach was creating barriers to discovery.
This poster will outline the custom classification scheme we developed as well as each phase of the implementation project — all of which raised questions around user experience, collection development, cataloging, and physical processing. For example, early discussions of user needs resulted in a decision to organize by author last name and to abandon the binary division of picture books and young adult books in favor of more specific groupings, including genres. These decisions involved cataloger retraining, changes to labeling and shelving procedures, and space considerations. The authors will explain the rationales behind these decisions and methods used to implement them.
Digital Equity and Literacy: Closing the Gap
Track: Access & Equity
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
May Chang Library CTO, University of Cincinnati
Eddie Snyder
Digital equity and literacy are critical factors in promoting inclusive access to technology regardless of socio-economic background and ensuring that everyone has the skills to use technology effectively. We found that some communities on campus still struggle to adapt to remote learning and working, particularly those without access to the appropriate technology. To address the need to close the gap, a digital equity and literacy working group was established and led by the central IT group to collaborate on ideas to ensure equal access to technology, training, and knowledge, to be successful. A project charter was developed with the objective to enable an empowering, inclusive, equitable, and accessible digital environment for all students, faculty, and staff and affiliated community.
This poster presents our approach to developing digital equity and literacy and the on-going work needed to bridge if not to close the gap. It also aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation on how to promote digital equity and literacy.
Does Access Denial Equal Demand?
Track: Metadata & Collections
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Ian Knabe
Implicit in the gathering of turnaway data is the idea that a denied access attempt equates to user demand. In this poster, we explore the relationship between COUNTER 5 Access Denial data and interlibrary loan borrowing request data from our organization. By gathering information about which journal titles in a given time period were most requested via interlibrary loan and comparing that to turnaway data for those same titles, we hope to determine whether a relationship can be established between access denial and actual patron usage.
The Excelsior University Library Project: Building a New Open Academic Library
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Cathy Germano
When colleges transition into universities, the library often experiences major changes too. Building an in-house library after outsourcing those responsibilities brings many unique opportunities and challenges. As we build a new library team at our organization, we are committed to open education and the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs). We plan on collaborating with faculty to bring more Zero Textbook Cost options to our students and develop a new information literacy course. Additionally, we are building the university’s first Intuitional Repository from scratch. This presentation will introduce our audience to the opportunities and challenges we have encountered building a new library based on the principles of open education.
Eye-Popping, Show-Stopping Libraries: Fifty Years of the AIA/ALA Library Building Awards
Track: Buildings & Operations
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
The Library Building Awards, created in 1963 as a joint endeavor by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the American Library Association (ALA), and the National Book Committee (NBC), is a regular, ongoing, juried award program that recognizes excellence in library design. During the six decades that awards have been given, nearly two hundred and fifty libraries have been recognized. This poster session will review the development of the Library Building Awards program and discuss a selection of award-winning libraries, as a way to document the transformation of library services as well as portray the evolution of library design.
Fostering Student Success through Niche Collections: Challenges & Opportunities
Track: Metadata & Collections
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Academic libraries have long faced pressure to demonstrate their contributions to student success. Such evidence often focuses on how campus libraries provide research support to students through collections, facility resources, and services. However, student success encompasses much more than being able to complete research-based assignments. Institutions of higher education have realized that supporting students’ intellectual needs is not enough and have sought to find ways to support students’ emotional and personal needs as well. As such, academic libraries are identifying new ways to support students’ needs. Since academic libraries are generally focused on research support, students and faculty don’t often associate leisure reading with their campus libraries. In this poster, a First-Year Experience Librarian from a large public university describes the development and curation of a niche collection that targets a wide range of student needs including personal health and wellbeing, financial literacy, LGBTQ+ advocacy, diversity education, student belonging, and more. The poster offers suggestions for developing, curating, and promoting collections that will foster student success through leisure reading. The ideas shared in this poster offer guiding principles for creating collections that represent diverse student bodies and will help you build upon your existing collections, create new collections. and engage students with these collections.
Fund Overhaul and Other Collaborations Between a Budget Specialist and Acquisitions
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Elissa Martin
In 2019 a new Acquisitions Librarian and Budget Specialist joined the library. Previous relations between the 2 positions were friendly, but each kept to their respective duties (and floors of the library). As these positions were reimagined their new inhabitants also held different ideas about their roles. Our duties expanded. Acquisitions now encompassed licensing and activation of electronic resources. The Budget Specialist liaises with university accounting and works on budget forecasting and visually reporting data to library staff, leadership, and stakeholders in easily understood ways. With both our roles expanding we were interfacing more, we realized that understanding each other’s roles and collaborating would be a boon for the library. This poster will show how the collaboration grew and its benefits. Moving from just extending invites to acquisitions training to active participation in clean up projects and updating our fund structure to better describe current and future resources. Working together has allowed both of us to complete projects much sooner than expected, tackle large updates that had previously been stalled because they were too big to handle, and work on new initiatives such as exploring visualization for our budget, payment, and future subscription reviews.
How to Decolonize Your Academic Library Using Graphic Novels
Track: Metadata & Collections
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Occasionally seen as just a medium for superheroes, graphic novels have evolved into a learning and teaching tool that fosters critical thinking, empathy, and resourcefulness. Using collection assessment techniques, this poster will help one visualize how librarians can use user-centered and collection-centered approaches to create more inclusion, diversity, equity, and access or IDEAS to their libraries. This poster will include complex subjects and topics that some may consider taboo, such as racism and other social justice topics. Intellectuals will walk away armed with how to decolonize and incorporate graphic novels in their multi-campus library collections.
The Hows and Whys of a Board Game Collection in an Academic Library
Track: Metadata & Collections
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Academic libraries have begun to recognize the benefit of offering non-traditional collections like board games to their patrons. Multiple studies have summarized that game play can help learners develop a variety of skills ranging from teamwork to strategic problem solving. Because of this, board games not only provide opportunities for learners to interact socially and relieve stress, but are increasingly being used by instructors as part of their learning plans.
This poster presentation will highlight the process used to assess and expand a board game collection in an academic library setting. It will include images of collection space and learner engagement, statistical representations of circulation/use and other measures, visual displays of LibGuides and ways board games are being incorporated into lesson plans by instructors, and tools used to process games for circulation.
The intended impact of the poster is to encourage those involved in academic libraries to explore the benefits and logistics of incorporating board games into their collections.
Improving Library Discovery: Assessing Practices with the ODI Conformance Checklist for Libraries
Track: Technology
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
The ODI Conformance Checklist for Libraries provides a structured and practical tool for libraries to assess and improve their discovery practices, ultimately leading to a better user experience for library patrons. Employed as an assessment tool, the ODI Checklist supports self assessment, vendor assessment, benchmarking, and continuous improvement. As such, technical service units will benefit from repeating the checklist regularly over time. This poster presents the ODI Conformance Checklist as an internal assessment tool and highlights ways in which we are using its findings to identify and prioritize improvements to discovery workflows and practices.
Layered Powers and Middleness: The Switching of Self in Library Middle Managers
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Middle management in academic libraries is a frequent topic in Library and Information Science literature; but there is a significant gap in LIS literature about middle management as it relates to the psychology of middle power and the effects that being in the middle has on behavior and perception of one’s professional self. Middle managers experience degrees of middleness—that is, where along the continuum of middle power someone with supervisory responsibilities falls in their organization—and often must use vertical code-switching to interact with those above and below in the organizational structure.
Our examination of the middleness phenomenon utilizes a new theory in the field of organizational psychology, the Approach/Inhibition/Avoidance (AIA) Theory of Power. AIA poses individuals who frequently alternate between interacting with higher and lower power sources have psychological experiences unique to their group that cannot be understood within the existing definitions of power.
This poster brings together new theories in organizational psychology and the academic library specifically relating to the experiences of middle managers. Using the results of a recent survey, we will discuss potential interventions that middle managers can use to counter the effects of burnout caused by the situationally constrained behavior necessitated by vertical code-switching.
Libraries Minus Librarians: Automation and the Staffless Model
Track: Buildings & Operations
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
This poster examines the introduction of the staffless model to United States public libraries and argues that staffless libraries enhance the role of surveillance and policing in a manner contrary to the mission of public librarianship; threaten the very essence of what public libraries are, transforming formerly public, community knowledge-seeking spaces into privatized book warehouses; and, following trends in the United Kingdom, may ultimately function as stealth efforts to cull library jobs and budgets. The poster highlights the exclusionary elements built into library automation with images of the technologies used in staffless branches in the US and replications of consent forms issued by libraries using automation, as well as presenting relevant budget and staffing data from UK libraries, charting the diminishment of their budgets since 2010 alongside the rise of widespread staffless implementation throughout the country.
Library “Neutrality”: Best Practices for Library Leaders
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Joshua Becker
For generations libraries have embraced the broad concept of neutrality. The primacy of this ethos is found in ALA’s Bill of Rights and in IFLA’s Charter. In politically divisive times, neutrality’s detachment from social issues has come under fire in many locales. Today, many librarians are skeptical whether maintaining a “passive” stance best serves the needs of their communities.
In library literature, neutrality has long been viewed as an aspirational goal. At its best, neutrality connotes: acting apolitically; eliminating bias; and treating all groups with the same level of care and respect. Yet, vexing questions remain. How does neutrality position itself to respond to disinformation? How will neutrality thoughtfully embrace DEI?
To maintain the best aspects of neutrality, library leaders must set the tone with their staff as well as the larger community. This poster presentation will consider some of the difficulties in applying neutrality in library collections and in user services. Successful practices from a range of different libraries will be highlighted. Finally, this poster will attempt to create a more nuanced and strategic definition of neutrality.
Links, Links Everywhere: Supporting Creation of Reliable Access URLs
Track: Access & Equity
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Creating reliable links to library resources is a challenging task, for patrons and library personnel alike! Databases have different linking requirements, ranging from identifying the correct base URL to revising the URL for remote authentication. Often, databases’ built-in linking features are unreliable, especially for off-campus users. Linking isn’t just a technical issue, it’s an equity issue. To address this challenge, we have developed a dedicated “Linking to Library Resources” guide that includes unique link creation tutorials for each database we support. These linking tutorials appear in our database detailed descriptions, library personnel use them for staff training and reference, and liaison librarians share them with faculty when creating URLs for their courses. This poster presents challenges of creating reliable access URLs, looks at the “Linking to Library Resources” guide and tutorials in detail, and considers different ways this resource can be used to support equitable access to library resources.
Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
The sudden closure of library buildings and physical spaces due to the COVID-19 pandemic spurred academic librarians to devise new ways to support students, most of whom continued their studies remotely. The poster will highlight how three individual academic libraries responded to this health emergency and the lessons learned during this unprecedented time. The three academic libraries are a medium size community college, a medium private college, and a large state university. The poster will also illuminate some strategies and temporary measures instituted in response to the health crisis.
Mentoring Matters: Best Practices for Creating Mentoring Experiences that Support Diversity and Encourage Retention
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Mentoring is widely considered to be one of the most essential tools for providing professional development to colleagues throughout their careers. Within librarianship, the mentorship needs of BIPOC colleagues have been well documented but not thoroughly addressed. Given that the profession has historically been predominantly white, how does an institution create quality mentoring experiences that support the professional needs of librarians of color? The presenters explored that question as they researched the challenges and opportunities for providing successful mentoring experiences for BIPOC librarians when their mentoring partners did not share the same racial and ethnic backgrounds. Based on an extensive literature review, forty-five anonymous questionnaires and nine focused interviews, the presenters focused on the experiences of U.S. librarians in mentoring relationships that crossed racial/ethnic lines. This poster presentation will show the study methodology of this research, the important themes and findings from this study, and provide insights for mentoring program planners or participants.
Oh, CRUD! Retrofitting Systems for Batch Editing Metadata
Track: Technology
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
What do you do when you need to update tens of thousands of metadata records on a digital collections platform that lacks batch editing capabilities? Use Python, along with the Selenium and requests libraries to build custom batch editing systems.
This poster discusses three projects where Iowa State University Library Metadata Services staff used Python to update digital collections metadata on three different platforms. The first used Selenium, a web browser automation library, to add Archival Resource Keys to CONTENTdm records. The second used Selenium to clean-up records on a custom platform built for the Avian Archives of Iowa Online. The third used requests, a library for handling HTTP requests, to manage batch uploads and downloads in Islandora Legacy.
Onboarding in Libraries: an Exploratory Research Survey
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
DeAnn Brame She/Her Assistant Director, NNLM Web Services Office, University of Maryland, Baltimore
The American Library Association (ALA) does not currently have a document with onboarding best practices, and the Academic, Collegiate and Research Libraries (ACRL) has not put out new guidance since 2012. While conversations around onboarding are happening at all levels in libraries, we feel this conversation needs to happen openly and candidly across the profession. Thus, the researchers surveyed library workers from different types of libraries to learn about current onboarding practices and employee satisfaction with those practices. In this poster, the researchers will present preliminary data from their survey, “Onboarding in Libraries: An exploratory research survey” to continue the conversation started with their previous CORE Forum session, “Reflections on Onboarding in Academic Libraries.”
One Form to Rule them All: A Simple Codebase for Streamlined Search Form Creation and Management
Track: Technology
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Justin Barnett
Creating and managing database search forms can feel like a daunting task. Vendor form builders often produce overweight, complex, heavily styled code that may not support remote authentication or meet accessibility standards, are hard to reformat, are easy to break, and stop working the moment the vendor updates the platform. To address these challenges, we have developed a single, streamlined codebase that can be reused to create search forms for most databases that support stable URLs for result lists. Using this codebase, we can quickly create, customize, troubleshoot, and maintain search forms for a variety of databases. Also, our public service librarians can customize these forms more easily without risk of breaking the underlying code. This poster provides a detailed overview to this codebase and offers examples of its use in LibGuides and LibAnswers.
Planning for a Multi-State Workforce Study of Minoritized Academic Library Paraprofessionals: Challenges and Opportunities
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Carolyn F. Norman
Chuck Thomas He/Him/His Dean of Library Services, Western Carolina University
Brandi Hinnant-Crawford
Shamella Cromartie
Martha Kyrillidou
Mark A. Puente
A lack of diversity in the library professional workforce is well-documented. A recent report explained that, “in spite of concerted efforts from major library associations as well as library and information science programs over the last several decades, little progress has been made with respect to representation of racial and ethnic categories that, historically, have been underrepresented within the profession.” These visible minorities” of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx workers have held steady at 10-12% of the library professional workforce for decades while the percentage of minorities as a percentage of the U.S. Population has increased nearly 40% during the same period. This is a problem across all types of libraries, but the American Library Association’s “Diversity Counts” and other studies demonstrated that it is more pronounced in academic libraries. With only minimal improvements despite more than two decades of national efforts to diversify the professional librarian workforce, it is evident more work needs to occur.
The panel will discuss the findings and challenges identified through an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) research planning grant to design a multi-state study of the needs and perspectives of racially under-represented persons working in paraprofessional (“support staff”) jobs in academic libraries.
Prison Labor and Library Furniture: Towards an Ethical Purchasing Policy
Track: Buildings & Operations
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Kevin Adams He/Him/His Information Literacy Librarian, Alfred University
While moving furniture in preparation for the morning opening, a university librarian glanced down and saw a chair’s manufacturing label bearing the name of a known Department of Corrections manufacturer that uses prison labor to produce its goods. Higher education’s involvement with the prison industrial complex (PIC) is well documented, as is the PIC’s disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities. Many university procurement policies, following state law, list a department of corrections manufacturer as the top preferred vendor. But what does this mean when a higher education institution is undergoing a renovation – or simply looking to swap out a new set of lounge furniture? What rules apply?
In this session, we will share our libraries’ relationship with the PIC, specifically around manufacturing prison labor. We will cover our patron furniture audit, particularly our approach to the institution’s building and spaces, as well as our data analysis. We will share past and current procurement policies and contracts, identifying roadblocks when liaising with our business office. Finally, we will share our hurdles and successes in pursuing an ethical-driven purchasing policy for the university libraries and wider campus.
Setting Ourselves Up for Success: Starting a New Mentor Training Program
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
After completing an expensive renovation and coming out of a pandemic lockdown, both of which necessitated hiring freezes, our library has begun recruiting and hiring its first new librarians and archivists in many years. We have also hired our first ACRL Diversity Fellows. It has been nearly a decade since we have had a formal mentoring program in this library. The institution to which we belong has also started looking at establishing mentoring programs for faculty. Several studies indicate that training mentors can lead to greater success for mentoring efforts, and we coordinated our first mentor training program this year. This poster will cover the model we set up as well as other options to consider when creating training for mentors in your library.
Shifting the OER landscape
Track: Access & Equity
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free to use, edit, and distribute, and there are many efforts in the United States and around the globe to develop robust materials that save students money and promote student success. These efforts are extremely valuable. It was originally believed that OER would have a great impact on the Global South, by providing free access to educational materials, but this isn’t always the case. Materials tend to be created by Westerners in English and they are not always culturally contextual or relevant. In an effort to create more inclusive OER, Open Society University Network (OSUN) is taking steps to provide opportunities to faculty members and students from the Global South to develop inclusive and relevant OER. OSUN offers small grants to fund the adaptation, adoption, and creation of OER and actively encourages the co-creation of materials between faculty and students. Special attention is paid to the development of materials in languages other than English and digital media creation. Materials are deposited in our institutional repository for global use. Thus far, we have seen positive results from this project.
Skin in the Game: Strategies for Increasing Advisory Board Engagement
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Has your library advisory board been languishing since the pandemic? Is survey fatigue making it difficult to get quality input and feedback? This session will provide strategies to increase participation, enthusiasm, and engagement among advisory board members. Results are based on a 2022 study of academic librarians who facilitate advisory groups, as well as a case study from the presenter’s institution.
Snack Size Leadership: Using Peer-to-Peer Professional Development to Create Leadership Opportunities for All
Track: Leadership & Management
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
How can you create a culture of continuous learning and encourage librarians to share expertise with their colleagues, all without taking up too much of people’s valuable time? Consider a peer-to-peer model of professional development! Find out how a librarian at a community college started a monthly learning series called Teaching in Twenty, where librarians received a text to read or watch in about twenty minutes and then met to discuss. The initial goal for the program was to create an easily digestible, practical learning opportunity to encourage librarians to deepen their teaching practice and rebuild some of the community that was lost over the last few years. A happily unanticipated outcome, however, was that other librarians were also able to share their knowledge and vision in areas beyond teaching, helping spread the workload around and providing everyone a chance at leadership. After two years of evolution, the program has helped librarians improve their individual practice as well as view their colleagues as leaders in their own areas of expertise. Learn how the program was developed, how it has evolved, and how you might be able to implement a similar program at your own institution.
Started From the Bottom: Growing from a Tableau License to an Analytics Program, One Step at a Time
Track: Technology
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
My proposed poster will detail how, over the past decade, my organization has gone from one-off experiments with Tableau to a full analytics program with multiple visualization designers, data manipulators and audiences. It will offer guideposts and suggestions for each step of program maturity, and will include resources for growing a program from individual projects to a cohesive set of regularly updated visualizations. Tips will include methods for finding and preparing data; training designers and viewers; validating data; automating updates; creating a cohesive design and style; and collaborating across organizations. I hope to provide guidance and reassurance to librarians who may be at the beginning of their data visualization journeys by sharing lessons I have learned throughout the process. I also hope to create conversation around how data analytics programs best complement other forms of library assessment and evaluation, and what they cannot do.
Transforming CORE Facilities – the University of Illinois’ Library Building Program
Track: Buildings & Operations
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Meg Kindelin
This presentation explores the process for transforming a mid-century modern general library into a contemporary archives and special collections building. Within the context of a broader building program, the presentation team examines planning for the transformation of two buildings as well as the management components of a project that involved librarians and archivists; the university’s capital projects team; and campus stakeholders. Beginning with the initial project vision, picking up with conceptual design, and moving through the early construction phases, the presentation will address communications planning, early programming efforts, attempts to identify and address access and inclusion issues, and the institutional interest in ensuring that the project’s first phase resulted in not only a successful special collections building, but one that was welcoming, well-integrated into the campus, and visible to its user community. Moreover, the program navigated transitioning architectural firms after completing conceptual design and managed to continue through subsequent planning phases through a pandemic that required almost 100% remote effort. Situated within the context of a multi-phased, decades-long renovation and construction program, this project anticipates improving access to facilities considered accessible in name only while establishing a preservation environment that will house irreplaceable collections for decades to come.
User-friendly content management for collaborative web projects
Track: Technology
Friday, October 20, 2023 2:00 pm
Static site generators (SSG) such as Jekyll, Eleventy, and Next.js are common tools for creating custom websites for digital scholarship and other collaborative projects. They are fast, secure, lightweight, and easy to develop. But static sites often lack robust, native content management systems, and that can pose challenges for managing the pipeline of data and content from the researcher to the web team. We will share a series of these content management tools including Notion, Google Apps, AirTable, and Sanity. They range from the simple and quick to learn to the complex and powerful, but all can provide easy-to-use interfaces to support scholars in sharing their work. We will discuss each tools’ capabilities, limitations, and use cases, and how they improve workflows for collaborative projects— and give more power to the scholars and content creators driving the work.
Using Cross-Functional Teams to Break Down Silos in Library Organizations
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Many larger libraries are traditionally organized into discrete departments that often have little to no interaction. This poster demonstrates how one mid-sized library (30 librarians and professional staff) used cross-functional teams to encourage staff to interact in new ways. The teams also helped develop leadership and project management skills in team members who were not currently in library leadership roles. The cross-functional teams benefited the entire library by tackling projects that did not have specific people or committees assigned to do them due to the smaller size of the library staff. In the poster we will present what we believe made our approach unique and our keys to success including mandatory participation and assigning leadership positions to staff with no formal supervisory role in the organization. Because key infrastructural projects were completed by the cross-functional teams it fostered ownership and shared governance among the entire library. Examples of cross-functional teams were:
Social event planning
Professional development
Shared file organization and clean up
Website improvement
Library exhibits
Policy review
LibGuide review
Video Tutorial review
What if we try it? Asking the right questions to advance new initiatives
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
Academic libraries remain relevant not only through our materials, resources, and spaces, but also through the services we provide and the expertise we offer. To this end, librarians regularly try out new ideas or initiatives to engage and support their campus community. These ideas may be low stakes, a crafting project for example, or high impact such as promoting open educational resources. From the smallest program to a campus-wide initiative managers must decide which ideas to advocate for and which ideas may not be feasible. As a manager who supports innovation, I have found asking a set series of questions to be an effective method for evaluating new ideas. Being able to articulate answers to these questions creates a stronger pitch for any proposed initiative. If an initiative is piloted, re-asking the questions can help assess whether it was a success, what improvements could be made, or if the program should be discontinued. While this session is based on my experiences in academic libraries, the general principles could be applied to new programs at any type of library.
What’s your offer? An overview of current academic library compensation packages
Track: Leadership & Management
Saturday, October 21, 2023 10:00 am
This program will be based on an analysis of all academic library job announcements posted on the ALA job list from January-February 2023 to identify the most frequently mentioned components of the compensation packages being offered. The review will cover items such as starting salary, leave, opportunities for remote or flexible work schedules, professional growth opportunities and other benefits that are explicitly mentioned in recruitment notices. The information collected will be analyzed to identify current practices overall as well as variations by region, type of institution, and experience requirements. The goal of the analysis will be for administrators to get a quick overview of current practices or trends related to recruitment/compensation packages for benchmarking and potentially updating their own practices to be responsive to the workplace conditions that are most relevant and desirable to new generations of job applicants. The information collected could also be valuable for persuading campus administrators to reconsider current policies that may be limiting a library’s ability to be competitive in their recruitment efforts. Job hunters could find the information and analysis valuable for negotiating effective and meaningful compensation packages.
Speaker Bios
Jeremy Keen Abbott
He/Him
Jeremy Abbott (he/him) is a librarian and lawyer, currently pursuing a doctorate in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies where he researches the “public” in public libraries, examining spatial control, legal infrastructures of information, and how we can build more just and inclusive visions of both information access and the civic public. His other research interests include epistemic justice, the political economy of homelessness, and decarcerating libraries.
Kevin Adams
He/Him/His
My name is Kevin and my practice focuses on information literacy. My research focus is critical librarianship, including critical information literacy, open pedagogy, and abolitionist approaches to librarianship. My current research and practice outside of library instruction has been on the relationship between the Prison Industrial Complex and academic libraries.
Katie Bishop
She/Her
Katie Bishop is the Director of Research, Access, and Instruction Services, Humanities Librarian, and Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She holds a BA in English from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, an MA in American Studies from the University of Iowa, and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois. Her research interests include instruction, assessment, and managing change. She is active in the faculty union, UNO AAUP, having served on the Executive Committee and on the Bargaining Team.
Hali Black
She/Her/Hers
Hali Black is the First Year Experience Librarian and Learning Design Coordinator at the University of Southern Mississippi and managing editor for Mississippi Libraries (http://www.misslib.org/publications). In her role as the FYE Librarian, Black provides research assistance, library instruction, and outreach with a focus on first-year and transfer students. As a librarian, Black aspires to make libraries safe, inclusive, and welcoming spaces for everyone. Having earned the distinction of being an ACUE credentialed educator and distinguished teaching scholar by the American Council on Education, Black is passionate about student-centered learning, equitable access, and inclusive pedagogy. Her research interests include information literacy, UDL, game-based learning, the first-year experience, students in transition, and the role of the library in student success.
DeAnn Brame
She/Her
DeAnn Brame (she/her) is the Assistant Director of the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Web Services Office, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She holds an MBA from Winthrop University and an MLS from North Carolina Central University. DeAnn is passionate about human-centered leadership and making the workplace a better environment for librarians. DeAnn recently completed her time as a 2022-23 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Leadership and Career Development Fellow (LCDP). Her current research includes exploring onboarding in libraries and furthering the conversation around its importance.
Moddie V. Breland Jr., Ed.D.
He/Him/His
Moddie V. Breland Jr.. Ed.D., MSLS., M.Div., has been a full-time faculty member at Mercy University Libraries in Westchester, New York, since 2016 and is currently the Director of Libraries. As Director of Libraries, Dr. Breland is responsible for providing leadership in operational planning and formulating and implementing goals, policies, and procedures for library services. He has over 20 years of managerial experience in academic libraries. Since joining Mercy, Dr. Breland has served as a Reference & Instruction librarian, Branch Head Librarian, and library faculty liaison to the School of Education. His scholarly interests are information technology, library professional development, and the relationship between library instruction and student success.
Cara Calabrese
She/Her
Cara Calabrese is the Acquisitions & Access Librarian at Miami University Libraries. She received her MLIS from Florida State University in 2015 and began her librarian career as a Resident Librarian in Technical Services. She has worked in various areas of Technical Services, but recently has focused on acquisitions and electronic resources. She currently serves as the Chair of the ALA Core Budget and Finance Committee, and Co-Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
Heather Campbell
She/Her
Currently the head of Metadata Services at Iowa State University, I have a background in metadata creation and remediation for digital collections.
Maribel Castro
Ella, She
Maribel Castro is the Electronic Resources Management Librarian for Excelsior University. She is a graduate of the University of North Texas College of Information and an accomplished leader in libraries and technology who has served her profession as President of the Texas Library Association and two presidential steering committees for the American Library Association. She is passionate about making information accessible to all through digital technologies.
May Chang
May Chang is the Library Chief Technology Officer at University of Cincinnati, with more than 15 years work experience in ICT and libraries. Her professional and research interests include digital transformation of organizations, digital competency and literacy, and IoT and smart and connected communities. She views technology as a tool that can connect people and be a positive driver of change for citizen well-being. She is an active member of IFLA as IT Section Mentor and Library Buildings & Equipment Section Committee Member. She also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Library Hi Tech.
Melissa Chim
Melissa Chim is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at Excelsior University. She co-authored with Anne Silver the OER textbook entitled Living Archives: The History of the Center for Christian Spirituality. She is a SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow (2022-2023) and her research interests include open education, institutional repositories, and teaching with primary sources.
Kristina Clement
She/Her/Hers
Kristina Clement, MA, MSIS, is the Student Outreach and Sponsored Programs Librarian and Librarian Assistant Professor for the Kennesaw State University Library System and is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education. She regularly works with transfer students, first-generation students, veterans, and other non-traditional populations to help them find their home in the library. As the former Student Success Librarian and Director of the Personal Librarian Program at the University of Wyoming, Kristina has served in several middle and parallel management roles. Kristina enjoys presenting and publishing about Universal Design for Learning in library instruction, outreach to transfer students and first-generation students, middle management in libraries, open educational resources, and the faux-equity of the one-shot model of information literacy instruction.
Anders C. Dahlgren
As a library building consultant, Anders has planned and prepared program for more than 5 million square feet of library space. He has consulted on library building projects ranging in size from 2,000 square feet to 350,000 square feet across the country and abroad. For 40 years, he has actively participated in the Building and Operations Section, serving on and/or chairing multiple committees and as a past section chair. He has represented ALA on the Library Building Award jury six times, more than anyone in the history of the program.
V. Emily Cranwell Deinert
She/Her
V. Emily Cranwell Deinert is a Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian at the University of Maryland and a graduate of the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Sciences. Her research interests include onboarding practices in libraries and book history.
Eamon Duffy
He/Him
Eamon Duffy is the Head of Liaison Services at McGill University’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library. He has worked at McGill since 2007 in a variety of roles, including history and government documents liaison librarian. He is a former President of the Quebec Library Association.
Autumn Faulkner
She/Her
Autumn Faulkner (MLIS, 2011) supervises a 10-person team and oversees cataloging workflows at Michigan State University Libraries. She also teaches classification and subject analysis courses for a regional cooperative. Her interests include library workplace culture and management as well as critical cataloging.
Charles Forrest
He/Him/His
Charles Forrest has more than thirty-five years of experience in academic and research libraries. After nearly a decade with the University of Illinois libraries in both Chicago and Urbana-Champaign, he went to Emory University in 1988 where he held a series of administrative positions in the Library, including director of instructional support services, director of planning and budget, and most recently director of library facilities. He served as library project manager for many library construction and renovation projects at Emory, including the Center for Library and Information Resources, a major addition to and renovation of Emory’s main library. Charles retired from the University in May 2016.
Charles has served as a library juror for the American Institute of Architects/American Library Association Library Building Awards, the American Library Association/International Interior Design Association biennial Library Building Awards, and Library Journal’s “New Landmark Libraries (Academic)” series. A published author and consultant, Charles is a regular presenter at conferences, workshops and institutes. He is currently principal and owner of 21st Century Libraries Consulting (21CLC) in Asheville, North Carolina.
Nancy Garmer
She/Her/Hers
Nancy Garmer is the Interim Dean of Libraries at Florida Institute of Technology’s Evans Library and the program coordinator for the university’s QEP II, a co-curricular undergraduate certificate in Cultural Competency. Ms. Garmer joined FL Tech in 2015 as a Public Services Specialist from a Library Director position with Brevard County Public Libraries. In current roles, Nancy serves as an Honors College Fellow; Title IX Appeals Officer and Advisor; Northeast Florida Library Information Network (NEFLIN) Board Member and Chair of the City of Melbourne Babcock Street CRA Advisory Committee in addition to a multitude of other professional, cultural and leadership-oriented university and community committees focused on user experience, scholarship, DEI and sustainability. https://www.fit.edu/faculty-profiles/g/garmer-nancy/
Kelsey Geller
She/Her
Kelsey Geller is an Associate Cataloging Specialist at the University of Southern Mississippi. In this position, she performs complex edit cataloging of monographic materials in multiple formats, primarily for Special Collections. She holds a Master of Science in Information and a graduate certificate in Information Architecture, both from Florida State University.
Tiffney Gipson-Goodwin
She/Her/Hers
Tiffney-Gipson Goodwin is currently one of two Associate Directors for the University of Louisville Kornhauser Health Sciences Library where her focus is on collection development and the technical services department. She has worked for UofL for 19 years holding various positions within the library.
Marlee Givens
She/Her
Marlee Givens is Team Lead for Instruction and Research and a subject librarian at Georgia Tech. She supports faculty and student teaching, learning and scholarship, provides classroom and online instruction, and facilitates learning for library employees. A library professional since 1994, Marlee holds an MLS from the University of Maryland and two training certificates from the Association for Talent Development (ATD). Marlee has been a member of Core (previously LLAMA) since 2017.
Anita R. Hall
She/Her
Anita Hall is the Assessment & Analytics Librarian at the University of Louisville Libraries. Prior to UofL she worked in a variety of academic libraries large and small, with a focus on assessment as the throughline.
Meggan A. Houlihan
She/Her
Meggan Houlihan is the Director of the OSUN Library Resources Program at Open Society University Network and previously held leadership roles at Colorado State University, New York University Abu Dhabi, and the American University in Cairo. Her research interests include information literacy, international students, open educational resources, and the use of evidence synthesis methods in LIS. She is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Reading.
Ken Irwin
He/Him
Ken Irwin is a Web Services Librarian at Miami University. He is interested in developing open-source solutions to solve challenging library issues and to make the most of our resources. His projects have included a personalized research dashboard, tools for managing and analyzing the use of library collections, a mechanism for “checking out” software licenses, and a game to improve students’ skills at understanding book and journal citations. He is also the co-chair of the Libraries’ Inclusive Excellence strategic plan and is committed to furthering the Libraries’ diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals.
Melissa A. Laning
She/Her/Hers
Melissa Laning has been a faculty member at the University of Louisville Libraries for close to 40 years. In her current position as Associate Dean, she has responsibilities for faculty affairs, assessment, communications and web services.
Jennifer Lau-Bond
She/Her/Hers
Jennifer is a full-time faculty member at Harper College, a community college in the Chicago suburbs, where she coordinates the library and information literacy instruction program. Previously, she worked in several types of academic libraries, as well as a public library, a science library, an archive, and an organization educating graduate students in Library Science. She has also taught online college courses in critical thinking, writing, and technology. Jennifer has a Master of Science of Information specializing in Library and Information Services from the University of Michigan and a Master of Training and Development specializing in Instructional Design in Higher Education from Roosevelt University. Her professional interests include distance learning, instructional design, and incorporating social justice concepts in instruction.
Dana Lema
She/Her
I received my MLIS from San Jose State University in San Jose, California. While getting my degree, I did an internship and grad student work for San Jose State University in the Special Collections & Archives department. After graduation, I began my library career with the San Jose Public Library system. Throughout my coursework and early career, I became interested in the technical/core aspects of librarianship and used my interest and skills to move into the role of Electronic Resources Librarian for the public library system. In 2022, I was hired as an Assistant Librarian and serve as the Discovery Unit Lead in Collection Services for University of Arizona Libraries in beautiful Tucson, Arizona.
Emily MacKenzie
She/Her
Emily MacKenzie has been Head Librarian of McGill University’s Macdonald Campus Library since 2015. Prior to this, she served as a liaison librarian for approximately 7 years (at McGill’s downtown campus and at the Macdonald Campus). Her main professional interests include information literacy, and library management.
Sara Mannheimer
She/Her
As Associate Professor and Data Librarian at Montana State University, Sara helps shape practices and theories for curation, publication, and preservation of data. Her research examines the social, ethical, and technical issues of a data-driven world.
Amanda McLeod
She/Her/Hers
Amanda McLeod is the Social Sciences & Government Information Librarian at Clemson University Libraries. Her research interests include collaborative approaches to librarianship and outreach, government information and open education, and the impact of onboarding practices in libraries.
Holly Miller
She/Her
Holly Miller has been the Electronic Resources Librarian at University of Southern Mississippi since June 2022 and before that she was Dean of Libraries at Florida Institute of Technology where she led projects to develop Florida Tech’s Scholarship Repository, established an Open Access Subvention Fund to promote open access publishing, and implemented an electronic thesis submission and preservation procedure. Holly earned a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Bloomsburg University, a PhD in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University, and a MLIS from Syracuse University.
Jenna Miller
She/Her
Jenna Miller is a cataloger with the Library System of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. While her main job duty is adding new books to the collection, she also works with metadata to increase access and discoverability. She first studied medieval history before attending the University of Illinois to go into Library science. Jenna is also a world traveler and photographer, experimenting with many types of photo techniques. She spends her free time playing video games and hanging out with her two cats.
Jeffrey M. Mortimore
He/Him/His
Jeff Mortimore serves as Discovery Services Librarian at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. Jeff’s current interests include the impact of library automation on the discovery-to-delivery process and its ramifications for scholarly communications practice.
Maurine Nichols
She/Her
Maurine has been with the University of Houston since 2021. Her work has centered primarily on acquisitions and collection development, and her career has included positions in public, academic health sciences, university, and special libraries.
Maria Planansky
She/Her/Hers
Maria Planansky is the Collection Management Librarian at Alfred University. She is an active member of the libraries’ Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression working group, and her research interests focus on critical cataloging.
Latisha Reynolds
She/Her
Latisha Reynolds is Assistant Head of Research Assistance & Instruction, and Director of DEI Initiatives at Ekstrom Library. She is a subject librarian for various disciplines within humanities and social sciences areas. Her professional and research interests include mentoring, diversity, leadership, information literacy, collection development, interdisciplinary collaboration, scholarly publishing, and other topics.
Megan Riley
She/They
Megan Riley is a doctoral student in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies focusing on the political economy and history of US public libraries. She graduated UCLA’s MLIS program in 2020, focusing on labor issues in LIS, special collections and archives, and where they were co-president of SAA @ UCLA and co-chair of UCLA’s SCA student chapter, 2019-2020. Megan is committed to anti-carceral libraries and information access for incarcerated people and organizes around these issues with the Abolitionist Library Association and For the People. Their personal hobbies and interests include crosswords, basketball, surfing, and knitting.
Nausicaa Leigh Rose
She/They
Nausicaa Leigh Rose is a metadata librarian at Iowa State University.
Regina Seguin
She/Her
Regina Seguin is the Open Education Librarian at Excelsior University. Prior to May 2023, she was a Librarian at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Her interests include zero textbook cost initiatives and open pedagogical practices, especially as they relate to teaching and learning information literacy with non-traditional college students and adult learners.
Manda Sexton
She/They
Manda Sexton is the Director of Organizational Strategy, Communications, and Outreach at the Kennesaw State University Libraries. She has a keen interest in library assessment, ethics, and value as well as the power of a good story when promoting the library. She has authored many articles and book chapters including, “Tracking and Recording Progress Toward Strategic Goals” in “Leading Change in Academic Libraries” and the upcoming “The Multiple Selves of the Middle Manager” in “Person-Centered Management in Academic Libraries.” When not working on her doctorate or leading organizational change, you can find her with a good romance book or getting lost in the woods.
Antone Sgro
He/Him
Antone is a designer who combines his penchant for problem solving with his love for libraries. He believes today’s libraries are vital community centers — where multipurpose spaces and dedicated staff members can serve a variety of users. To uncover the unique needs of each community, Antone leads listening sessions and collaborates closely with his clients. For Antone, libraries aren’t simply a collection of resources, they’re an opportunity to inspire.
Steve Shapiro
Steven Shapiro is Electronic Resources Librarian at Harry A. Sprague Library. He administers all aspects of the Library’s large array of electronic resources including databases, reference collections and streaming audio and video products. He handles contract negotiations with vendors and consortia and provides technical support to faculty and students experiencing database access issues. In addition, he arranges trials of new electronic resources for faculty to evaluate and review. He also manages the Library’s discovery service. He is past-president of ACRL/NJ (NJLA/College & University Section) and continues to be active professionally. He has contributed articles to several professional library journals including Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, which is devoted to issues and practices of electronic resource management and Library Hi-Tech News. He has presented at a number of different conferences including NJEdge.net, NJLA, and VALE on the topic of marketing electronic resources.
Steve earned his B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology from Lafayette College, M.L.S. from University of Maryland, and M.A. in Social Sciences/History from Montclair State.
Yasmeen Shorish
She/Her
Yasmeen Shorish is a Professor and Director of Scholarly Communications Strategies at James Madison University Libraries. Her research focuses on epistemological justice in scholarly communications, data ethics and privacy, and the relationship between information access and power and privilege. She is part of the Mellon-funded “Collections as Data: Part to Whole” grant team, the IMLS-funded “Responsible AI” grant team, and serves on the ACRL Board of Directors and the SPARC Steering Committee.
Diana Simpson
She/Her
Diana Simpson is the Catalog Librarian in the Technical Services Department at the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries.
Lori Spradley
She/Her
Lori Spradley is an Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian at Auburn University. She received her MLIS from LSU’s School of Library and Information Science and an additional master’s in Museum Studies with a concentration in new technology and archives from Southern University in New Orleans. Lori has also presented at local and national conferences on embedded librarianship, literature review strategies in human sciences, and graphic novels. She began her library career as a Media Specialist/Librarian for school systems in Louisiana, where she helped hone student research skills in the classroom. Lori Spradley also managed library circulation at Baton Rouge Community College. She taught Library User Instruction at Delgado Community College and LSU Health in New Orleans before she accepted her position at Auburn University.
Brent C. Swearingen
Brent Swearingen currently serves as the director of the Excelsior University Library. Formerly, he was the Director of Technical Services at Northeastern State University and Director of Library Services at John Brown University. Brent holds an Ed.D. in adult and lifelong learning from the University of Arkansas and received his M.S. in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Thomas H. Teper
He/His
Thomas Teper is the Associate University Librarian for Collections and Technical Services and Associate Dean of Libraries at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prof. Teper oversees acquisitions, coordinates collection development and management activities, oversees technical services activities, and works closely with representatives from consortial partners at the University, state, and regional level, as well as the University Library’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Prior to joining the Library’s administrative team, Prof. Teper served as the University Library’s first Head of Preservation, overseeing the early development of its preservation program. He has published and presented on topics related to preservation, collection development, and consortial relations, and chaired the HathiTrust’s Print Monograph Archive Planning Task Force.
Most recently, Prof. Teper has coordinated the Library’s work related to a multi-phase renovation program that is starting with the Archives and Special Collections building.
Chuck Thomas
He/Him/His
Chuck Thomas leads the library at Western Carolina University. He completed an MSLIS in Archival Administration at UNC-Chapel Hill (1996) and completed all doctoral work except the dissertation at Florida State University’s College of Infromation (2008). Over the past thirty years he has worked in a variety of professional roles at institutions including Louisiana State University, University of Minnesota, Florida State University, Florida Center for Library Automation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the USMAI academic library consortium in Maryland.
Karen Venturella
She/Her
Karen Venturella is a librarian at Union College of Union County, New Jersey. She is responsible for Acquisitions and serves as the library liaison to the Humanities Division. She used to serve on ALA SRRT and edited a book titled “Poor People and Library Services.”
Natalie Waters
She/Her
Natalie has twenty years of experience in leading and managing the delivery of library and information services to users in all of McGill’s science and engineering Faculties, at both McGill’s Macdonald and Downtown campuses. Her research interests have centered on instruction, collections, and management issues. Natalie is an active member of the library and university communities and has held leadership roles in several professional associations.
Emily Webster
She/Her
Elizabeth Webster is the liaison to the College of Education at Michigan State University. She is also the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Librarian, with a special interest in diverse children’s and young adult literature. In addition to her MLIS, she has an MA in Teaching and spent a decade teaching ESL abroad and domestically.
As a librarian and teacher, Elizabeth prioritizes the user in her work. This user-centered approach is a defining principle of her practice and drives her professional interests, hence her poster at this conference.
Things Elizabeth loves, in no particular order: travel, being outside (gardening, dining al fresco, hiking, whatever), reading & books, her friends & family, her dog, music, the beach, and New Orleans.
Krystal Wyatt-Baxter
Krystal Wyatt-Baxter leads the Assessment, User Experience and Communication team at the University of Texas Libraries, where she works with her team to combine user-focused research and assessment with effective communication to improve user experiences and share the story of the University of Texas Libraries
Jerry Yarnetsky
He/Him/His
Jerry Yarnetsky is a web services librarian at Miami University of Ohio where he focuses on user experience, information architecture, and accessibility. He also regularly teaches a course on interaction design and development at Miami. He’s previously worked as a librarian and interim library director at Montgomery County (Pa.) Community College and as a journalist/editor in a previous career.