By Leah Hinds, Executive Director, Charleston Hub

(Link to report from Day One)

Day Two: Thursday, March 16

Thursday was technically the second day of the conference but the first full day of conference content. The theme “Forging the Future” was evident in the content of conference sessions, as well as many plays on the location of Pittsburgh being the “City of Bridges.” Overarching themes of diversity, equity and inclusion, accessibility, promoting underrepresented voices in leadership, and forward/future thinking for academic and research libraries were broadly represented in the presentation topics.

The first session I attended was “Problems and Possibilities for Integrating Recorded Video Content into Scholarly Publications,” presented by Dylan Ruediger, Program Manager at Ithaka S+R. This contributed paper discussed the possibilities and pitfalls of conference recorded presentations as a scholarly output. Naturally, this topic was of great interest to me! There were several business models for turning conference materials into a product, from making it a benefit of conference registration, to a stand-alone purchase, to putting everything out there for free on YouTube.

Dylan addressed the value of conference materials (early stage research made available to speed the rate of progress and discovery, and increased equity/accessibility), as well as some of the potential harms (loss of context, security provided by closed-nature of in person presentations, and reduction of risk taking in presenting new, unrefined theories or works). He also discussed questions of copyright and IP, including a story about his wife who was presenting at another conference this week and had worked into her contract that the session not be recorded but it was advertised to attendees that it would be recorded. He closed with some considerations for libraries should use when deciding whether to license conference content:

1. Supply and Demand – as conferences return to in-person formats, the demand for recordings may have peaked.
2. Discipline Matters – fast moving fields like computer science, medicine, etc, may benefit from targeted acquisitions.

The full paper is available here.

Up next was my favorite session format, the Lighting Talks. Lightning Talk 1 included four presentations of 5 minutes each, back to back, with Q&A at the end for each speaker. Topics covered included student creation of LibGuides, analyzing the ACRL framework for data literacy, creating new data reference models using existing support structures, and academic library support of first generation college students. Although there was no moderator, the presenters did a great job of setting things up, keeping the timing running smoothly, and fielding questions at the end.

During the refreshment break in the exhibit hall, I was able to browse the poster sessions. These were very well attended, with lots of discussion and conversation happening with presenters. I particularly liked the posters who incorporated interactive elements, such as QR codes to polls or surveys, or to full survey results; sticker charts that let attendees answer questions in a way that was visible to other attendees walking by (see photo below), as well as fun handouts and giveaways.

After lunch was a standing-room-only presentation on Hot Topics in Copyright for College and Research Libraries, presented by Jim Neal, University Librarian Emertius at Columbia University, Timothy Vollmer from UC Berkeley, and Alan Inouye from the ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office. Some of the topics covered were the Controlled Digital Lending/Internet Archives case, text and data mining and articifical intelligence, Congress committees and recently lost allies there, and contract preemption. It was noted by Alan Inouye that a workshop will be held in May, hosted by American University and co-sponsored by ALA and ARL, that will be important in generating new ideas and starting a policy push.

Up next was Poster Session 2, with another great group of poster presentations that was also well attended. I was able to connect with Steven Bell (one of our regular ATG Blog contributors!) at his fascinating poster on the impact of a green roof on student study spaces in the library.

The session on determining student attitudes towards ebooks pre- and post-COVID was intriguing, as it demonstrated how to critically examine student preferences for eBooks in an academic setting in order to apply information to collections budgeting and purchasing decisions. Student use of eBooks went way up during the pandemic lockdowns, but do students still show a preference for them now?

Lightning Talk 4 included a variety of presentation topics, such as concept maps, an OER textbook remix that didn’t go as planned, using small grants to increase faculty-librarian interaction, and critical health literacy programs in academic libraries.

Check back tomorrow for updates from Day 3!