Following the opening keynote, a number of concurrent sessions took place.

Data, Disruption, and Defense:: A Collaborative Approach to Cybersecurity in Academic Libraries

This session featured discussions about a Collaborative Approach to Cybersecuritly in Academic Libraries. Over half of higher ed institutions hit by ransomware paid to get their data back.

Why has there been a marked increase in recent attacks? Academic institutions have underfunded their security. They are a rich source of information and private data, and they tend to use new and untested technologies. Cyber attackers find it easier to get info from institutions with a .edu website. Often we don't know exactly how attacks happened. Who is really responsible for security in an organization with a variety of technologies?

What types of information and assets can be at risk? Users' addresses, phone, student IDs, credit cards, etc. Also institutional assets such as budget data and licensed content. It often takes a long time to restore the data.. The biggest effect is a loss of access to resources because some systems are no longer supported.

What role do content providers/library vendors play in mitigating risk? Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. We are all interested in protecting content which is a large target for attacks. We must work together to help educate users and prevent disruptions. Accurate data is important, so content providers must work to make sure their data is accurate.

Is there anything we can do to not pay the ransom? Collaboration is the key. Many organizations want to cure the difficulty fast and as quietly as possible. Implementing stronger defenses can help recover without paying. We need to find a way to establish backup storage that is not connected to the internet. Transparency about how the attacks happened is important. A forum to collect data on attacks would be useful. Local law enforcement may have a role to play.

What steps should libraries take to mitigate risks? Many institutions still use EZProxy. Some of those installations are very secure. IP addresses are not as secure. Federated access provides higher security. The Scholarly Network Security Initiative (www.SNSI.info) is a group working together to combat the threat of cybercrime.

Revolutionizing Librarianship in the Digital Age: Enhancing AI and New Realities

Do institutions have a policy on using AI? Some of them have recommendations for faculty to encourage students to use LLMs. Many students publish articles during their courses and use AI to edit their manuscripts. An "integrity officer" at some schools deals with plagiarism and use of AI. It's important to be transparent about how you use AI. In a consortium. General policies on how staff members use AI can be developed using the following procedures:

1. Read the journal's "instructions to authors" before submitting a manuscript.
2. Disclose if you used AI.
3. Publishers should set expectations for authors to follow. They use tools to detect plagiarism, etc.

There is always a tension between fair use and copyright in the dissemination of information. Some LLM systems just reproduce the data that has been used to train them. This will be messy for a long time. Users are still using the systems; how is their behavior changing as they use the databases? How will people approach the systems and interact with them? For example, in a medical school, doctors see AI as a time saving tool.

How can we engage students in synthesizing knowledge without using ChatGPT? We need to teach them to understand the structure of an article and use critical thinking? The book, Mastering AI, (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is very useful.

Publishers anticipate the use of their sites to drop as AI becomes more widespread. How will this play out in libraries? Is traffic to a website the end goal for content providers? AI is impacting how people engage with content. Metadata will become more important in understanding content usage. AI tools are only as good as the data they get. If users over rely on AI, does that affect their critical thinking skills? AI has raised the profile of information as a commodity and resource. It is very helpful for non-English speaking faculty and helps them to write better articles.

Mining For Diamonds: Challenges and Opportunities for US and non-APC Open Access Journals

This slide provides a definition and some characteristics of Diamond OA journals

What about diamond OA in the US? A survey using subject keywords from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)  classified journals by subject. About half of them are diamond (no-fee). Disciplines represented: HSS 69%, STEM 31%. Here is a tag cloud showing the subjects covered:

According to Joanna Ball: Managing Director of the DOAJ, it lists over 21,000 journals, all of which have applied to be indexed.and must meet DOAJ's criteria. After a review a decision whether to index is made. Feedback is given to publisher/editor if they are rejected. Journals without APCs are slightly more liable to be rejected.  The main reasons for rejecting a title are licensing or copyright mismatch, misleading impact factors, not enough research content, and ISSN issues, Equal standards apply for Diamond or APC journals, but is support equal? Journals are constantly reviewed and evaluation criteria are adjusted Libraries play a vital role in advising journals on getting into DOAJ.  

Christopher Hollister discusssed the challenges confronting editors of North American no-fee OA journals. The leading one was indexing or dissemination (60%).  Current challenges include succession planning and plagiarism. Sustainability challenges with Diamond OA arise from invisible labor, insufficient infrastructure, and limited funding.

Catherine Mitchell from the California Digital Library (CDL) eScholarship publishing program noted that it was started in response to increasing subscription prices in the early 2000s and the boycott of Elsevier. The library is an equitable diamond OA publisher. We can share new resources with subscribers, many of which are in communities that are not served by standard publishers. Diamond OA has sustainability challenges. We need to find way to sustainably support journals that do not qualify to be in the DOAJ. 

Donald T. Hawkins, Conference Blogger