2020 Conference Agenda & Presentations

In response to the COVID-19 precautions and UNC system policies, the 2020 NC Serials Conference was cancelled. This page reflects the planned agenda for that conference.

All sessions are scheduled in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−04:00)

8:15am - 8:45am: Continental Breakfast / Conference Packet Pickup

8:45am - 9:00am: Welcoming Remarks

9:00am - 10:00am: Keynote Address

Open Access Incrementalism Has Failed. Uniting Principles With Buying Power to Advance Open Access at the University of California - Kristin Antelman, University Librarian at UC Santa Barbara

The University of California began pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to advance open access scholarship with its 2018 Pathways to Open Access roadmap for our ten campuses. A major initiative under that umbrella was to seek transformative “publish and read” deals with publishers to make all UC scholarship open to the world. Negotiations with Elsevier for such a deal have thus far been unsuccessful, and the UC libraries have been without current Elsevier journal content since July 2019.

How did the UC libraries get to this point? What did we learn from collaborating with faculty throughout the process? What has been the impact on our users? What is the broader impact of UC’s action?

This session will explore these questions in the context of the current scholarly journal publishing landscape. As usual, we find ourselves in a fluid environment. But now it is one in which libraries that desire to move beyond an incremental strategy have more opportunity than ever to realize the goal of advancing open access.

10:00am - 10:45am: ​Sponsor Networking

10:45am - 11:30am: Concurrent Session One

1A. Combined Session

  1. Seeing the Forest Despite the Trees: Analyzing the Usage of Databases and Journal Packages - Danica Lewis & Heidi Tebbe, NC State University Libraries

    2. Usage is central to renewal decisions, but the fact that a journal package or database is not one thing, but a group of many things, can complicate a renewal evaluation. In this talk, we will provide an overview of COUNTER statistics; identify the reports that are most useful when evaluating database or journal package renewals; and discuss how to format the data for analysis. We will also demonstrate different methods of visualizing both the group and individual components of a database or journal package.

  2. Seeing the Forest for Trees: Tools for Analyzing Faculty Research Output - Katharine Frazier, John Vickery & Hilary Davis, NC State University Libraries

    3. Libraries have a wealth of data available to assess journal packages. By digging into publication data, the NC State University Libraries have learned which publishers our authors engage with the most via their publication and editorial work. In this session, we’ll discuss methods for analyzing publication data from Web of Science, including how to download data, identify top publishers, and more. We will also demo a homegrown web scraper that identifies institutional faculty editors. Finally, we’ll discuss how we marry these elements to provide an evaluative strategy for journal investments.

1B. Lightning Talks

  1. Kanopy: How Do You Take Your Streaming Films, Mediated or Not? - Christine Fischer, Marcie Burton & Anne Owens, UNC Greensboro
  2. Streaming Video in the Curriculum: Faculty and Student Perceptions - Christine Fischer, UNC Greensboro & Elizabeth Ellis, UNCG LIS student
  3. Batten Down the Hatches! Collection Management in Rough Seas - Megan Inman & Marlena Rose, William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library, East Carolina University
  4. Undertaking a Massive Bound Journals Deselection Project - Sarah Mueth & Tonya Minor, University of North Carolina Wilmington

1C. Concurrent Session

Things Are Looking Up: Using Cloud-Based Technology Tools in Collection Management Workflows - Allison Jones & Kayla Kipps, College of Charleston Libraries

In 2019, two collection management librarians from the College of Charleston Libraries began integrating more cloud-based tools into their serials, electronic resources, and collection development workflows. With Google Drive already in place on the campus, and without the budget to invest in pricey project management software, the librarians sought out cost-effective alternatives including Trello and Tableau Public. In this presentation the librarians will show how they have used each of these tools to transform their workflows into ones that are transparent, collaborative, and dynamic.

1D. Combined Session

  1. Late Breaking News: Votes for Women and the WSPU Part Ways - Mandy Hurt, Duke University Libraries

    2. This presentation is a specific example of service catalogers can provide to researchers beyond the expected. An article by Barbara Green addressed difficulties in studying the split between the editors of Votes for Women and the Women’s Social and Political Union: “Library catalogues… refuse to distinguish pre- from post-split Votes for Women.” I found Green’s assessment puzzling since a cataloger’s mission typically does not include such ‘distinguished’ refusals. As we hold these periodicals as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin collection, I decided to re-examine the periodicals in question.

  2. There’s No community For that? Identifying a Need and Building a Professional Community to Meet It - Jacob Shelby, NC State University Libraries & Anna Craft, UNC Greensboro

    3. Professional communities offer opportunities to network with colleagues and grow in one’s domain. However, not all professional specializations are served by existing organizations or communities. How can individuals find or create a professional community? In this presentation we will discuss a metadata community we founded in 2017. We will detail the community’s inception, how the group facilitates networking and professional development, what has worked well so far, and some challenges we have faced. We will conclude with a discussion on strategies for creating a professional community.

11:45am - 12:30pm: Concurrent Session Two

2A. Combined Session

  1. Popping Up to Promote uPress Provisions: A Collaboration Between Outreach and E-Resources Librarians - Meggie Lasher & Kelly Denzer, Davidson College

    2. Learn how an e-resources librarian and outreach librarian collaborated on a special pop-up program to highlight university press resources. Discover ways to create your own pop-up program, measure resource engagement through alternative methods, and develop your own plan for programming around library resources.

  2. Uncovering the Mystery of How Users Find and Use Ebooks Through Guerilla Usability Testing - Robin Camille Davis & Xiaoyan Song, NC State University Libraries

    3. To enhance our users’ ebook discovery experience, we took an outward-facing approach by seeking the users’ perspectives. We wanted to know: How do users find ebooks? How do they perceive multiple records for the same title? Would they find additional metadata useful? We coordinated a “Tiny Café” as our low-cost guerilla user research. The resulting data gives us a much-needed new perspective of ebook usage that supplements what we already know from our day-to-day work. In this talk, we will share our research methodology, present our results, and describe what we learned and our next step.

2B. Combined Session

  1. Toolkits for Equity: Resources for Developing Inclusive and Equitable Workplaces - Jocelyn Dawson & Gisela Concepción Fosado, Duke University Press

    2. Efforts to advance inclusivity within scholarly publishing have gained momentum, yet there is a lack of effective solutions in place. Toolkits for Equity, a working group of scholarly publishers, is developing guides tailored for distinct audiences--organizations, coworkers, and people of color--with techniques to address racism and transform workplace culture. The resources provide a common framework for analysis, best practices, and discussion materials. By sharing this project with librarians, we hope to find ways to work together to accelerate progress toward inclusion in our industries.

  2. Transforming Libraries and Publishing Through an Equity and Anti-Racism Framework - Gisela Concepción Fosado & Cathy Rimer-Surles, Duke University Press

    3. In most discussions around diversity, equity, and inclusion, there is a strong tendency to focus on “diversity” (an outcome) instead of anti-racism (a practice). The panelists will discuss what it means to shift towards an anti-racism framework, drawing on panelists’ recent experiences within and outside of publishing. The panelists will also discuss some of the specific issues that people of color face in the library profession and the publishing industry as well as the crucial role of white allies in embracing an anti-racism approach to fostering transformational change.

2C. Concurrent Session

E-Resource Troubleshooting: A Staff Training Strategy - Li Ma, University of South Carolina

Troubleshooting subscription e-resource access is a complex task that lives at the intersection of specialized serial subscription knowledge and the convergence of technologies. like discovery tools, authentication and proxy servers. With growing electronic collections and static staffing, the University of South Carolina Thomas Cooper Library is undertaking training staff who currently work with print resources to perform e-resource troubleshooting. This presentation discusses the most effective ways to tackle and train staff to handle e-resource access issues.

2D. Concurrent Session

The New Frontier: Implementing OpenAthens at UNC Charlotte - Bethany Blankemeyer, Liz Siler and Shoko Tokoro, UNC Charlotte

As vendors move away from IP authentication due to security concerns and a need for a more reliable method, libraries need to start considering other options for making their electronic resources available to users remotely. In 2018, UNC Charlotte made the decision to move from EZProxy to OpenAthens. This presentation will discuss the decision to make this change, the implementation process, and the ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting of OpenAthens.

12:30pm - 1:45pm: Lunch

1:45pm - 2:30pm: Concurrent Session Three

3A. Concurrent Session

Scholarly Communications Training: Professional Development for the Next Generation of Scholars - Anna Craft & Samantha Harlow, UNC Greensboro

Many campuses are seeing increased needs for support in scholarly communications areas such as open access, copyright, research data, and related topics. This presentation will discuss a professional development program that addresses scholarly communications needs for online and in-person graduate students and faculty at UNC Greensboro. Speakers will discuss the program’s inception, format, modules, assessment, and the role of cross-departmental collaboration. They will also encourage conversation around scholarly communications training needs, challenges, and lessons learned among attendees.

3B. Concurrent Session

Walk This Way: Online Content Platform Migration Experiences and Collaboration - Xiaoyan Song, North Carolina State University & Kimberly Steinle, Duke University Press

E-resources has become the norm in libraries, with a large portion hosted on vendor platforms. Vendors strive to improve their platforms and periodically transition from one platform to another. The migrations involve significant work and can affect end-users, librarians, publishers, and vendors. The NISO Content Platform Migration Group was formed to address the challenges and establish best practices to improve processes for all stakeholders. In this session, a librarian and a publisher will share their perspectives on migrations and describe the group’s efforts and expected outcomes.

3C. Concurrent Session

Copy Catalogers’ Voices in Inclusive Description - Jianying Shou & Ryan Johnson, Duke University Libraries

In an effort to provide an objective and unbiased cataloging practice that allows copy catalogers’ voices to be heard, the presenters conducted a survey on behalf of the Duke University Libraries Technical Services Division’s Inclusive Description Task Force (IDTG). The survey asked copy catalogers to share issues of bias and non-inclusion that they observe in the course of cataloging. In this presentation, we are going to share the survey results, and our reflections and recommendations. We hope our discussion of the survey will benefit cataloging practice as well as staff training.

3D. Combined Session

  1. Closing the Loop on Collections Review - Kristin Calvert & Whitney Jordan, Western Carolina University

    2. Resource cancellations happen all the time; however, assessing the outcomes of this process isn’t necessarily a priority. As our profession continues to move towards data supported decisions, how can we connect new data to decisions made 2-4 years ago? Western Carolina University will outline their approach to assessing their most recent cancellation decisions using interlibrary loan and historical journal price analysis data and discuss their plans for using key findings to plan for future collections reviews and to make budget asks.

  2. Library Resources: What’s the Value? - Elizabeth Cope, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

    3. This presentation will demonstrate how The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries established practices for assessing a resource’s value after a library-wide reorganization. The presenters will discuss the quantitative and qualitative data used by UTK Librarians to make decisions for recurring and high dollar resources, and how the Libraries has been using this data to negotiate with vendors. These various evaluative methods and tools can be used at any institution to make evidence-based decisions to strategically use collections funds.

2:45pm - 3:45pm: Closing Session

Can We Get There From Here? - John Sherer, Spangler Family Director of The University of North Carolina Press

3:45pm - 4:00pm: Closing Remarks and Wrap-Up