O Brave New Print Collection, That Has Such Data Science Books in It!

The field of data science exists at the intersection of several disciplines, including statistics, social science, information science, computer science, and visualization. This can make collection development for data science challenging, but it’s a field that has become increasingly important in industry and academia. Data scientists, and increasingly researchers, academics, and others, work with large amounts of data, complex computation, and data visualization to solve real-world problems. Those working in or studying data science may need to learn new skills and tools to be successful. North Carolina State University (NCSU) recognizes the importance of this growing field, as shown in the establishment of the Data Science Initiative (DSI); courses taught by faculty in computer science, statistics, advanced analytics, and management; and research conducted at interdisciplinary centers and institutes. This poster session will describe how librarians from the Collections & Research Strategy department at NCSU Libraries conducted a project to build a niche data science print collection. Information shared in the poster will include the sources that were used to compile an initial list of books, including recommendations from fellow librarians, a curated GOBI notification, websites, suggested reading lists, and course syllabi. Criteria for narrowing this initial list will be provided. The poster will also show an analysis of how this collection overlaps with more established collection areas

The Future of Flexible Work and Hybrid Work Culture Beyond Covid-19: Challenges, Opportunities and Lessons Learned at UVA Library

The COVID-19 pandemic led to some significant changes in how many of us work and live. It also exposed deep infrastructure problems and systemic equity issues around income, race, and employment and redefined the meaning of front-line essential worker. The pandemic’s acceleration of the move to remote and hybrid work in many areas, coupled with the redefining of essential work, will result in many libraries having to adapt operations and culture around a hybrid work environment. While libraries prior to the pandemic did allow for some flexible work arrangements, telework was not an expected benefit nor was it universal enough to be a pervasive part of library culture. During the pandemic many libraries provided staff with more opportunities to work from home but are now wrestling with how the situation will evolve post pandemic. This paper will describe the University of Virginia Library’s journey from the shift to an all-remote workforce in the early days of the pandemic to its current and projected future hybrid work environment and provide a framework for other libraries to consider. Throughout the paper, challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned will be highlighted and issues around equity, recruitment and retention, culture and teambuilding, and management will be explored

Prototyping The Open Textbook Toolkit: Digital Infrastructure that Connects Libraries, Disciplinary Faculty, and University Presses to Support Open Education

If you care about access to information, student success, or transformative education you’re probably thinking about the potential of open educational resources (OERs). As a profession, librarians have embraced open education but so far, we have not given faculty instructors the tools or infrastructure needed to drive wide engagement. Faculty are interested in creating customized resources that empower their instruction but barriers around creation, hosting, and remix of OERs are too high. This session introduces the Open Textbook Toolkit, a project designed to reduce those barriers and grounded in deep research about the unmet needs of instructors and students. Currently in development, the Toolkit will leverage a partnership between libraries and university presses to offer concrete supports that empower faculty to develop open educational resources at all levels. Join Will Cross and Mira Waller, co-PI’s on an IMLS grant currently in the second stage of review for a discussion about the Toolkit as a case study in developing infrastructure that supports OERs. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the project as well as preliminary data and actionable recommendations on the development of support for OERs. Whether designing your own platforms and tools, looking to leverage the Toolkit on your own campus, or just seeking an understanding of the state of the art in OER development, you will leave this session better-prepared to develop a library ecosystem that supports OERs

When the Wind Blows: Changing Roles for Changing Times

Subject liaisons have traditionally focused on providing domain-specific services and collections. Recently, however, their roles have shifted from a support model to actively engaging and collaborating with scholars throughout the academic life cycle and research enterprise. At the same time, users increasingly require functional information support (e.g., for GIS, data visualization, or data mining) in place of or in addition to domain-specific services. As the liaison role continues to evolve, finding the right balance between the roles of generalist, subject specialist, and functional expert will provide both challenges and opportunities. This proceeding focuses on a case study of two librarians in the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries who started out in the Collections & Research Strategy Department and ended up in a new department, Research Engagement. One librarian transitioned from being a libraries fellow into a new role as research librarian for Engineering & Entrepreneurship and the other librarian transitioned from being the associate head of the Collections & Research Strategy Department into being the head of the new department. The librarians will share their perspectives and experiences around helping to shape this new department, including figuring out the role of the new department in the organization, building an identity, and developing goals and priorities. The librarians will also share what traditional skills were still needed in their new roles and what strategies were employed for identifying and building new skills

The Nuts and Bolts of Supporting Change and Transformation for Research Librarians

Libraries have a rich tradition of providing services and support to researchers. In recent years, changing technology, evolving research methods and requirements, and the transforming landscape of scholarly communication have revealed a need for libraries to actively engage scholars and participate in the entire research lifecycle. As liaison and subject librarian roles shift to a more holistic and engagement-focused model, it is important that libraries provide them with the tools and resources to develop new skills. This paper will focus on three ways in which the North Carolina State University Libraries created and supported relevant training and opportunities for research librarians to gain the expertise necessary to embrace new roles and deeper collaboration across the research enterprise. Examples include the Data and Visualization Institute for Librarians, the Visualization Discussion Series, and the Research Data Committee. Through these examples, we will share ideas for creating peer-to-peer learning opportunities, explore some of the skills necessary for increased engagement, and provide insights into the challenges and opportunities related to supporting and developing new skills for librarians

Supporting Open Education with the Wind at Your Back: Lessons for OER Programs from the Open Textbook Toolkit

What does it take to move open education from idea to practice? In this session we led a discussion about what supports instructors need to engage with open education and how we can make adoption and adaptation easy and inviting. We set the stage with an overview of findings from our IMLS-funded research (LG-72-17-0051-17) on the needs and practices of psychology instructors for adopting or creating open textbooks and OER. We then shared some lessons on what faculty say they need and where they feel we can do better, as well as offered some insights from our research on student needs and desires in learning resources. Next, we opened a conversation about how transferable these lessons are and the unique needs of other academic communities. This paper describes the project and documents our discussion about these issues

Tradition + Evolution: Providing Scaffolding for Librarians in a Time of Change

Changing technology, evolving research methods and requirements, shifting expectations in teaching and learning, and the ongoing transformation of the scholarly communication landscape have all given libraries more opportunities than ever to participate in the full research life cycle, including areas previously considered outside their scope. As a result, libraries have been seeking ways to evolve the liaison role and its influences on collections, services, and the identity of both libraries and librarians. Some changes have been more fluid while others have been more prescriptive. Some roles have shifted in direct response to a specific need, for example, supporting research data management and funding compliance. In other cases, anticipated needs such as lab-integrated support and grant collaboration are driving the shift. In all cases, libraries are grappling with how best to position their liaisons for success. In this interactive Lively Lunch session, facilitators Mira Waller, Hilary Davis, and Scott Warren provided a brief overview of what is happening in their libraries and posed questions to guide a focused discussion around the changing roles and duties of liaison librarianship. Participants shared lessons learned while gleaning best practices regarding the ways in which changing roles and new paths have simultaneously opened opportunities and posed sticky challenges

What Are Subject Liaisons When “Collections” and “Subjects” Don’t Matter?

In this interactive lively lunch discussion, participants explored issues around how the traditional subject liaison role is evolving. Users increasingly require functional information support (e.g., for geographic information system (GIS) or data mining) rather than simply domain-specific. At the same time, reports from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Pilot Library Liaison Institute and others have noted self-conscious trends toward developing liaison roles that engage and support the full research life cycle, as opposed to traditional service models focused on building and promoting library collections as more or less fixed products. Hosts Darby Orcutt, Mira Waller, and Scott Warren outlined some the major theme surrounding the future of these new roles and with participants explored questions that include: What does it mean to be a collections librarian in this new world? What new skills do we need to develop? What old skills should we not lose? How do we adapt both our institutions and our individual staff without sacrificing our (or their) very identities

The Open Textbook Toolkit: Seeding Successful Partnerships for Collaboration between Academic Libraries and University Presses

Libraries and university presses coexist in a complex and increasingly consolidated scholarly communication ecosystem. Each brings different strengths, values, and viewpoints that can inform and enrich a joint project. In this paper we discuss potential barriers to and benefits of collaboration between academic libraries and university presses and introduce a case study of such a collaboration: the Open Textbook Toolkit. This project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is currently investigating the components needed to support faculty in one discipline, psychology, who are considering adopting open educational resources. By leveraging both library and press expertise, the Toolkit represents one model for fruitful collaboration