NASIG 2024

Challenges to library materials have increased dramatically in the last several years. This interactive workshop will help library personnel and collection decision makers navigate the complex landscape of challenges and the reconsideration of library materials. The workshop will incorporate information about the current attitudes towards the reconsideration of library materials, including statistics, information on legislation, and case studies. In the hands-on portion of the session, attendees will collaboratively explore and analyze reconsideration policies from academic, public, and K-12 libraries to gain valuable insights and tools for developing policies tailored to their institutions. Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss the merits of challenge policies and begin drafting a challenge policy for their own library. Topics such as stakeholders, policies, forms, and procedures will all be discussed. Don't miss this opportunity to engage in collaborative learning, and leave with the confidence to address challenges to materials in your library.

Program Description:
Open Access was conceived as a mode of publishing that would put control over the dissemination of research in the hands of the scholarly community, and provide expanded access to readers - a strategy “for serving the interests of research, researchers, and the institutions and societies that support research”.

However, two decades after the Budapest Open Access declaration, a shrinking number of corporations control knowledge production, rather than researchers, the scholarly/membership societies that support them, or the communities they study. Further, the anticipated relief to library budgets that Open Access was imagined to bring is yet to materialize. Read & Publish offers are everywhere and it is often difficult to assess when to accept or reject such offers.

This session will review current directions in commercial read & publish offers and give concrete examples of when it may be appropriate to reject such offers using real but anonymized data from at least 2 recent offers. Then, the presenter will give an overview of community-driven publishing and lead a discussion of which direction open access is heading in and elicit participant thoughts on which direction it should be headed in.
Learning Outcomes:
Attendees will get hands-on experience evaluating R&P offers.
Attendees will get the opportunity to exchange ideas about the infrastructure of knowledge production that underlies all Scholarly Communication, including Open Access Publishing.

User driven acquisitions programs, including demand driven acquisitions (DDAs) and evidence based acquisitions (EBAs), have evolved from experiments to central methods of building collections at many academic libraries. Although user driven collections decenter librarians, there are still many questions about how much control librarians can or should have in shaping collections, which librarians should be doing this work, and how these decisions impact collections in the short and long term. The presenter will give a background on various forms of user driven collections and share experiences and examples from the EBAs and DDAs at his institution. A majority of the workshop will be spent in small group activities that focus on the practical aspects of administering and evaluating user driven programs and discussions about how to align collections to institution goals and values. While the primary focus of the session will be on eBooks, user driven acquisitions of streaming videos, journal articles, and print books will also be discussed.

Program Description:
As an experienced CONSER serials cataloger who works extensively with Special Collections materials, I’ve often been asked to catalogue materials replete with content many would deem offensive. These materials include magazines featuring sexually explicit text and images as well as propaganda published by hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi organizations.
In the process, I’ve had to establish practices for handling these materials that minimize my colleagues’ exposure to them and that protect my own emotional health. In support of the latter, I’ve developed emotional coping mechanisms which center around practicing radical empathy towards the targets of the hate group material, in large part by creating bibliographic and NACO records that clearly identify its creators while exposing the nature/intent of their work and their connections to creators of affiliated/associated work.
It’s my intention with this presentation to share the methods/coping mechanisms I’ve developed as best practices to aid others faced with the challenge of cataloging similar materials.
Learning Outcomes:
It’s my intention with this presentation to share the methods/coping mechanisms I’ve developed as best practices to aid others faced with the challenge of cataloging similar materials.

 

Program Description:
Are your users having online resource access issues? Is access intuitive and reliable? Are you concerned that your user community’s online privacy isn’t sufficiently protected? Did you ever wish there was a toolkit to help you audit these and other issues? We can help!
To help navigate the complex issues that occur as a result of changing technology, regulations, and user expectations, SeamlessAccess is producing a toolkit that gives librarians a framework for auditing their resource access. Structured into four key areas - Usability, Privacy, Reliability, and Security- the toolkit enables libraries to identify the risks and opportunities that inform decision making and advocate for future investment.
This presentation explores the first two areas (Usability & Privacy) and includes a discussion about the toolkit along with the issues it addresses. It also features information from a library that has utilized this toolkit to identify and address access-related issues, assess potential ethical or legal exposure, and identify best practices and recommended next steps for moving forward. We will also demonstrate how this toolkit can serve as a communications tool to enable librarians to improve knowledge and awareness within their teams as well as with key stakeholders outside the library.  
Learning Outcomes:
​​​​Following this session, participants will be able to begin understanding the complex issues that affect resource access that occur as a result of changing technology and regulations, and will be able to perform an access audit to explore and identify potential issues affecting usability and user privacy. 

This workshop is for library workers who want to get started on collection assessment, but who may not have the resources to launch large projects or programs. The workshop will guide participants through designing and acting on micro-assessment projects for library collections. A micro-assessment is a small collection assessment project aligned with your resources and your organizational priorities. It is tightly scoped and time-bound, designed to inform a specific collections decision or strategy. A thoughtfully designed micro-assessment can offer both actionable insights into your collections and valuable learning opportunities for library staff interested in collections work.  
Through instructor-provided case studies and other exercises, workshop participants will practice (1) identifying narrowly focused, action-oriented collection micro-assessment projects; (2) scoping those micro-projects to align with available staff time and expertise; and (3) using small, manageable amounts of data to speak directly to a decision or action. Along the way, participants will learn practical tips for ensuring micro-assessments can also become the building blocks for a larger collection assessment program.
Workshop activities will include examples of micro-assessments for monograph, journal, and database collections. As a final activity, participants will draft a micro-assessment proposal for their own institutions.
Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptops or other devices.

Program Description:
What happens when a large R1 university migrates from one library services platform to another, reorganizes duties, and loses seasoned faculty and staff members due to attrition and retirement? A perfect opportunity for a new Continuing Resources Librarian and newly formed Acquisitions Team to evaluate serial orders in the framework of the NASIG Core Competencies for Print Serials Management.
The fever pitched fire: Clemson University Libraries migrated from Millennium to Alma during the very early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Over the course of several reorganizations, we lost personnel who focused solely on ordering and receiving continuing resources, and many order records were incorrectly entered on records reflecting incorrect type (electronic on print and vice versa). This was the perfect storm that allowed the Acquisitions Team to intentionally choose not to roll any continuing resources order over into the new fiscal year.
Bringing us out of the dark? Intentionally choosing not to roll over continuing resources orders is bringing us out of the dark. We are on the road to correct orders leading to increased discoverability for our patrons and more correct records for tracking our finances and received items. This interactive section will provide plenty of examples of incorrect orders and how Clemson University Libraries has wrestled with some of the complexities of continuing resources, including memberships, monographic series, and physical subscriptions. While this session does focus on an Alma library, there is universal appeal for libraries wishing to clean up their data for increased patron discoverability and correct record keeping.
 We Can (and Will) have it all! The intentional decision to not roll over any of the continuing resource orders, while daunting at first, has led us to be more in tune with the NASIG Core Competencies for Print Serials Management. This has allowed us to create unified departmental policies about ordering, receiving, and cataloging print serials. Our ability to have it all is easily translatable to other libraries, and this section will cover best practices of serials acquisition in the scope of the NASIG Core Competencies for Print Serials Management. Interactive and lively discussion is encouraged during this entire session.
Learning Outcomes:
Learners will be able to articulate the reasons why they might actively choose not to roll over Continuing Resources and other standing orders.
Learners will be able to determine how and why to clean up incorrect order data and bibliographic records.
 Learners will be able to discuss best practices of print serials acquisition in accordance with the NASIG Core Competencies for Print Serials Management.

Program Description:
This session will discuss the long standing Web-scale discovery services available now how the new product, CloudSource compares by evaluating the relevancy of search results and features available in each discovery service.
Learning Outcomes:
​​​​Attendees can expect to learn how the various discovery layers compare and which may be a viable option for their respective institution.

Program Description:
In the fall of 2023, the authors began developing a new communication tool inspired by the idea of a "Zero Based Budget." Simply called the "Budget Proposal," this tool enabled the authors to put forth a positive and constructive vision for journal collections at their library, including a wish-list and an expression of one-time needs to reduce and transform the print collection. This project led to progress on other goals, such as the development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for journals and journal packages, as well as the development of one-sheeters, or brief reports, to improve how the authors communicate the value provided by the library for specific programs. The authors demonstrated and discussed the Budget Proposal, the new KPIs and related materials.
Learning Outcomes:
Attendees will learn about a method for collection review and outreach.
Attendees will be provided with ideas for collection outreach to administration.
Attendees will learn about new measures, or key performance indicators, for comparing journals packages.
Attendees will be provided example "one-sheeters," or brief reports to support communication to departments and administration.
Attendees will shown example data visualizations for brief reports, including a new approach we call "novelty visualizations."