2017 Charleston Library Conference

Loretta Parham will discuss the requirements for today’s academic library, the need for a vision and the role of planning and the promise for execution. Also shared will be the story of the Atlanta University Center Woodruff, recipient of the 2016 ACRL Academic Library of Excellence award.

Cynthia Graham Hurd was a librarian for over 31 years in Charleston public and academic libraries. She worked as the branch manager of the popular St. Andrews Regional Library, and as a part-time reference librarian at the College of Charleston. On June 17, 2015, her life ended when a lone gunman entered the historic Emanuel AME Church and killed nine people during a prayer meeting. Cynthia is remembered as a “tireless servant of the community who spent her life helping residents, making sure they had every opportunity for an education and personal growth.”

Springer Nature is proud to honor the legacy of Cynthia Graham Hurd by awarding a scholarship to a librarian who has demonstrated an active interest in the profession, but has not had an opportunity to attend the Charleston Library Conference due to lack of institutional funding.

In a lightning plenary, Jim O’Donnell, University Librarian at Arizona State University, will invite interest in a discussion of the future of the open stack print collection.  Which books should readers encounter in our buildings?  How should they be presented?  Are call numbers the only way to organize them?  Should collections rotate?  He will invite conference-goers to a Lively Lunch on Thursday to share ideas and sign up possible co-conspirators in a continuing discussion.

Jim is the longest-serving open access e-journal publisher in the humanities (Bryn Mawr Classical Review since 1990), is a distinguished scholar, was provost at Georgetown, and now leads the university library in America’s most innovative university.

Join us for a plenary presentation about technology platforms and features that librarians (and researchers and users) should be expecting in the next few years.

Modeled on venture capital funding competitions, the CHARLESTON FAST PITCH COMPETITION will provide two monetary awards of $2,500 to further support the development and implementation of compelling library innovations. Finalists will present their projects to a panel of experts and Charleston Conference attendees for feedback and to determine the two grand prize winners.

Come prepared to hear pitches from the four finalists and to vote for your favorite using text message voting. 

Judges: Kent Anderson, Jim O'Donnell, and Amy Brand

Finalists: 

• Boaz Nadav-Manes, Brown University Library
• Katharine Hall Baldwin and Meghan Burke, Marymount University 
• Caroline Muglia, University of Southern California
• Cheryl E. Ball, West Virginia University Libraries

More information about the application process. 

Today, for many learners, if a book isn’t digital, it’s as if it doesn’t exist. As publishers, librarians and vendors, we know there’s almost a century of knowledge still living only on the printed page, missing from our digital shelves.
How can we all work together to preserve and provide access to some of the 20th century’s best thinkers?  How do we unleash the full value of library collections by transforming hard copies into lendable ebooks?
The Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle will describe the new Open Libraries project -- a community project bringing millions of books online, through purchase or digitization, while honoring the rights of creators and expanding their online reach. By digitizing millions of books, we can turn the majority of library collections digital by 2020.
The opportunity is huge: learn how publishers, libraries and technologists are working together to bring all libraries digital and create an enduring asset for future generations, ensuring more equal access to knowledge.

Vicky Speck ABC-CLIO Leadership Award is awarded every year to a leader in the Charleston Conference who has made a lasting contribution to the Conference’s mission. The award has been granted annually since 2006 – Anthony Watkinson (2006), Jack Montgomery (2007), Beth Bernhardt (2008), Heather Miller (2009), Eleanor Cook (2010), Glenda Alvin (2011), Ramune Kubilius (2012), Audrey Powers (2013), Leah Hinds (2014), Tony Horava (2015), and Chuck Hamaker (2016).

Hardly a day passes when artificial intelligence is put forth either as a panacea for information overload, or a harbinger for the end of human society. Whether the topic is big data, scholarly communications, or researcher workflows, AI increasingly impacts our daily lives, and AI software tools are becoming readily available. What is AI? How will it affect scholarly production and knowledge discovery? Learn about the pros and cons of using automation to replace routine and repetitive research activity from experiment through analysis, and how AI could replace or augment cumbersome peer review processes. Discuss examples of how AI could augment our ability to produce new knowledge, and make connections between people and insights that were previously impossible.

These sessions are designed to offer publishers and vendors the chance to showcase their newest and most innovative products, platforms, and/or content. Speakers will be organized in a “lightning round” format with 5 minute presentations, back-to-back.

Participating companies:

• Bloomsbury Digital Resources
• Casalini Libri
• Code Ocean
• Demco Software
• EBSCO
• Lean Library
• ProQuest
• Springer Nature
• The Institution of Engineering & Technology

Once again, the Long Arm of the Law session lights the Charleston Conference stage!  In this year's session, returning favorite attorney Bill Hannay (Schiff Hardin LLP) will continue to inform the audience about the latest court cases and rulings that impact us in libraries and the information industry.  For example, did you know that in September 2016 the New Delhi high court dismissed suits by three international publishers against the sale of photocopied books and pages in Delhi University? And that in 2017, the publishers dropped the suit?  Could the case that Hannay reported last year have impact more broadly?
If we're fortunate, Hannay will once again write and sing a special song for the session.
New to Charleston (but not to international librarianship) is Ruth L. Okediji, the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.  She teaches contracts, international intellectual property (IP), copyright, and other courses on law and development.  As one of the foremost authorities on international intellectual property law, she has advised governments in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the UN.  She was recognized by Managing IP as one of the world's 50 influential leaders in the field.  Her recent book, Copyright Law in an Age of Limitations and Exceptions, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.
As always, there are many new legal developments that will intrigue the Charleston audience.  Perhaps we will hear about the suit that Louisiana State University brought against Elsevier?  Or the European Union hitting Google with $2.7 billion of fines for breaking anti-trust law?  Or how about Germany's new law under which Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies could face huge fines for failing to remove hate speech?  And did you know that Facebook beat a Privacy lawsuit in the US, over user tracking?
There will be ample time for audience Q&A in this exciting new session.

It’s everyone’s favorite way to wrap up a rollicking good time in Charleston! The End-of-Conference Poll-a-Palooza returns for the fourth consecutive year. Do you find yourself brimming with pithy questions, fresh opinions, ardent beliefs, and a renewed spark for libraries at the close of the Charleston conference? Are you hungry for insight and a sense of shared experience (and lunch)? Join us to participate in another rousing wrap-up! Erin Gallagher of Poll-a-Palooza renown will once again captivate you with her use of Poll Everywhere, so bring your smart phones, tablets, laptops, or homing pigeons to participate. She’s joined this year by Nicole Ameduri, Account Manager Extraordinaire with Springer Nature, who will add exceptional wit and sassy dialogue to the session. We will use Poll Everywhere to create immediate visualizations of your answers to questions significant to libraries and content providers alike. As in years past, the Palooza will include questions relevant to the 2017 Charleston conference as well as questions submitted through the Charleston website. Topics will vary based on conference sessions, your submissions, and our various whims. You will be entertained, engaged, and well-fed, all in the spirit of conference camaraderie and general rabble-rousing. Your brains will be undoubtedly full from the conference, but save a little room for a slice of insight and knowledge on how your views compare with those of your peers. You will leave feeling invigorated, merry, and harmoniously connected to your fellow conference-goers.