The Authority File

In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss shared services library consortia provide their members. Teri Gallaway of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Genya O’Gara of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), Amy Pawlowski of OhioLINK, and Jill Morris of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), define shared services, then provide an overview of their offerings. For example, Teri chats about SCELC’s new Impact as Service program born from community feedback, and Amy digs into providing the economic value of OhioLINK to member libraries (pages 6-7)—particularly useful when library leaders defend budgets to financial offices. Further, Genya previews a forthcoming data dashboard shared between institutions and Jill spotlights the Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project, a recommended set of practices for collection development. To close, our guests share upcoming goals and projects, including developments in open access and pragmatic approaches to AI.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests examine how library consortia support student success and affordability. First, Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), explains how SCELC invests in the projects of member institutions and partner organizations to achieve their goals and extend services in affordability. Next, Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), outlines the findings of VIVA’s 2025 Virginia Course Materials Survey, discussing what’s changed since the last time VIVA ran the survey in 2021. Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, chats about OhioLINK’s affordable learning strategies, which include training librarians on finding OER resources, funding the course flip to OER, and building community across consortia around affordable materials. Last, Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), explores PALCI’s support for OER materials and the surveys, funding structures, and communication with members involved in this work.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests prove library consortia to be more than just content buyers. Featuring Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, and Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), this episode explores the infrastructure consortia build for members, highlighting VIVA’s Open and Affordable Program, SCELC’s FOLIO project, PALCI’s EZBorrow Service, and OhioLINK’s shared catalog in the process. In addition, our guests position consortia as strategic intermediaries and leaders in the higher education community. They discuss recent initiatives their consortia have introduced, such as partnerships with the Authors Alliance to bolster information policy and strategies to support accessibility roadmaps and implementation.

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In this series, four guests join The Authority File to discuss the current state of US consortia, diving into challenges, critical partnerships, and member support. Featuring library consortia leaders Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, and Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), this four-episode series distinguishes library consortia as more than just content buyers, but strategic and financial assets to bolster an institution’s services, community support, and overall mission. We look at how the guests’ consortia center affordability and student success, the variety of shared services each provides, and future goals in response to the rapidly changing environment of academic librarianship.

In this first episode, we’re introduced to our guests and their respective organizations. Each speaker provides a brief background on their consortium’s roots, scope, and mission before moving into how each has remained agile and responsive to member needs in the past decade. In addition, Jill, Teri, Amy, and Genya underscore that each consortium is unique, sharing a well-known saying from the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC): if you’ve met one consortium, you’ve met one consortium.

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In the final episode of this two-part series, Fatima Mohie-Eldin, editor of Choice Reviews and Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE), dives into DEIA trends in higher education and what’s next for TIE. She shares her observations as the editor of TIE—the Choice blog dedicated to issues of DEIA in higher education and beyond—by touching on the general anxiety from academic librarians over the future of DEI and reversals by universities on their DEI pledges in the wake of Supreme Court decisions and current administration policies. Exploring urgent topics with TIE’s audience, Fatima highlights content in support of international and immigrant communities, tips for avoiding burnout, and Choice’s longform reviews of racial justice titles, Featured Reviews. To close the episode, Fatima reflects on DEIA collection development trends and upcoming topics to be covered on TIE.

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This month’s two-part series features Fatima Mohie-Eldin, editor of Choice Reviews and Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE). Joining TAF host Bill Mickey, Fatima marks the fifth anniversary of Choice’s TIE blog by discussing its evolution, popular topics within its readership, and general trends in DEIA in higher education.

In this first episode, Fatima shares the history of TIE, explaining how it was created in 2021 in response to 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests with aims to provide a pool of knowledge and actionable resources related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics for academic librarians and higher education stakeholders. She highlights the contributions of former TIE editor-in-chief and the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) current President-Elect Alexia Hudson-Ward, including her leadership in developing TIE’s scope, podcast, webinar program, and resource lists.

Fatima also charts the shifts in TIE’s editorial approach over the past five years, such as expanding its contributor pool, releasing a new interview feature, and producing forthcoming titles lists focused specifically on DEIA and social justice issues. Last, Fatima highlights TIE content from the past year and underscores several topics she’d like the blog to dive into further in the future.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests examine the future of mathematics in artificial intelligence. First, Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, Mathematics at Springer Nature, explores the impact of AI on how mathematical research is written and reviewed. Most notably, he’s noticed mathematicians increasingly relying on AI tools to review manuscripts—a worrisome trend, given the issue of uploading unpublished material into a large language model (LLM) that could use that (uncredited) research in future responses. Next, we discuss comparisons of generative AI to the release of the calculator, ultimately arguing that no tool, not even AI, can replace “thinking mathematically.” To close, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, Mathematics at Springer Nature, predicts that the relationship between mathematics and AI will evolve to become more collaborative. She also provides recommendations to librarians and faculty on how best to prepare students and researchers for this fast-approaching reality.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests explore artificial intelligence’s impact on mathematics curricula. First, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, explain how undergraduate math students have adapted their skills and learning strategies in response to the rise of AI tools. As Chris notes, despite automated advancements, students still need to “think mathematically” and understand the logic behind their answers. Referencing specific subjects and schools of study, Elizabeth and Chris discuss changes math departments have made to better prepare students for research and careers that intersect with AI. Last, our guests underscore that instructors and librarians must communicate to mathematics students that exploration with AI tools requires verification and academic rigor.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, dive into how mathematicians are using AI in their research. First, Elizabeth provides an overview of a survey conducted at the American Mathematical Society’s Joint Mathematics Meetings in January. She reveals the ways in which undergraduates, graduates, and researchers implement AI into their scholarship, whether by learning about new topics or polishing up research articles. In addition, Elizabeth discusses AI’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in the field—while AI can accelerate discovery, it also relies on probability to solve problems, leading to false or inaccurate results. To close out the episode, Chris chats about changes in scholarly publishing in mathematics due to AI research and the challenge of book publishing in such a fast-moving subject area.

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This month we’re joined by Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, to learn how mathematics and artificial intelligence intertwine. While computer science plays a key role in building AI technology, mathematics operates as the “engine under the hood” of AI, powering analyzation, probability, statistical tasks, optimization, and much more. As Elizabeth and Chris explain, mathematics provides essential frameworks for large language models and machine learning algorithms, particularly when applied to massive datasets. In this series, we’ll explore mathematicians’ research in other subject areas to improve AI functions, preparing today’s math students for an AI landscape, and if artificial intelligence really is the new calculator.

In the first episode of this four-part series, Elizabeth and Chris discuss how mathematics makes modern AI tools possible. Chris dives into the AI applications of mathematical theories and frameworks and picks out a few fundamental math skills that contribute to AI. In addition, Elizabeth highlights emerging areas of study in math that she’s seen in AI-related manuscripts and scholarship.

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