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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In the final episode of this four-part series, Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, discusses metadata challenges and solutions for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Noting the difficulty of digitizing objects with uneven records, Eleanor highlights the thoughtful choices Gale and its partners made for ECCO Part III when it came to standardizing the data. In addition, she chats about metadata updates to Part III requested from longtime users, such as adding an author gender filter and a material’s place of publication. Finally, Eleanor shares one of her most surprising discoveries in the archive while using its digital humanities tools—the 1782 caterpillar plague, anyone?

Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, we chat with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, about the logistics of digitizing tiny books for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. First, Eleanor outlines the challenges the physical conditions of miniature books bring to the digitization process. Praising the work of the British Library on ECCO Part III, Eleanor explains how the team tested out new digitization techniques and even built a tiny book cradle to accommodate their small size. In addition, Eleanor shares how Gale worked with library partners to determine what to digitize—keep or discard a hundreds-year-old bug stuck between the pages? Our guest closes with thoughts on remediation, exploring the transformation of books from texts to objects when digitized.

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In the second episode of this four-part series with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, we turn our attention to a big topic: tiny books. A key archival format in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III, miniature books emerged in the 17th century as collectible items often in the form of almanacs, historical works, or religious pieces. In the episode, Eleanor recounts their history, exploring how their size—for example, holding the entire history of Britain in your palm—revealed their impracticality and allure as a symbol of knowledge and art piece. In addition, we chat with Eleanor about what makes tiny books “invisible” in the archives and the benefits of digitizing these small but mighty works.

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What does it take to bring some of the smallest—and most fragile—volumes of the eighteenth century into the digital research environment? In this series, Gale acquisitions editor Eleanor Leese discusses the preservation and digitization of rare and understudied materials now available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Historically inaccessible due to their physical condition and scarcity, these items include miniature devotional works, ephemeral pamphlets, and personal instructional texts. Over the next four episodes, we’ll examine how careful handling, specialized imaging techniques, and collaboration with libraries help ensure these delicate works survive to be searched, cited, and studied by scholars around the world.

In the first episode of this series, Eleanor introduces us to Eighteenth Century Collections Online. She details the inspiration for the original collection, charting its development over the past two decades to its latest iteration, Part III. As Eleanor notes, ECCO was last updated in 2009, so Part III contains unique objects that previously couldn’t be microfilmed due to their unique size, in addition to updated color imaging and the books’ exterior features like the spine and cover. To close, she shares how scholars use ECCO across disciplines and its impact on 18th-century research.

Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.

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