The Authority File

Provide highly-focused content for researchers. Expand course reserves to ensure equity and accessibility. Grow the digital collection to include ebooks, audio content, and streaming video. These tasks all fall under the academic librarian’s list of collection development goals—goals the pandemic only made more urgent. When university library budgets fall short, how can librarians do more with less?

In this second episode, Steven Rosato from OverDrive Professional breaks down how OverDrive’s staff of current and former librarians can alleviate the pressure of collection development. Representatives can weed through thousands of resources, highlight picks of interest based on relevant borrowing trends, or walk through which lending models would work best for an institution.

Steven also touches on OverDrive’s acquisition of RBdigital last year, which expanded its customers, global reach, and content. To wrap up the episode, Steven previews OverDrive’s hopes for the future, including more partnerships with service providers to better serve library needs.

Supporting diverse students doesn’t end when they leave the classroom. In fact, our guests on this four-part series demonstrate that meaningful, valuable, and equitable support should begin before a student steps on campus and extend past graduation—even if they make their way outside of academia. This month, two academics and two publishers join us on the Authority File to discuss their unique perspectives, strategies, and needs to ensure equitable student support.

The first academic, Dr. Pamela Queen, a finance professor at Morgan State University, understands the importance of post-graduation support all too well. After reaching the glass ceiling in her corporate management position, she decided to return to academia with the aid of The PhD Project—a non-profit organization that works to increase workplace diversity by helping African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans earn their doctorates in business.

Joining Pamela, Dr. Rihana Mason, a research scientist at Georgia State University, found that GSU lacked a comprehensive list of DEI programs, curricula, and resources for students and the greater community. She and her colleague, Dr. Curtis D. Byrd, developed the Georgia State University Diversity Database, with the help of their indexing and inventory tool, THRIVE (Type, History, Research Preparation/Routines & Activities, Inclusion/Identity, Voice, Expectation).

Finally, Todd Baldwin and Miranda Nunhofer, both of SAGE Publishing, highlight projects that SAGE has introduced in support of DEI, including video resources, targeted author recruitment, and expanding their reach at student conferences.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

It’s no secret that diversity in reading mediums—print, ebook, audio—make for a more robust, accessible, and patron-friendly collection. But how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected circulation trends? As we inch closer to in-person learning, will audio and ebooks lose their appeal?

Steven Rosato, Manager of the Sales Team at OverDrive Professional, found himself asking the same questions. He decided to track usage trends pre- and during COVID, discovering that ebook and audiobook use (predictably) exploded. Moving forward, Steven believes that the demand in the scholarly audio market will only grow; the portability, accessibility, and predictability of audio are too useful for students to resist.

In the first episode of this four-part series, Steven chats about his findings and predictions for e-content engagement. He also digs into the genesis and development of the business management division of OverDrive, which works with academic institutions, corporate libraries, and government accounts.

This week Bill talks with Will Davis, head of the OECD’s Washington office about what, exactly, the OECD is, how it got started, and how it works. He details how the organization operates by consensus, rather than through voting, and how it differs from other international organizations like the U.N. They also discuss the OECD’s research and how it’s used by a wide variety of sectors–from businesses to academics to government agencies–to make decisions and influence policy, and some of the OECD’s ongoing work in areas like the digitalization of the economy and building consensus on corporate minimum tax rates.

To catch a video version of the episode, be sure to tune in at the ALA Annual Conference, June 23-29, where this discussion will take place on the Showcase Stage.

Paula Krebs, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, is sick of having to defend the Humanities. Though Paula agrees that a public relations issue exists, she argues that the existing culture—whether in the form of political attacks, budget cuts, or even parents urging students to pursue other majors—needs to transform. “I get really tired of the rhetoric of crisis around the Humanities … The Humanities are the framework through which we examine and we critique and we try to change the culture—the culture is what’s in crisis.”

In this final episode, Paula asserts that the Humanities are at the forefront of our most pressing societal issues—the pandemic, white supremacy, and immigration, to name a few. Paula also explains how the MLA supports social and racial justice through conferences, shared resources, and vigorous engagement with the academic community.

Paula Krebs, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, definitely did not expect insurrectionists to storm the US Capitol the day before the 2021 MLA Annual Convention. However, when she re-recorded her introductory video to reflect the societal temperature, she found that her most salient points remained—whether in crisis or not, the Humanities help us sift through and make sense of the nonsensical. “I wanted to let them know that the convention was a place that’s in the culture, not separate from the culture … and only after and with the kind of informed critical analysis of the Humanities can any kind of change happen.”

In this third episode, Paula unpacks how the Humanities have been affected and possibly invigorated by new and enduring crises like the coronavirus pandemic and a fraught political climate. Paula also digs into the inequitable effects COVID-19 has had on higher education, as well as encouraging changes in accessibility spurred by our current digital learning environment.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

If we only had access to the “right” news, would all of our information literacy problems be solved? Who is allowed to be the authority on a subject? How do we determine what is the truth?

The Modern Language Association recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of its Bibliography, a human-curated database of Humanities research. Paula Krebs, Executive Director of MLA, hopes that its team of editors and curators can help curb falsehoods, and teach users to understand the background of a source and its legitimacy in the field. “It’s about being responsible and accurate in participating in a larger conversation. It’s about acknowledging the work of others and not inventing things out of whole cloth.”

In this second episode, Paula digs into the hot topic of info lit and MLA’s role as both an authoritative source and a tool for accuracy. Paula also discusses how the Bibliography has changed over time, and the deliberations MLA makes to better implement inclusive practices in its resources.

Paula Krebs, Executive Director of MLA, doesn’t want the MLA Handbook “to be simply a reference work that sits on the shelf.” Instead, the latest edition has roughly 300 more pages than the previous, revealing the fluid, human mechanics behind our authoritative sources. In fact, Paula explains that many of these additions—visuals aids, online citation guides, inclusive language instruction—were made in response to user feedback. “People feel like they own this product … They want it to work for their students and themselves, and they want it to be a live object.”

In this first episode, Paula reveals how MLA listens and communicates with faculty, students, and its own committees, executive councils, and governance groups on editorial decisions. Paula also discusses why MLA wants its handbook to act not as a citation generator, but as a valuable aid for scholars on their academic journey. “We want it to be a tool for them to engage in scholarly conversation, and to understand how to credit the rest of that conversation.”

From her lifelong LGBTQ+ advocacy work to her time in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Cheri DiNovo understands the daily grind of activism from both sides. While inspiring, gratifying, and necessary, social movements require relentless persistence. “That’s the test for activism: you have to keep it going. You have to keep that momentum going.”

In this final episode, Cheri breaks down her tips for consistent and result-driven activism, and reflects on the sheer numbers and organization of today’s movements—MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street—compared to those of the 1960s and 70s. Cheri also discusses how to keep young people invested in politics without falling prey to apathy and cynicism. “I have to look at history and say, if you think dramatic change doesn’t happen, that’s unrealistic.”

Cheri DiNovo, former member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, has been inside the belly of the legislative beast. Known for passing a historic number of LGBTQ+ bills, Cheri forged many bipartisan connections, negotiating her way from “motherhood” issues into the more contested. In her own words: “I prefer to think, and I guess this is the Christian in me too, or at least the faithful person in me, that there is some good reason people sit in those seats. There is some motivating factor that they actually want to change the world for the better…We may disagree ideologically on everything, we may disagree on how to make the world better, but if we can start with that conversation and kind of proceed from there, we can get something done.”

In this third episode, Cheri delves into the politics of politics, picking apart the shortfalls of our political systems, as well as highlighting the value of lively debate and collaboration between lawmakers across party lines. Cheri also discusses the reform versus revolution mentality, and why she believes there’s value in reform on the way to revolution. “When push comes to shove, I think about simply saving lives…Laws change lives, and they save lives.”