International Standard Content Codes (ISCC), Verifiable Credentials, and Liccium Trust Engine

(The following post is by a guest author. If you are interested in being a guest author as well, contact communications@nasig.org. We’d love to hear from you!)

Matthew Treskon
Project MUSE

This post describes three related technologies, discusses how they relate, and provides suggestions on how they can be used in scholarly communication.

What are International Standard Content Codes (ISCC)?

From https://iscc.codes/#a-proposal-for-a-modern-and-open-content-based-identifier

• a universal identifier for all kinds of digital content (text, image, audio, video)
• a lightweight and similarity-preserving fingerprint
• designed for cross-sector applicability (journalism, books, music, film, etc.)
• designed to identify content in decentralized and networked environments
• and most importantly it is free, open-source and transparent

In some ways, ISCC codes are like checksums. What is a checksum? By running a file against a publicly defined algorithm, a human or script can generate a hash/checksum that is unique to the file. This technology undergirds file management systems around the world in several ways, including confirmation that the file received is exactly the same as the file that was expected. If you have the file, you can generate a checksum and similarly you can generate ISCC Code

ISCC codes make use of hashes that act as checksums. If a file is even slightly different than another file, the checksums will be completely different. However, using similarity hashes, a human or program can see how different it is. There are four aspects to this difference in ISCC: 

• metadata similarity (Meta Code)
• content similarity (Content Code)
• data similarity (Data Code)
• data integrity (Instance Code)

How can this be used in publishing and library data?

ISCC codes can be used to check the integrity of a file or match similar files:

• Is this file that we just received basically the same as another file?
• Has this document been modified?
• There are plenty of other uses with this tech when combined with other technologies as we’ll get to in a bit

What are Verifiable Credentials?

The longstanding procedure of issuing credentials and verifying credentials involves correspondence and centralized authority. 

1. If an alumnus claims that they obtained a degree from a university, they can put it on their resume
2. A potential employer will then need to correspond with the university to confirm authenticity
3. The university will confirm the validity of this credential by looking it up in its centralized database

Although this works, and has worked for centuries, its slowness often means that the verification process is only reserved for very important circumstances.

Verifiable credentials technology is much more expedient and just as valid a method of issuing and confirming credentials. The university degree example could be modified using Verifiable Credentials:

1. Alumnus claims a degree from a university. They include a link on their resume that uses a Verifiable credentials system 
2. The potential employer confirms credential by following the link, knowing that the Verifiable credential system is inscrutable
3. Credential is confirmed without need to correspond with university and look up in a centralized database

How does this work?

• The university issues a Verifiable Credentials to the student at graduation. This consists of a digital signature (created by public private key infrastructure) that can only be issued by the university, an inscrutable identifier of the student (their public key), and metadata (in this case the degree)
• The verifier, the employer, can look at the Verifiable Credential and confirm that only the university could have issued it

You may already use this technology on your phone using the “wallet” feature. 

How can this be used in publishing and librarianship:

• Perhaps we can move beyond username and passwords!
• File sharing
• Peer review
• Providing metadata or making other claims to the content
• Proper attribution
• Social graph, binding VCs to established ID systems like ORCID-ID, ISNI
• Where else do we need to issue and confirm credentials?

Some other use cases: https://docs.creatorcredentials.com/creator-credentials/use-cases-for-creator-credentials-in-the-media-sectors

Liccium Trust Engine

Liccium Trust Engine is a new application that binds product metadata, rights information, and other claims, links, and Verifiable Credentials of trusted individuals and organizations the content-derived ISCC Codes of files. By using Liccium, an entity makes a claim on a document, such as:

• Copyright information (This is mine)
• Proof of authenticity (this is original content vs. fake news)
• Proof of human creation (this is human created vs. AI/machine generated)
• Provenance information (this is derivative of that)

Anybody using Liccium can look up a document using the ISCC codes and see claims and metadata about the document and perhaps make claims of their own. New files and their claims can be added as well.

A related service, called Creator Credentials, can be used to create verifiable credentials specific to media and content rights.

How could this be used in publishing and librarianship?

• Infer metadata from documents. If you have the document, you can look up the metadata
• Associate metadata with a document. This could really be anything
• Sometimes files are shared without metadata. Sometimes embedded metadata is stripped away. Regardless, a verifier can look up the metadata just by having the file, generating the ISCC code, and look it up
• Label document as AI opt-out
• Label content as AI generated
• Make copyright claims
• Validate authenticity

References

International Standard Content Codes

• https://iscc.codes/ 
• https://iscc.foundation/ 

Verifiable Credentials

• https://www.dock.io/post/verifiable-credentials 
• https://www.identity.com/what-are-verifiable-credentials/
• Creator Credentials project: https://docs.creatorcredentials.com/

Liccium Trust Engine

• Liccium homepage https://liccium.com

Liccium White paper (https://docs.liccium.com/whitepaper/ )

NASIG Webinar: Managing Centrally Negotiated or Purchased E-collections in the Alma Network Zone (NZ)

Please join us for the next NASIG webinar. Feel free to email cec@nasig.org if you have any questions. 

Managing Centrally Negotiated or Purchased E-collections in the Alma Network Zone (NZ)
Date: March 26, 2024, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET
Register: https://nasig.org/event-5644359

DESCRIPTION
The California State University, Chancellor’s Office purchases (Electronic Core Collection) or negotiates (Opt-in Collections) for the CSU libraries. The full text, database-only, and open access collections are managed in the Alma Network Zone. There are about 750 collections managed in the NZ. Also, the licenses for these collections are managed in the NZ so libraries can create local purchase orders for the Opt-in collections. Resources are negotiated by a Chancellor’s Office colleague who uses Consortia Manager for renewals.

This webinar discusses the complexity of ensuring that centrally acquired resources are kept up to date in Alma.

SPEAKER
Jessica Hartwigsen, Electronic Resources Manager, California State University

REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Registration Deadline for live event: March 26^th.  This webinar will be recorded and made available to registrants after the webinar is completed. The last date to purchase recording: June 25^th; After June 25^th the recording will be made freely available.

Webinar Rates:
NASIG members: $35
NASIG student members: Free
NISO members *: $35
SSP members*: $35
NASIG non-member: $50
Group registration: $95

NASIG members should login for member rate.

* NISO and SSP members should contact the NASIG Continuing Education Committee (cec@nasig.org) prior to registering in order to receive a priority code used for getting the listed rates.

Register: https://nasig.org/event-5644359

Call for Proposals – Great Ideas Showcase & Snapshots Sessions

The NASIG Program Planning Committee invites proposals for the Great Ideas Showcase and the Snapshots Session for the 39th Annual Conference, to be held June 3-7, 2024 in Spokane, Washington.

We are currently seeking in-person presentations. The NASIG Conference presenters and attendees will be expected to follow hotel Covid safety protocols.

 The Snapshots Sessions will be held on Tuesday June 4, 2024 4 – 5:30 PM and the Great Ideas Showcase will be held on Wednesday June 5.  Presenters must be available to discuss their showcases or present their snapshots during that time, in person.

 The Great Ideas Showcase will provide an opportunity to share innovative ideas, new workflows, and new applications of technology in an interactive and informal setting.  Great Ideas will be presented as posters. Participants will be given a poster board to showcase their idea to attendees.

 The Snapshots Session will consist of up to eight 5-minute presentations with a focus on an idea, projects, workflow, etc. If you’ve always wanted to speak at NASIG, but haven’t felt like you had enough to say for a full session, this is a great opportunity for you. 

Proposals may present a report of a research study, an analysis of a practical problem-solving effort, or a description of an innovative program that may be of interest to the NASIG community. Proposals should name any particular products or services that are integral to the content of the showcase or snapshot. However, as a matter of NASIG policy, showcases and snapshots should not be used as a venue to promote or attack any product, service, or institution.

Submit your Great Ideas Showcase or Snapshots Session proposal here.

 Proposals must be received by 5PM, Tuesday March 22, 2024. Members of the Program Planning Committee will evaluate submissions, and presenters will be notified of the status of their proposal by the beginning of April.

NOTE: Presenters for the Great Ideas Showcase or Snapshots Sessions do not qualify for a registration discount. Presenters must be registered for either the full conference or for the one-day registration.

 Inquiries may be sent to the NASIG Program Planning Committee co-chairs Jenn Zuccaro & Michelle Turvey-Welch at prog-plan@nasig.org

Accepting Applications for Equity & Inclusion Award

The NASIG Awards and Recognition Committee is now accepting applications for the Equity and Inclusion Award.  The purpose of this award is to further the NASIG mission to increase the diversity of its membership and provide financial support to attend the NASIG annual conference. Applicants must be a member of an underrepresented group in the NASIG community. This award is sponsored by Harrassowitz. Please apply by March 15, 2024.

What is Received

• Conference registration, 4 nights hotel covered at conference hotel
• $600 cash stipendium for all incidentals
• Recipient arranges all travel, meals, etc on their own
• One year’s free membership in NASIG
• Invitation to serve on a NASIG committee the year following the award

Eligibility

• Applicant must be members of an underrepresented group in the NASIG community (i.e. African-American, Latinx/Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American/Alaskan Native, members of the LGBTQ+ community or individuals with disabilities).
• This award is open to qualified applicants residing in any NASIG member country (defined for this purpose as the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland).
• Applicants must currently be in a position with primary responsibilities for some aspect of information resource management (e.g., serials and/or e-resources acquisitions, resource metadata and discovery, scholarly communications, collections management, digital publishing, e-resource or serials sales, scholarly publishing, or knowledgebase management), vendor, agent, or scholarly publisher.
• Applicants must have served in this position for no more than three years at the time of the application deadline and must not have been in a professional library or library-related position (e.g. book vendor, publisher) for more than five years at the time of the application deadline.
• Applicants must not have attended any previous NASIG conferences, but may have participated in a NASIG conference as a local volunteer.
• Applicants do not have to be a member of NASIG.
• Preference will be given to applicants whose career goals include professional growth and development in information resource management (e.g., serials and/or e-resources acquisitions, resource metadata and discovery, scholarly communications, collections management, digital publishing, e-resource or serials sales, scholarly publishing, or knowledgebase management), vendor, agent, or scholarly publishing after earning the graduate library degree.

To learn more about the application process please visit, https://nasig.org/NASIG-Awards.

Looking Ahead to NASIG 2024: PPC Update

Jenn Zuccaro and Michelle Turvey-Welch, PPC Co-Chairs

The NASIG 2024 Program Planning Committee (PPC) is hard at work scheduling conference workshops and concurrent sessions. We want to thank the many individuals who took the time to submit concurrent session proposals as the process was competitive with more ideas than slots. 

NASIG members have many interests. And those interests are reflected in the conference programming. Topics this year include BIBFRAME, seamless access, transformative agreements, artificial intelligence, DEI around metadata, and a Star Wars-themed musical on the future of data to name a few. A full list of concurrent sessions and workshops may be found in Sched under NASIG 2024. 

Back by popular demand are the workshops. Workshops will be held Tuesday, June 4 through Thursday, June 6, 2024, during the mornings of the conference. Unlike pre-conferences or post conferences offered in the past, workshops are included in your NASIG regular registration — a great value! Workshops are longer format allowing for deeper dives into topics. Below are the confirmed workshops.

Workshops

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Facing Challenges: Crafting Effective Policies for the Reconsideration of Library Materials
Cris Ferguson, Murray State University

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.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Introduction to Serials Cataloging, Part 1
Steve Shadle, University of Washington

This workshop provides the basic principles of original and copy cataloging of print serials with a focus on the elements contained in the RDA CONSER Standard Record (CSR), including appropriate MARC 21 tagging, as well as problem-solving and decision-making relative to serials cataloging. The specific goals of the workshop are to:

• Understand the concept of continuing resources
• Identify serials and distinguish them from monographs and integrating resources
• Become familiar with MARC tags used for serials
• Create original serials cataloging records
• Identify appropriate serial copy and needed edits
• Become familiar with current serials cataloging conventions and practices

Building and Evaluating User Driven Collections
Matthew Jabaily, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

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.

Thursday, June 6, 2024

Introduction to Serials Cataloging, Part 2
Steve Shadle, University of Washington

This workshop provides the basic principles of original and copy cataloging of print serials with a focus on the elements contained in the RDA CONSER Standard Record (CSR), including appropriate MARC 21 tagging, as well as problem-solving and decision-making relative to serials cataloging. The specific goals of the workshop are to:

• Understand the concept of continuing resources
• Identify serials and distinguish them from monographs and integrating resources
• Become familiar with MARC tags used for serials
• Create original serials cataloging records
• Identify appropriate serial copy and needed edits
• Become familiar with current serials cataloging conventions and practices

Starting Somewhere: Meaningful Micro-assessments for Library Collections
Helen McManus, George Mason University

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. 

NASIG Webinar: Getting Started in Publishing, Editing, and Peer Review

Getting Started in Publishing, Editing, and Peer Review

Date: February 28, 2024, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET
Register:  https://nasig.org/event-5578501

DESCRIPTION

Are you interested in writing, publishing, editing, and peer review? In this webinar, you will have a chance to hear from and talk to a group of experienced librarians who work in a variety of roles in scholarly publishing. The panel will provide tips on finding and developing ideas for writing, building skills to work in editing and peer review, and finding the scholarly publishing opportunities that are right for you. Join us, bring your questions, and share your experiences.

SPEAKERS

Bob Wolverton, Metadata Initiatives Librarian Mississippi State University
Courtney McAllister, Senior Solution Architect Atypon
Karen Davidson, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian Mississippi State University
Michael Fernandez, Electronic Resources Acquisitions Librarian Yale University
Rachel E. Scott, Associate Dean for Information Assets Illinois State University
Sofia Slutskaya, Head of Resource Description & Russian Studies Librarian Emory University

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Registration Deadline for live event: February 28th. This webinar will be recorded and made available to registrants after the webinar is completed. The last date to purchase recording: May 27th After May 27th the recording will be made freely available. See the NASIG Webinar recordings webpage at https://www.nasig.org/Webinars for a complete list of available webinars.

Webinar Rates:

NASIG members: $35
NASIG student members: Free
NISO members *: $35
SSP members*: $35
NASIG non-member: $50
Group registration: $95

NASIG members should login for member rate.

* NISO and SSP members should contact the NASIG Continuing Education Committee (cec@nasig.org) prior to registering in order to receive a priority code used for getting the listed rates.

Register:  https://nasig.org/event-5578501

Title Changes/Checking In

Kurt Blythe, Column Editor

[Note: Please report promotions, awards, new degrees, new positions, and other significant professional milestones.  You may submit items about yourself or other members to Kurt Blythe at kcblythe@email.unc.edu.  Contributions on behalf of fellow members will be cleared with the person mentioned in the news item before they are printed.  Please include your e-mail address or phone number.]

Y’all, it is 2024 and here is my accumulation of title changes and introductions from new members dating back a good long while. Time marches on, and so does NASIG, and so does our collective progression through the profession from graduate school to retirement with all attendant accomplishments, such as those noted below.

Rebecca L. Bearden’s title has changed from Senior Serials & Metadata Librarian to Senior Continuing Resources Librarian at Boston University School of Law.

Your humble editor is now Interim Head, Resource Description & Management at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jill Bright had a title change to Head of Electronic Resources (previously Electronic Resources & Social Sciences Librarian) effective 7/1/2023 at Saint Louis University.

Amanda Bullington will be starting a new position as Serials Cataloger Librarian at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library this month (January)!

CJ Garcia has recently started a new job as Health Sciences Librarian at Creighton University.

 
Matthew Ragucci’s title changed first to Director of Product Marketing, then to Director of Institutional Product Marketing at Wiley.

This December, my position at Clemson University changed to eResource Discovery Librarian.

Jessica S. Scott, MLIS

eResources Discovery Librarian

Pronouns (she, her, hers)

Library Depot, Clemson University

Clemson Research Park

103 Clemson Research Blvd.

Anderson, SC 29625

(864) 656-2819

I have been with the University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library as the Director of Bibliographic Services and the Federal Depository Library Coordinator since 2020. I just accepted a role with Harvard Business School’s Baker Library as their Collection & Discovery Specialist, effective 17 July 2023 so my last day at TU will be June 30th. I am in the middle of the move to Massachusetts from Oklahoma but will be permanently located in the Massachusetts area by the end of the month.

Elizabeth J. Szkirpan, MLIS

I am new to NASIG and I have joined because I transitioned from a subject liaison position to a collections position and I want to become more involved with associations that are providing a community for those who manage information resources. NASIG seemed like a great community to join!

RT

Rayla Tokarz

Collections Librarian & Assistant Professor

Subject Librarian for Communication Studies

Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center 

University of Nevada, Reno

rtokarz@unr.edu

I was hired as the Electronic Resources Librarian at Clemson University in December 2018, and I was officially hired as the Head of Collections and Acquisitions at Clemson University as of June 1, 2023.  I had been serving as Interim Head of Acquisitions since August 2021.

Chris

Christopher D. Vidas

Head of Collections and Acquisitions

Clemson University

NASIG Webinar 23 Jan.: Automating COUNTER Reports w/Python

Happy new year to all!

NASIG’s Continuing Education Committee is pleased to announce the next NASIG Webinar, to be held on 23 January. Full details below; we hope you’ll join us. A bonus for SSP and NISO members: note the discounted rate!

—

Automating COUNTER Reports with Python: Save Time in Evaluating Your Statistics

When: January 23, 2024 2:00 PM, EST

Where: Zoom

Registration: https://nasig.org/event-5558058

EVENT DETAILS:

DESCRIPTION

Harvesting COUNTER-compliant usage statistics is time-consuming, and compiling these statistics for reporting is just as tedious. Have you considered automating some of this process with Python? At CSUF, we evaluate our subscriptions with Harrasowitz—a subscription manager, and a massive report gets put together to evaluate the library’s investments. This process is imperfect and could be done differently, but the Python script helps compile these statistics a little easier. This webinar is intended for libraries that do not have a SUSHI client but can also be helpful for SUSHI harvested usage reports. 

SPEAKER BIO

Ilda Cardenas is the Electronic Resources Librarian at Pollak Library, California State University, Fullerton. She manages access to the library’s electronic content. She received her MLIS from San Jose State University. Previously to working at Fullerton, she was an Electronic Resources and Acquisitions Librarian at Mississippi State University Libraries. Ilda’s research interests include usage statistics, issues in electronic resources management and employee wellness.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Registration Deadline for live event: January 22nd. This webinar will be recorded and made available to registrants after the webinar is completed. The last date to purchase recording: April 22nd. After April 22nd the recording will be made freely available.

Webinar Rates:

NASIG members: $35
NASIG student members: $15
NISO members *: $35
SSP members*: $35
NASIG non-member: $50
Group registration: $95

NASIG members should login for member rate.

* NISO and SSP members should contact the NASIG Continuing Education Committee (cec@nasig.org) prior to registering in order to receive a priority code used for getting the listed rates.

Registration: https://nasig.org/event-5558058

Announcing Availability of NASIG 2022 Proceedings

NASIG, along with its publishing partner, Michigan Publishing, is thrilled to announce that NASIG Proceedings (ISSN 2995-214X) is now available! As promised in our initial announcement, all content is freely available under a Creative Commons license. There is no embargo period or registration required to read the content, and each article is assigned a DOI for improved linking and access.

The first issue is vol. 37 and features content from the 37th NASIG Annual Conference held in-person and online in Baltimore, MD from 5-8 June, 2022. From its first conference in 1986 through to its 36th annual event in 2021, NASIG conference proceedings were previously published in the Spring of the following year by Taylor & Francis in a double issue of The Serials Librarian. NASIG and Taylor & Francis collaborated to make these proceedings freely available as well. Back issues are listed on the NASIG Annual Proceedings page.

NASIG Proceedings is the result of collaboration between many conference presenters and session recorders volunteering their time and energy, and reflects the best of our collaborative and supportive community. Issuing NASIG Proceedings as Open Access aligns us more closely with the needs and expectations of our community, and addresses important aspects of our strategic plan (for example, see Strategic Direction #3: Support New and Ongoing Developments Related to the Management and Accessibility of Information Resources). Overall, Open Access increases the visibility and impact of research and promotes collaboration within the scholarly community

In celebrating this significant milestone, NASIG President, Courtney McAllister (Atypon), noted:

The transition of NASIG Proceedings to Open Access (OA) is an important reminder of what we can achieve as a member-driven and member-led organization. OA Proceedings are important to our membership, and NASIG rose to the challenge of making that vision a reality! The Open Initiatives Committee performed an exemplary analysis of NASIG’s publishing options. Once we moved towards implementing the transition, our Proceedings Editors worked very hard to liaise with Michigan and adapt to an entirely new workflow, while the Communications Committee optimized NASIG’s branding and visibility throughout the process. Many thanks to these volunteers, and others, for supporting this transition and serving library practitioners within and beyond the NASIG community!

Paul Moeller (University of Colorado Boulder), NASIG Vice President/President-Elect, also added:

I am delighted that NASIG has been able to make the Proceedings immediately open to the world. Transitioning to an Open Access publishing model for the Proceedings has been a key goal for the organization which has long supported open and affordable scholarly communication initiatives. Many thanks to the Open Initiative Committee, the Proceedings Editors and to all who contributed to the move.

We look forward to the 2023 conference proceedings, as well as those into the future, being made available in the same way for the benefit of the scholarly community in library and information science.

NASIG Autumn 2023: A Look Back

It has been almost six weeks since NASIG Autumn 2023 concluded. Here is a look back. As the first fully virtual, standalone, non-COVID-related conference that we have put on, NASIG Autumn was quite historic. It was also the result of listening to our members, many of whom told us they could not afford or were not able to make it to our annual in-person event and who wanted an accessible alternative (accessible in multiple ways, including price). So that is what we did.

Held from 16-18 October, the event featured a single-track program approach with NASIG President, Courtney McAllister, serving as our able moderator/coordinator throughout three days of interesting presentations of about three hours in total. Keeping the virtual nature of the conference in mind, we decided early on to offer three types of programming: short, medium, and long, as well as prerecorded and live sessions, with plenty of breaks in between. Attendees were able to access the prerecorded sessions beforehand and then were provided access to all of the recordings shortly after the event concluded. This came in handy for those who could not attend due to their schedules but wanted to benefit from the excellent sessions afterward.

On Monday the 16th of October, our event kicked off with a wonderfully inspiring Vision Session by Dr. Abeni Wickham, founder of SciFree, who talked about “Do librarians and researchers fully know their value?” She included anecdotes from her own interesting experiences that led her to where she is now. Following this were three short sessions on topics such as where to start learning the ropes of being a newer e-resources librarian (featuring the website, https://www.electronicresourceslibrarian.com); e-resources mentoring; and issues relating to the scarcity of systems librarians in the post-pandemic labor market. After that were two medium sessions on using AI for library instruction, and another one on analyzing course descriptions for digital primary source collection development. All of these were really informative and interesting! Monday’s sessions concluded with an in-depth look at one large academic library’s experience migrating serials to FOLIO. For attendees, this session gave crucial insight into the pros and cons of such a move.

For the second day of NASIG Autumn, we held a virtual Members Forum that was open to conference attendees and all NASIG members. In the past, this session was held in-person as part of our regular in-person annual conference, but the NASIG Board decided to switch things up and make attendance more accessible for all this year. Among other topics, Courtney McAllister used this time to highlight the many fruitful and beneficial partnerships NASIG has with similar groups, initiatives, and organizations, all of which are described at https://www.nasig.org/Strategic_Affiliates. These partnerships are very rewarding and fruitful for NASIG members and demonstrate our commitments to our core values. The Members Forum also featured an overview of the work of the Marketing Task Force in developing a new Marketing Plan for NASIG as well as an invitation for volunteers to join that group. The following sessions focused on innovative approaches to conducting serials reclassification and metadata remediation; a fascinating project to add ISO 639-3 language codes to MARC records using OpenRefine Wikidata Reconciliation that included a live demo; and an in-depth overview of artificial intelligence and libraries. The day’s sessions concluded with part one of two lively discussions of pre-recorded sessions.

The final day on 18 October led with talks on making equitable access to textbooks a reality at one medium-sized academic library, followed by a session that talked about deselecting ebooks, a pertinent topic not often discussed. We then held part 2 of our pre-recorded session discussions. Next up were sessions on AI and health sciences libraries, a session on ERM troubleshooting, and another one on how to work with vendors to achieve success when negotiating challenging deals. Before the day (and the conference) concluded, we were treated to an overview of the challenges to migrating ETDs from a local solution to a commercial platform (Digital Commons), and then a session on implementing a serial title database whose purpose was to improve access to digital collections.

Courtney McAllister concluded the event with thanks to the many people who helped pull off the event, especially the many speakers who contributed their excellent presentations in live as well as pre-recorded sessions. (See the link to the program schedule for a list of the many interesting topics covered in these pre-recorded sessions, including automating OA journal workflow, use of AI to evaluate/review license agreements, issues with OA in a library discovery tool, and many others.) A few noteworthy facts about our experience: NASIG Autumn attracted a significant number of non-NASIG members (more, actually, than NASIG members); many LIS students; and drew attendees from around the world, not just those in North America. We are really happy with these results, and hope that we can continue to hold this new type of conference each autumn in the future.