Against The Grain - The Podcast

Join us for our latest podcast episode featuring a conversation between Trongthi Nguyen, Collection Development Librarian, RMIT University Library, Vietnam, and Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director. Trongthi Nguyenwas born in Central Vietnam and moved to Ho Chi Minh City (AKA, Saigon) as a child to attend school. He obtained his MS in Library Science and decided to become a librarian upon graduation.  Thi said many people in Vietnam have seen the job of librarian as a very simple matter of checking books in and out, but things are changing and they are seeing that there is much more to librarianship than this. Thi and Matthew will discuss his job and what it's like to do Acquisitions work at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) in Ho Chi Minh City, the different sorts of Universities in Vietnam and what their system of higher education is like. They will also discuss how RMIT (an Australian university) came to Vietnam and how it differs from other Vietn

Join us for our latest podcast episode featuring a conversation between Tony Zanders, Founder and CEO, Skilltype, and Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director. Tony and Matthew discuss the start of Tony's professional career in the entrepreneurial world of Silicon Valley, his customer-centered work at ExLibris from 2009 to 2014, and his move back home to New Orleans, where he became a part of the startup/entrepreneurship community. A few months later, EBSCO took advantage of Tony's unique expertise by hiring him to integrate their EBSCO databases into third party software platforms. In 2018, after conversations with selected library directors about underserved areas in library operations, Tony founded Skilltype, a startup that centers around creative library professional development in an era of staffing austerity. Tony is a long-time attendee of the Charleston Conference. Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zanders/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/s

Today's episode features a conversation between Stephen Rhind-Tutt,  President, Coherent Digital, LLC and Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director. Stephen has worked in Electronic Publishing for 33 years, starting with the small CD-Rom publisher, APT books, which released some of the first CD-Roms, and then at Silver Platter.  He worked briefly at Gale, and then he ran Chadwick Healy, US, before co-founding Alexander Street Press in 2000.  After selling Alexander Street to Proquest in 2018, Stephen founded Coherent Digital in 2019. An entrepreneur who remarks that his work is also his play, Stephen is a restless innovator whose current projects revolve around taming "wild content" in the virtual space. Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhindtutt/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/coherentdigital/

Today's episode is from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference from a session titled "Whole Ebook ILL: On the Road Toward a Scalable Solution" presented by Whitney Murphy, Sr. Product Manager, Clarivate; Allen Jones, Director, Digital Library and Technical Services, The New School; George Machovec, Executive Director, Colorado Alliance; Sylvia Bonadio, Sales Director, Americas, Brill; and Lisa Nachtigall, Director, Global Institutional Resellers and Channel Strategy, Oxford University Press. Interlibrary loan (ILL) has a long and valued history, and today, it's more important than ever. Stagnant library budgets and increasing virtual learning environments, combined with the impact of the global pandemic, all increased the importance of borrowing and lending across libraries. While ILL services have expanded to include support for digital lending, a scalable solution does not yet exist for aggregated whole ebook lending. Supporting a shift to whole ebook lending offers an opportunity for publishers and librari

Join us for our latest podcast episode featuring a conversation between Lindsay Wertman, President, IGI Global; Leah Hinds, Executive Director of the Charleston Hub; and Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director. Lindsay is the newly appointed President of IGI Global, a smaller, independent academic publisher located in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Lindsay started out as an editorial assistant at IGI Global 15 years ago, working with authors and editors and learning how to build relationships directly with librarians and researchers in the field.  Topics will include Lindsay's roles (past and present) at IGI Global, the importance of learning from and being mentored by her colleagues, the benefits of working for a smaller academic publisher, competing with the bigger "fish" in publishing, and how IGI Global has evolved over the years to meet changing user needs and the end user experience. Lindsay says IGI Global is set to release their very first OA book over the next mont

Audio from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference from the session titled "Using Data to Drive Decisions: Libraries, Publishers and the New Open" presented by Adam Der, License Manager, Max Planck Digital Library; Matthew Willmott, Open Access Collection Strategist, California Digital Library; Melissa Junior, Senior Director Journals, ASM; and Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think and moderated by Meg White, Senior Director, Delta Think.   Utilizing and disseminating open content is about more than just the license applied, it's understanding where your organization fits in terms of trends over time, trends globally, and according to business or funding model. Gold, hybrid, public access/bronze, diamond, green, subscription content comprise the mixed model environment in which we find ourselves, and the models are becoming more--not less--complex. How can your library make spending or negotiating decisions that will best serve your researchers, from students to faculty? How can a society settle on a

Today's episode features a conversation with Joyce Backus of the National Library of Medicine. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and a Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Joyce retired two years ago as Associate Director for Library Operations of the National Library of Medicine where she had spent her entire career. She started at the NLM as a library school student who wanted to get into biomedical and biological libraries, eventually becoming an associate fellow who would work her way up through the ranks over the years.    Joyce and Matthew will discuss what makes the Library of Medicine special, Index Medicus (which became MEDLINE and then evolved into PubMed), the process by which the NLM analyzes which programs to discontinue, and how PubMed selects the content that is added to the Index.   They will also discuss how the internet and open access changed publishing and libraries all over the world. Social Media: https://www.linkedin

Join us for our latest podcast episode featuring a conversation between Jason Priem, Co-Founder of OurResearch, Leah Hinds, Executive Director of the Charleston Hub, and Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings. As a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jason led the creation of the field of altmetrics--coining the term, authoring the influential Altmetrics Manifesto, and leading the first altmetrics workshops. Jason also co-founded Impactstory (now OurResearch), a nonprofit building open software to promote the growth of open science. Since then, Our Research has received funding from the US National Science Foundation, US National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and others. Topics of conversation include the all-night hack-a-thon session that led to the start of OurResearch and the many different projects under the OurResearch umbrella, but focusing on the newest product in their portfolio called OpenAlex. Inspired by the Library of Alexand

Today's episode features a conversation with Emily Poznanski, Director of the Central European University Press. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Emily is currently based out of Vienna. Prior to her current position at the Central European University Press, she worked at a fully open access publisher in Warsaw, then served as Director of Strategy at De Gruyter in Berlin. Emily and Matthew talk about the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the origins of Central European University and the Press, as well as how the character of the region has been shaped by recent history, the shift in mindset for both the university and the press when moving from Budapest to Vienna, the complex community of distinct cultures and traditions in Central Europe, and the mission of the Central European University Press to export to the rest of the world a body of knowledge about Central Europe that offers a pathway to pro

Audio from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference from the session titled "On the Open Access Road Again: Is the value of the big deal declining?" presented by Michael Levine-Clark, Dean of Libraries, University of Denver; John McDonald, Director of Product Management, Assessment & Analytics, EBSCO Information Services; and Jason Price, Research & Scholarly Communication Director, SCELC Library Consortium, and moderated by Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think.   Faced with declining budgets and ever-increasing costs for journal subscriptions, academic libraries are reconsidering their approach to journal collection development. Big deal packages are often the main target of cancellation decisions, at least partly because of the perception that a growing proportion of their underlying articles is freely available--on the publisher site or elsewhere. If this is the case, then we would expect to see trends toward declining value (i.e. increasing cost per use) in CPU metrics that take freely av

Today's episode features a conversation with Jim O'Donnell, University Librarian, Arizona State University. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.   Jim O'Donnell was a longstanding academic and professor of classics before becoming University Librarian at Arizona State University in 2015.  Jim and Matthew, both Charleston Conference veterans, will discuss libraries and the internet before 1995, that moment for libraries and the internet, as Jim puts it, "when all the lights went on at Broadway at once."

This week's episode has audio from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference from the "Long Arm of the Law" session, presented by Kevin Smith, Dean of Libraries and Director of the University Press, University of Kansas and Lila Bailey, Policy Council for the Internet Archive, and moderated by Ann Okerson, Senior Advisor, CRL.  The Long Arm Panel focuses each year on serious legal topics for the information industry.  Once again, the Long Arm of the Law session lights the Charleston Conference stage! In this year's presentation we will continue to inform the audience about the latest court cases and rulings that impact us in libraries and the information industry. As always, there are many new legal developments that will intrigue the Charleston audience. Lila Bailey will offer insights about the AAP member-publishers copyright infringement suit against the Internet Archive. Kevin Smith will speak about the intricacies of controversial new state legislation that requires publishers to license ebooks to public li

This episode is the Keynote Address from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference, titled "How to Think Like a Civilization" Presented by Paul Saffo, Consulting Associate Professor, Stanford University, and moderated by Michael Keller, Vice Provost, Academic Council, Stanford University Library. Paul says we live in a moment when the institutions most needed to tackle our global problems are dissolving into uncertainty. That uncertainty tempts us into focusing on what is lost - but we know better. The proper task is to consider how to shape what will emerge in its place.  Like it or not, we are recreating ourselves into a new planetary civilization. With luck - and a bit of help from librarians - we might just get it right. Video of the presentation available at https: https://youtu.be/iPin-yntMAY?t=0  

Today's audio is from a Keynote Address from the 2021 Charleston Library Conference, titled "Think Different" Presented by Joy Connolly, President, American Council of Learned Societies, and moderated by Jim O'Donnell, University Librarian, Arizona State University. Today, thanks to the gradual democratization of the university and the explosion of digital technology, knowledge (or at least information) has never been more accessible. Meanwhile, academic scholarship has grown ever more highly specialized. Many faculty in the humanities and social sciences are trying to bridge the divide in the hope of reaching more students and a broader public, but they frequently find themselves foiled by entrenched habits of curricular design, rigid faculty reward structures and hierarchies, and uneven access to resources. Joy will lay out some ways people are thinking differently — and from a scholar's perspective, she'll discuss how libraries advance scholarly evolution. Video of the presentation available at https: http

In this episode, Leah Hinds, Executive Director of the Charleston Hub, and Tom Gilson, Associate Editor of Against the Grain, enjoy a conversation with Jay Flynn, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Research, at Wiley and Sven Fund, Managing Director at Knowledge Unlatched. Their talk includes topics surrounding the recent acquisition of KU by Wiley: their shared dedication to open access, how KU will fit operationally into the existing structure at Wiley, opportunities and challenges created by the acquisition, and what libraries can expect moving forward. Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayflynn/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/svenfund/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/knowledge-unlatched https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-wiley-and-sons/ Twitter: @KUnlatched, @WileyinResearch

Today's episode features a conversation with Leah Hinds, Executive Director, The Charleston Hub. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in Chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Leah Hinds is the Executive Director of the Charleston Hub, which includes the Charleston Conference, Against the Grain, and other publications.  This is her 17th year working for the Conference. Leah and Matthew discuss the Charleston Conference's decision to go virtual in 2020 after a 40 year history of in person conferences in Charleston, the 2021 hybrid Conference event and navigating the moving pieces and logistics, overcoming technical difficulties, and managing scheduling challenges for both the virtual and in person aspects of the Conference. She says a benefit of both the virtual and hybrid conferences was an increase in international attendees, as well as increased equitable access for those who haven't been able to attend in the past, and that hybrid events ar

In this episode, Leah Hinds, Executive Director of the Charleston Hub, and Tom Gilson, Associate Director of Against the Grain, interview Lauren Kane, who is the incoming President and CEO of BioOne. Topics of conversation run from Lauren's background and previous experience, early plans and goals for her new role, the issues and challenges facing small, non-profit scholarly publishers, and much more.  After today's episode, ATG The Podcast! will be taking a break, with new episodes resuming on January 10.  We wish you all a very happy holiday season! Thanks for listening!

Today's episode features a conversation with Scott Williams, Vice President for Technology and Platform, De Gruyter. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Scott is currently in his third year of working in academic publishing at De Gruyter.  His background is in startups, digital transformation, technology, product, commercial data, and included working at Google for four years in the UK. Scott and Matthew discuss his time working at Google with technology projects such as launching the "cost per click" model, learning to hire at scale, meeting customers and consulting with them to help build and improve as well as culture management and change.  When Google acquired YouTube, Scott went to LA and sold one of the first ads that appeared on YouTube, which was for the Simpsons movie.  Now at De Gruyter, Scott says that he is working to improve the publishing experience for authors and to generate more tra

Today's episode features a conversation with Robin Dougherty, Librarian for Middle East Studies, and Interim Librarian for African Studies at Yale University. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Robin has been a librarian for 26 years, the last 10 of those being spent at Yale.  Robin's first major job was at University of Pennsylvania as a Middle East Studies bibliographer. She then worked at University of Texas at Austin, in Cairo at the American University in Cairo and in England working as a corporate cataloguer.  Robin was also a Senior Arabic Cataloger for the Library of Congress.   Robin talks with Matthew about first deciding to study Egyptology as a child, learning to speak Arabic in college to follow this dream, and then finding that college Arabic classes did not prepare one to effectively speak to the local population in Egypt.  Robin did two archeological expeditions and loves the movies a

Today's episode features a conversation with Lettie Conrad, Product R&D Consultant. The interview was conducted by Matthew Ismail, Editor in chief of the Charleston Briefings and Conference Director at the Charleston Conference.  Lettie brings 20 years' experience in professional and scholarly publishing to her diverse portfolio of product research and development projects. She is dedicated to helping information organizations cultivate a user-centered, standards-compliant approach to digital publishing and academic programs. Her expertise lies in optimizing user engagement, discovery and access of academic content platforms. Previously, Lettie played a key role in establishing the product management program at SAGE Publishing. Currently, Lettie is North American Editor for Learned Publishing, a 'chef' with the SSP's Scholarly Kitchen blog, and Information Science PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.