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Future of the Research Library Speaker Series

Presented by the University of Maryland Libraries, the lecture series explores the role of a modern research library in a rapidly changing environment. Invited speakers will inform, provoke, and otherwise engage our thinking in different and innovative ways. These free events are open to all members of the campus community and the general public.

Upcoming Event: (This event has been postponed)

Transforming Research Libraries

Martha Kyrillidou headshot

Speaker: Martha Kyrillidou, Director & CEO of QualityMetrics, LLC

Date: TBA

Time: TBA

Location: McKeldin 6137 (Special Events Room)

Transformational changes are taking places in all types of libraries including research libraries.  What are the general trends and what are the trends that dominate in research libraries? We will discuss how our research libraries are planning their transformations by being responsive to service innovations, diversity, equity and inclusion while balancing the budgetary demands of acquiring new sources of knowledge for generations yet to be born.

About Martha Kyrillidou

Martha Kyrillidou consults in management, evaluation, assessment and R&D activities. She helps libraries respond to customer needs through the development of user-focused services and culture that enhance the user-experience. With an understanding of trends in services, collections, facilities, and personnel she can help a library tell their story through narratives, visuals and numbers. Martha can help with accreditation, grant writing, evaluation plans or serve as an external evaluator and data analyst for grant and sponsored activities. As the original architect of the StatsQUAL suite of services at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Martha is well positioned to consult and help maximize the benefits derived from LibQUAL+, ClimateQUAL and MINES for Libraries. She has also worked on digital library as well as special collections assessment and evaluation methods. Her work has defined the growing and dynamic library assessment community of practice across the globe. 

Past Events

R. David Lankes headshot

Data, Media, and Society

Date: October 8, 2019

Speaker: R. David Lankes, Director of the School of Library & Information Science, University of South Carolina

It would be easy to see the advent of open educational resources, open access publication, and repositories of data sets as a continuation of the traditional mission of a research library. Namely, providing access to the scholarly record including items studied as well as the results of study. It would also be easy to see this as happening in parallel to a pivot of libraries to more community centered models. In this presentation Lankes will show how these developments are deeply intertwined in how we conceptualize scholarly communication and the need for advocacy around data in all aspects of higher education. 

Presentation Slides and Recording

MJ Bishop headshot

Improving Access, Affordability, and Achievement with OER

Date: April 17, 2019

Speaker: Dr. MJ Bishop, Associate Vice Chancellor and Director, William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, University System of Maryland

Despite the transformative power that technology has had in a whole range of businesses, the history of technology use in education over the last 100 years paints a rather bleak picture of the extent to which digital tools, in and of themselves, can lead to sustainable academic change. The issue is that we often miss the key affordances of the tools that can be employed to help solve learning problems. This presentation traces the lessons we can learn from the history of educational technology in order to explore the true promise of openly licensed educational resources and the future they may hold for teaching, learning, and student success.

Presentation Slides

Kimberly Armstrong headshot

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Collective Collection

Date: October 24, 2018

Speaker: Kimberly Armstrong, Director of Library Initiatives, Big Ten Academic Alliance

Kim Armstrong provided an overview of the Big Ten Academic Alliance as a Collective Collection.

Recorded Lecture

G. Sayeed Choudhury headshot

"Data, data, everywhere..."

Date: April 5, 2018

Presenter: G. Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean for Research Data Management and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center, Johns Hopkins University

In reference to the famous quote of “Water, water, everywhere…” from Samuel Taylor’s Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” this talk explored the reality that we are awash in data and yet there are relatively few compelling success stories of libraries directly supporting data intensive research or learning. The talk described success stories from both the public and private sector, particularly in relation to the growing use of big data and new forms of machine learning. The talk then asked what research libraries may need to do in order to be more successful at supporting, even empowering, data intensive research or learning.

Presentation Slides

Trevor A. Dawes headshot

Diversity and the Library: Ensuring the Success of Our Community

Date: November 30, 2017

Presenter: Trevor A. Dawes, Vice Provost for Libraries and Museums and May Morris University Librarian at the University of Delaware

Trevor Dawes discussed ways in which libraries contribute to overall diversity and inclusion initiatives, and also examined some issues that have led to heightened sensitivities, requiring a different level of discourse.

Recorded Lecture

Matt Barnes headshot

Sustainable Collection Management: Enabling the Transformation of Libraries

Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Presenter: Matt Barnes, Director of Sustainable Collection Services, OCLC

Matt Barnes reviewed how libraries are expanding the scope and nature of their collections; integrating information resources with applied learning experiences; facilitating researcher collaboration; and completely rethinking collections and access.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Nicole Allen headshot

Solving the Textbook Cost Crisis

Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Presenter: Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education, SPARC

Nicole Allen leads SPARC's work on the issue area of Open Education, with a dual focus on public policy and engaging the library community to advance this issue on campus

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Mike Furlough headshot

HathiTrust and Your Library:  An Update for 2016

Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Presenter: Mike Furlough, Executive Director, HathiTrust

In this talk, Mike highlights HathiTrust’s services and its major programs focused on shared print, computational research, and federal documents.  Discussion focused on how the University of Maryland can build on HathiTrust for their own needs.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Brian Lavoie headshot

The Evolving Scholarly Record: Scope, Stakeholders, and Stewardship

Date: Monday, November 16, 2015

Presenter: Brian Lavoie, Research Scientist at OCLC Research

In this talk, Brian discussed highlights from the OCLC Research reports The Evolving Scholarly Record and Stewardship of the Evolving Scholarly Record: From the Invisible Hand to Conscious Coordination, with special emphasis on the ways the scholarly record is changing in a digital, networked environment.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Courtney L. Young headshot

Diversity in the Future of the Research Library

Date: Monday, May 11, 2015

Presenter: Courtney L. Young, 2014-2015 American Library Association President

Courtney L. Young is currently Head Librarian and Professor of Women’s Studies at Penn State Greater Allegheny and the 2014-2015 American Library Association (ALA) President. In 2011, Courtney was named a Library Journal "Mover & Shaker", recognized as a Change Agent for her ability to successfully make connections among a diversity of duties in her library, on campus, and in the profession.

Presentation Slides

Mark Sandler headshot

Kentucky Fried Libraries: Battered and Chewed Up in the Digital Marketplace

Date: Thursday, December 4, 2014

Presenter: Mark Sandler, Director of the Center for Library Initiatives at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)

Mark Sandler discusses the prospects for research libraries when proximity has diminished value, and scale, efficiency, and customer acquisition become the keys to success.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Heather Joseph headshot

The Evolution of Open Access: What Might Happen Next

Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014

Presenter: Heather Joseph, SPARC Executive Director

Heather Joseph reviews some of the trends that have emerged in open access: not only how we access and use scholarly research, but how it is disseminated, curated and evaluated.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Roger Schonfeld headshot

Library Objectives: Collections – Discovery – Preservation

Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Presenter: Roger Schonfeld, Program Director for Libraries, Users, and Scholarly Practices at Ithaka S+R

Roger Schonfeld reviews some of the trends that have emerged in the areas of collections, discovery and preservation to help libraries consider wise objectives for each.

Recorded Lecture

Dan Hazen headshot

Terps in Our Beds: Building Meaningful (Library) Relationships in a Multi-Partnered World

Date: Monday, March 25, 2013

Presenter: Dan Hazen, Associate Librarian for Collection Development, Harvard College

Dan Hazen's presentation centers on how partnerships are essential for research libraries but should include discussion on scope, adaptability, assessment plans, and business models.

Recorded Lecture

Jason Priem headshot

Altmetrics: Beyond the article and beyond the impact factor

Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Presenter: Jason Priem, PhD student and Royster Fellow, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; co-founder of ImpactStory

Jason Priem upends traditional measures of scholarly impact by looking in new places such as Wikipedia and Twitter. Doing so promotes and rewards new forms of Web-native scholarship. Priem demonstrates that “altmetrics”—a term he coined—can inform conversations about what it means to impact scholarship today.

Presentation Slides

Rick Anderson headshot

The River, the Pond, and the Future of the Research Collection

Date: Monday, April 30, 2012

Presenter: Rick Anderson, Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources and Collections, University of Utah

Rick Anderson is a popular speaker on subjects related to the future of scholarly communication and information services in higher education. He discusses the future of library access to research collections.

Recorded Lecture

Presentation Slides

Lizanne Payne headshot

The Future Library Print Collections: To Share is to Preserve

Date: Monday, October 10, 2011

Presenter: Lizanne Payne, Consultant

Lizanne Payne discusses how research libraries are reducing the number of books on their shelves by developing strategies to share their print collections.

Presentation Slides

Constance Malpas headshot

Reshaping the Research Library: Observations on the Future of Academic Collections

Date: Thursday, April 28, 2011

Presenter: Constance Malpas, Program Officer, OCLC Research

Constance Malpas examines the transition of scholarly work from print-based media to networked resources and explores the impact of this transition on the organization of academic libraries.

Presentation Slides

Michael W. Carroll headshot

Academic Authors and Copyright: Recent Developments in Scholarly Communication

Date: Thursday, October 21, 2010

Presenter: Michael W. Carroll, Professor of Law, American University

Michael W. Carroll's presentation on copyright, scholarly communication, author rights, and Open Access.

Presentation Slides

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