NASIG 2026

This presentation discusses and shares the results of a research project following the cancellation of the library’s largest journal subscription package. The topic of this presentation is collection analysis, assessment, and development, and also addresses NASIG’s Core Competencies for Electronic Resource Librarians in the area of Research & Assessment (3), specifically numbers 3.2, 3.5, and 3.7. This presentation will cover the collection and analysis of standardized e-resource usage data through different software options and tools such as Microsoft Excel. It will address how to use specific data measures to predict usage and expenditure trends after the cancellation or unbundling of a large subscription package. The presentation additionally covers the topic of user information seeking behavior in how our researchers interact library resources in general, based on these data findings and interviews from a separate but related research endeavor.

There is an incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem of independent films growing every day. For libraries, it can be difficult to navigate how to reach out to an independent filmmaker to get a film from their hard drive into the library catalog.
Acquiring streaming video from small vendors or directly from independent filmmakers often requires significant front-end work by libraries. Navigating how to initiate contact, negotiate terms, and move a film from a creator’s hard drive into the library catalog can be complex and time-consuming. To streamline this process, libraries must clearly identify their expectations around licensing, access, and permitted uses. We must also be prepared to educate vendors and filmmakers who may be unfamiliar with academic libraries. Many creators are eager to make their work available in a university setting but lack guidance on the practical and legal considerations involved.
This session will address common questions, share best practices, and offer strategies for efficiently managing these acquisitions, including how to determine when an acquisition may not be feasible or advisable. It will include examples from my own experience and propose ways in which this work could scale to other libraries

Research metrics shape academic careers, influence funding priorities, and quietly drive inequities across disciplines. Many researchers and subject specialists encounter these systems as neutral or inevitable. In this session, a subject librarian and a scholarly communication librarian examine two intertwined critiques of metric culture. Together, the presenters highlight how deeply metrics structure academic life and discuss ways that scholarly communication librarians can help faculty and subject specialists recognize and resist the ways in which metrics have become the built-in logic of academic institutions with unintended consequences - shaping what research is produced, circulated, and valued.

This presentation offers a case study examining the success of a Transformational Agreement with a consortium member. It demonstrates how a structured TA supports institutions by streamlining collections budgets, improving publication workflows, and advancing the Open Access mission of making research more freely available. The presentation provides dual perspectives from both the library and publisher, illustrating how this partnership was built on aligned goals: increasing OA output, strengthening institutional support, and achieving mutual success.

Slow Librarianship made its debut in 2017 in an In the Library with the Lead Pipe article written by Julia Glassman, but the concept had been around before that with the Slow Food movement that took off in the late 1980s. The idea of Slow, as it applies to our lifestyles, resists the fast-paced culture that modern-day living and technology demand of us and instead encourages us to focus on mindfulness, connection, and quality in a far more sustainable manner.
Combined with limited budget and staffing shortages, the fast-paced culture and exponential growth in technology, libraries and librarians are forced to do more with less. These realities leave us keeping up with large to-do lists, an increased number of meetings, fewer opportunities for authentic connections among colleagues (a challenge we are still facing since the pandemic), more opportunities for errors to arise, and burnout. These challenges are likely to continue along with the fast-paced culture and growth in technology, but it is not sustainable. Emphasizing a slow librarianship approach may be the ultimate tool that saves us all. The approach isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and it will evolve as life naturally does.
“Slow Down for What?” will begin with an overview of the fast-paced culture and the negative impacts it has on our work before providing a more comprehensive overview of slow librarianship and how it counters the fast-paced culture without compromising efficiency and deadlines. From there, “Slow Down for What?” will cover tangible opportunities on how librarians can incorporate slow librarianship into their daily lives to keep up with responsibilities, connect with colleagues, and serve our users in ways that will honor ourselves and allow us to continue our work at a sustainable level. Examples of the tangibles will include, but are not limited to, task management tools, strategies to reign in expectations and set boundaries, and ideas on how to build stronger working relationships. From there, a reflective activity will take place where attendees will take a few minutes to independently respond to prompts such as “What’s one aspect of my role that already incorporates a slow librarianship approach?” and “What’s one area of my role that could benefit from a slow librarianship approach?” While attendees reflect, they will also be invited to share their own tips and tricks on incorporating slow librarianship into their lives, as well as general questions they may have related to the presentation.
Any attendees who are even the slightest bit curious about slow librarianship are invited to attend this session, where they will learn about the origin of slow librarianship, the negative impacts of a fast-paced culture, and how they can incorporate slow librarianship approaches into their lives to resist the fast-paced culture. Attendees will have the opportunity to practice slow librarianship through an independent reflection exercise to demonstrate how easily a slow librarianship approach can be incorporated into our daily lives.

Academic libraries steward large and complex collections to support teaching and research, yet determining how well these collections align with what users produce, seek, and use remains a persistent challenge. Traditional assessment practices rely primarily on circulation and e-resource usage metrics—measures that capture only a fragment of user engagement. These approaches overlook two equally important dimensions: faculty research output, which signals institutional scholarly activity, and user search behaviour, which reflects articulated information needs. This project introduces an integrated framework for collection intelligence: an AI-enabled model that brings together three key data sources—faculty research outputs, user discovery behaviour, and item use—within a unified analytical structure. Using Google Gemini Pro, each dataset is classified with the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) scheme and then analyzed to identify patterns of subject alignment, unmet demand, and emerging areas of scholarly interest. Viewed collectively, these three lenses offer a richer understanding of how library collections correspond to institutional knowledge production and user behaviour. The project moves libraries beyond siloed metrics toward integrated, evidence-based insight. It delivers a scalable, replicable model in which AI serves not only as a classifier but as a connector, linking research activity, discovery practices, and actual use to surface the library’s evolving role in the research ecosystem.

This session explores a systematic gap analysis of library resources supporting 15 academic programs across six colleges. By reviewing over 150 databases and hundreds of core journals, we identified strengths and deficiencies to inform a strategic, data-driven collection development plan.

A discussion of the University of North Texas Libraries review of various workflows and processes related to Electronic Resources and changes implemented to make them more efficient.

Illinois State University’s Milner Library has twelve transformative agreements, and as of December 2025 has supported the publication of 200 open access articles, benefiting 426 authors including ISU faculty and students, as well as collaborators from outside institutions. This session will report on findings from surveys and interviews conducted with ISU authors who have made use of these agreements as the corresponding author. We will provide insight into authors’ awareness of library OA agreements, authors’ experience navigating various publishers’ OA platforms and processes, how OA agreements impact author venue selection, author order, and selection of corresponding authors, and whether authors perceive OA agreements to be an endorsement of a publisher. We will also explore how our agreements benefit researchers at other institutions, since 120 co-authors to date have been from outside the university and inter-institutional research groups may select venues and designate the corresponding author to make use of one institution’s agreements. Based on these findings, we will share implications for collection strategy, author communication, and agreement management, tying into the NASIG Core Competencies for Scholarly Communication Librarians. While this session will be most applicable to librarians working in scholarly communication and/or collection strategy, all librarians who interact with institutional authors or are interested in transformative agreements may find these insights useful.

Developing a new workflow for print and electronic serial cancellations and conversions using a cross-unit collaborative approach.

This presentation will examine the ins and outs of how English Wikipedia evaluates and uses sources, academic and otherwise, from the theoretical principles enshrined in its policies and guidelines, to the collaborative, often-messy process of applying these principles to concrete examples of sources and article content. In addition to presenting an introduction to these behind-the-scenes aspects of Wikipedia, implications for library services, scholarly publications, and emerging technologies will be discussed.

Changes and innovations in libraries are almost ubiquitous. What happens when you have a say in specific changes and innovations? In the presentation “You, Me, and Productivity,” Jackie Blanton-Watkins of Kennesaw State University will discuss leveling up into an Assistant Director position and rethinking productivity to make sure the team is doing work with impact, both across the library and across campus. Blanton-Watkins recognizes that she is an individual contributor, a project manager, and team leader, and figuring out how to manage all this work dropped her down a rabbithole about Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). PKM has helped cut through the noise, prioritize and manage the information you keep to release the cognitive load and be truly productive and accomplish awesome things.

In “Keep it 100 at the SEA: Navigating the Choppy Waters of Departmental Change,” Michelle Colquitt of Clemson University will outline the rebuilding efforts for both the Metadata Services and Acquisitions Departments after a period of extreme attrition due to retirements and other personnel departures. Colquitt will relate changes and rebuilding of both departments through a critical lens assessing change management in accordance with both the Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians and Print Serials Management, specifically in the domains of Effective Communication and Supervision and Management. Topics discussed in this portion of the session will include: change management, succession planning, process and procedure documentation, peer support and mentoring, and team building exercises.

Student workers are an invaluable resource for libraries in all areas of service. They often provide support for circulation, public, and reference services, and given the opportunity, they can also provide essential support for technical services. The University of San Diego Copley Library has a rich history of employing undergraduate student workers as part of the library’s Federal Work/Study (FWS) Program. The Technical Services department, in particular, employs the second largest group of student workers at Copley Library. Technical Services student workers were originally hired to support the library’s print collection by processing and shelving print materials, assisting with authority control, repairing books, and other light tasks as needed. However, as print acquisitions declined, so did the number of required student tasks and student worker positions in Technical Services. Today, Copley Library’s Technical Services employs four student workers, and our department struggles with assigning regular and appropriate tasks for the students. Following several discussions about continuing to hire FWS students in Technical Services, our department decided to take a new approach to our student workers. Over the course of a year, we began to actively integrate our student workers into e-resources projects by creating and adapting assignments based on their skills and interests. Our student workers have helped lay the groundwork for a number of project areas in Technical Services, including accessibility, AI awareness, instruction outreach, and ILS migration clean-up. This presentation will discuss managing student workers in Technical Services and adapting student work for e-resource workflows and highlight several projects that benefited from student involvement, including:

an accessibility audit of library databases,
identification of AI features in library databases,
student feedback on catalog tutorials,
post-Alma ILS migration clean-up, and
new social media outreach efforts.

Libraries have long grappled with the complexities of legacy metadata, particularly in serials and government documents, where inconsistent practices, evolving cataloging standards, and repeated system migrations create persistent data quality problems. Tasks once viewed as too time-consuming or difficult to tackle at scale are becoming increasingly manageable with the rise of practical, library-focused applications of artificial intelligence. This session presents two case studies from the University of Toronto Libraries that demonstrate how AI can transform long-standing metadata challenges into transparent, replicable, and sustainable workflows. The first case study highlights an initiative that uses ChatGPT and Alma Cloud Apps to generate and standardize serials item-level metadata. Through AI-driven methods, the project automates the retrospective itemization of holdings, creating more accurate and consistent records. It also demonstrates how generative AI can support both the creation of item-level metadata and the regeneration of serial summary holdings. The second case study illustrates how AI-generated Python scripts can remediate government document metadata at scale by clustering similar bibliographic records and programmatically selecting higher-quality OCLC replacements to enhance discovery and overall record quality. Together, these projects show how generative AI, guided by librarian oversight and supported by robust APIs, can amplify human expertise and make long-standing legacy data challenges newly solvable.

We want our library resources to be accessible, but how can we tell that they are? How do I decide whether an e-resource platform is accessible enough? With the recent changes to Title II, there are many questions about implementing procedures that are aware and sensitive to accessibility needs. This presentation invites you to explore tools and processes that can be used during the acquisition workflow to create a sustainable structure for your institution.

This presentation will cover the fast-paced requirement to reduce the collections budget by approximately five percent within three months. This session will cover information about a Renewal Decision Matrix created in collaboration with the Associate Dean for Collections & Discovery and Acquisitions Department staff. This will also cover efforts to conduct quick assessments during the hectic Fall 2025 semester. This session will also include information about collaborating with subject matter experts (i.e., liaison librarians) to determine the best titles to cancel quickly. While this session will primarily focus on cancellations of both print and electronic standalone serials, assessment measures for database subscriptions will also be discussed. This session will also include information about future trends in academic libraries. This session will conclude with a respectful discussion of the academic library landscape, including an exploration of potential areas for research collaboration.

Over the past two years, rapid shifts in browser technology and changing regulatory requirements have created new obstacles for delivering seamless, secure access to online scholarly resources. This session explores these obstacles, highlights the latest developments in the resource access ecosystem, and introduces how the SeamlessAccess initiative helps libraries, publishers, and service providers navigate this evolving landscape through its core principles of usability, privacy, reliability, and security.

his presentation introduces an experimental project that explores the use of artificial intelligence to support the creation of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for library materials. As the library cataloging work faces the challenge of limited staff and original cataloging remains a time-consuming and advanced cataloging skills required process, libraries are increasingly interested in understanding whether AI tools can meaningfully assist subject analysis while maintaining the professional standards required for high-quality metadata. Our project investigates this matter by designing and testing an AI model trained on real cataloging records from UW–Madison Libraries and Miami University Libraries, focusing on East Asian language materials. This presentation reports methodology, workflow design, pilot results, challenges in data permissions, and possible implications for scalable AI-suggested cataloging.

This presentation aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the effects of cancelling approval plans. It will investigate how many titles were purchased that would have come on approval, as well as the circulation or usage of monographs by various acquisition models across disciplines.

This presentation will explore how transitioning to OpenAthens transformed our access model. We’ll demonstrate how the switch improved the user experience by enabling seamless, point-of-need authentication, strengthened privacy and security ,and ultimately reduced staff time spent on access-related support by nearly 75%.

During the last year, Utah State University Libraries has undergone two migrations that have impacted how we handle serials management. First, we migrated to FOLIO in June and had to pivot last minute to change how we were handling our electronic resources. Second, we were also undergoing an RFP for a new serials management vendor that could integrate with FOLIO. This presentation will go over how we managed both simultaneous migrations and remade workflows from scratch to accommodate.

This presentation explores strategies for providing access to library resources while saving dollars within the constraints of a long-standing flat materials budget. We will discuss usage analytics, creative problem-solving, collaborative approaches, and practical insights into sustaining access to both physical and electronic collections.

Academic libraries across the country are navigating increasingly tough financial times. With materials budgets remaining flat or even declining, collection strategists face the challenge of sustaining access to essential resources and saving money while minimizing disruption to patrons. While it’s easy to appreciate acquisitions, the real assessment lies in the difficult decisions: planning for annual inflationary increases in subscriptions, cancelling subscriptions, delaying purchases, and rethinking long-standing practices. This presentation explores how libraries can maintain solid collections despite budgetary constraints and inflation.

Our library has operated under a flat budget for over twenty-five years. In 2022, we made the difficult decision to cut $300,000 in databases and journals. We are currently engaged in a major weeding project to improve usage and increase space. Faced with these realities, our collection strategist librarians have embraced creative, data-informed approaches to preserve access and save money where possible. We developed analytic reports to guide decision-making and explored many methods to meet campus needs: cost-per-use models, overlap analyses, aggregator coverage, one-time database purchases, third-party document delivery services, and collaborative print consortiums. Each method offered new insights and, sometimes, unexpected challenges. This session shares lessons learned, strategies tested, and solutions discovered. Curiosity, experimentation, and flexibility were key to our progress—and not every idea worked the first time.