NASIG 2026

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.