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Seminary and I'm pleased to welcome you to the 2024 George S Higher Junior Distinguished lecture. This lectureship was established to honor Doctor George S Higher Professor Emeritus of the History of Doctrine for his 30 years as a

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valued member of the Austin Seminary faculty. The purpose of this annual lecture is to symbolize and advance the important relationship between the academy and the church to recall the long lasting co-operation between the University of Texas and

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the seminary and to encourage the positive relationship between faith and knowledge. This afternoon, I have the pleasure of introducing to this community. Doctor Lorraine J Harcombe , the Vice Provost and Director of the University of

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Texas Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. Doctor, her home, a native of South Africa has been a library leader on two continents and speaks and writes about transformation of libraries, leadership and open

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access, both nationally and internationally. She holds doctoral degrees and master's degrees in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. Doctor Harcombe previously served as Dean of the University of Kansas Libraries

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from 2006 to 2015. She's a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries and served as its president from September 2019 to September 2020 . Doctor Harrick Hol is also an elected member of

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the International Federation of Library Associations standing committee on academic and research libraries. She serves on Harvard Library visiting committee committee and on the Hesburgh Library's Inter advisory council at Notre Dame. University. Doctor. Her home

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is also an ordained ruling elder who worships at University Presbyterian Church, which is where I had the pleasure of meeting her. The topic for Doctor Harris lecture is libraries as catalysts for change. Please welcome to

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Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Doctor Lorraine Harcombe. Good afternoon. This is absolutely a pleasure and a privilege to be here. Thank you so much, Doctor Aer for the invitation. And as you heard,

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um we worship together at University Presbyterian Church and I'm so happy that you've asked me to come here. I see all my peeps here. So I feel right at home. Actually, I chose this topic

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for today because I think it's important to just remind all of us again about the important work that libraries and librarians do. And I'm going to um give you a little background of what I'm going to talk

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about. Uh soon libraries. She asked me to talk about libraries and libraries have indeed been my world for most of my life in particular academic libraries. During my childhood, my late mother served as the

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head of one of the public libraries in my hometown that you recognize Stellenbosch under apartheid laws, there were two public libraries but separated strictly by race. Her library was a place for the people. She was

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fastidious about having every book in its place so that they could be discovered. Tables were tidy and ready for use. And she insisted that Children take home at least two books, one in their native tongue

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, Afrikaans, which is the city or the town where we all grew up and spoke Afrikaans. And one in English, her goal was to prepare them for the future and for the wider world where English

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was the predominant language. So I've got a little outline here in today's presentation. I will use this outline to connect my experience on two continents with a core mission of libraries, the challenges of censorship and

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book bands. I'll then pivot to academic libraries, the challenges and the opportunities to advance and support open scholarship as a tool for social justice in the academy . I completed my library and information science education at

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the University of the Western Cape Ins in South Africa . The only institution at that time for people like me, even though I was born and raised less than a mile from the University of Stellenbosch, a

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whites only university at the time that meant I had to travel by train every day to go to school . Following graduation as a librarian, I served as a library director at a tertiary educational institution for 11

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years before I was awarded a scholarship to study here in the United States. I served as a librarian during apartheid under robust censorship laws that severely limited what libraries could acquire and collect libraries and librarians were particularly

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impacted by the all pervading apartheid censorship that affected not only the possession of an access to existing print literature , but future literature and the work of banned and listed persons and organizations which created huge information gaps in

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our library collections. The South African government had a strong desire to control the reading matter of the public . But pornography was not the main target. It was political censorship. Imagine a scenario where all books

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and publications had to be approved by a publications board . So it was not unusual to receive new books with missing pages or redacted sections or being unable to buy books that were considered subversive. And there were

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many as I found out when I came to the USA, I arrived as a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Havana Champaign there at one of the largest research libraries in the world I realized for

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the first time, the vast corpus of South African literature that I was simply not aware of and that South African libraries could not acquire because many of them were banned. Between 1950 1990. A total of

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26,000 titles were banned under the apartheid regime's Publications Act of 1974. Among them books by authors such as Andrea Brunk, Nadine Gordimer, Steve Biko to name a few, a whole world opened up for me

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far away from the South African government's propaganda machine. I learned more about the history of my own country here in the USA and the importance of intellectual freedom . A cornerstone of democratic societies that embodies the principle

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that individuals have the right to access, explore and express ideas without censorship or restriction in the context of libraries. Intellectual freedom is not merely a concept, but the guiding philosophy is essential for fulfilling their mission

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as repositories of knowledge and champions of free expression where diverse viewpoints can coexist, individuals can engage in critical thinking and communities can participate in informed discourse. So with the American Library Association's adoption of the Library Bill

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of Rights in 1939 protecting intellectual freedom and fighting censorship developed into a professional imperative. The right of access to information is also recognized under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 of the

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International Covenant on civil and political rights as an element of freedom of expression. It is included as the right to seek and receive information. As such library should provide unrestricted access to information regardless of the popularity

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or controversial nature of the content. It underscores the importance of libraries as democratic institutions committed to transform the global knowledge environment to be open, accessible and equitable to all this fundamental role is currently under attack,

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especially in public and school libraries across the US where books are challenged by local groups or legislative action. I titled this back to the future because I did not in my wildest dreams, think I would leave

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South Africa 40 years ago away from censorship and to face this here. So last month we observed banned books week, September 23rd to 29th B. Book Week was established in 1982 and features readings and displays

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of B works. It is supported by the American Library Association, the Authors Guild, the National Book Foundation and Pan America, a literary advocacy organization, tracking books, uh tracking book bands nationwide and more

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than a dozen other organizations. A colleague of mine writes about censorship in terms of four hours, censorship can be redacted content such as I mentioned in our libraries in South Africa. Those years restricted content,

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the kind that you need permission for that's kept behind the desk and you need to go ask the librarian for permission, relocated books from one area of the library to another area in the library or removed books

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, which is the outcome of course of a challenge . Now, according to Pan America, there have been more than 10,000 book bans in public schools since the fall of 2021. Last year alone, there

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were more school book bands during the first six months of the year. From July to December 2023. Than in the previous school year in Texas. The cumulative total of banned books from July 21 to December

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23 was more than 1500 titles. These are just school libraries. The number is higher when public library book bands are included. Of course, more than 8000 books were pulled just in Florida and Iowa where

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laws restricting the content of books have been passed. American Library Association data for 2023 notes that book challenges in 2023 was 65% higher compared to 2022 in her book, Amanda Jones, the book is titled that

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librarian. She notes that attempts are being driven by extremists who are very small in number but very loud on social media. And people tend to believe they tend to believe what they see on social media and

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then often grab politicians ears as well. So book banning is not new, of course, but the power of the book can never be underestimated. But book banning is more than just books. It's part

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of a broader movement, I think to dismantle public education that includes attacks on libraries and librarians mostly in the public libraries and schools. At this point. It's a power play and book banners want to set

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the tone and control the conversation. Another form of limited access is copyright as legal cale when a copyright holder uses their right to prevent others from relaying accessing or using information copyright can act as a tool of

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censorship. One example of this occurred in 2017 when a major publisher agreed at to to exclude Chinese readers and institutions from accessing certain articles in its journals. At the request of the Chinese government, I mentioned

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this to emphasize, especially to our academics in the room who are used to publishing, to emphasize the importance of retaining your author rights when you negotiate with publishers or some of it, at least because when

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you turn over your copyright to publishers, when you relinquish your copyright to the publisher, um they will , when authors assign rights to corporate entities, they are more inclined to aggressively enforce their rights under copyright

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law or demand high high fees to access or use the work. In this case, with the Chinese government, authors who published in that journal could not promote access to their work because the publisher acquiesced to

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a government censorship demands, an estimated 1000 articles in a particular journal were blocked effectively aiding China's censorship demands . Libraries cannot be neutral on intellectual freedom of expression . Our mission is to support the core value of

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our profession. But there are ways that libraries can raise awareness of censorship and indeed several libraries observe banned books week to provide access to them. Let me be clear, everyone has the right to challenge a

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book but no one can dictate to society what they can or cannot read. Banning remains a boiling point and it's in the news constantly. The Austin statesman headlines on Sunday, October 13 included the story in

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Leno County well known here and the division in that community and among family members about book banning is there people complaining about libraries aren't always necessarily the people using the libraries. One strategy perhaps for librarians is to

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engage them on a one on one basis to lower the temperature. But I've been impressed with the University of Chicago Library who has started work to build the banned books collection. An attempt to bring together all

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the books banned in the United States, whether digital or print, they already have quite a collection and will continue to grow this collection and keep it up to date. Their goal is to build this as

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a research collection to increase our understanding of book bands , but also to create a historic record. Importantly , this will also be a collection for access and available to everyone who visits the library. And in

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addition, they will also make this collection available to users of other libraries through interlibrary loan. In fact , University of Chicago, in collaboration with the Digital Public Library of America, launched an initiative to make

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banned books available anywhere in the United States on the Palace app, which is a free app that lets you access books from your local library or from a curated Palace bookshelf. And you can also listen to

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it on any device to access the banned book club you can download the Palace app and choose the banned book club as your library and then follow the prompts to sign up for a virtual free library card.

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One last point libraries remove books from the library all the time librarians do. That is a prime responsibility as stewards of collections. I just spoke with Christy and she told me we had to downsize when we

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renovated our libraries. We have collection development policies to make sure that our content serves our respective communities. For every reader, their book, for every book , it's reader, part of that responsibility is to

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read the collections regularly based on criteria that are different for each library criteria such as space limitations or out of date content, etcetera. It's a very deliberative process and it's never one individual's decision that is not

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akin to censorship. I'm now I'm gonna turn to academic and research libraries to give you an overview of the changes and challenges and the opportunities we are embracing to remain true to our core mission of providing equal

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access to information. Now from Gutenberg to Google, libraries have constantly evolved to advance and respond to society's needs that require changes in career paths and the ability of professionals to adapt. Technology has spurred many changes

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in libraries ranging from architectural and aesthetic changes such as the ones you have in your library to radical shifts in education and research capabilities. Libraries have evolved from warehouses of books. We have more than 10 million

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. Just here duty libraries to place making for people that foster new forms of learning connections and creativity. In a time of rapidly emerging technological advancement. Creativity is one of the top skills required in the workplace

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. And digital literacy can be a deal breaker for job prospects. Libraries are democratizing access to a creativity in so many ways including free wireless internet, 24 7 online library services, innovative maker spaces and much

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much more yet, their fundamental purpose has remained the same to provide access to information as academic libraries. It is our mission to support the research, teaching and learning of our institutions. And we do this

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by selecting, acquiring and processing information for discovery and access and we preserve information for the next generation. As such. Libraries serve as sanctuaries for learning, as windows to the world, as agents for change

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and as the intellectual lifeblood of the university in a fast paced digital environment. We do have a responsibility to balance access to analog and online resources. Although there's a growing preference for online access, especially since

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the pandemic when many libraries close their physical locations to protect their own staff. That happened at U T on March 13th 2020 when we two closed our doors for 18 months. And we use the hearty trust

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emergency temporary access service which provided access to more than 1111 million digital library book for our users, which meant that the library never closed the library just moved online and it was open 24 7. In fact

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, I think of libraries as catalyst in that space because libraries were a key and critical partner to retain academic continuity during the pandemic. Now the pandemic surfaced many social justice issues that we took to heart.

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Today. We at U T. Austin particular provide 24 7 building access to our largest library. We have a satellite food pantry in our library called the Outpost. We have Reflective Space on a on a

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quiet study floor for students who need to pray during the day or just need to get some quiet space . We have gender neutral bathrooms and we created a wellness room with two massage chairs for our students and

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somebody said that's why they don't wanna graduate. Mhm And each semester during finals week, we bring in the therapy dogs so they can play and relieve some stress and we serve pizza to those who are studying

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in the largest library in the Perry Castaneda library where my office is, it's fun. They feel like they're being taken care of and they love their library spaces. Now, I mentioned social justice, the

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term social justice is resonant with a number of positive associations, fairness, access, equality, inclusion, diversity. You know that the American Libby Association affirms that equity diversity and inclusion are central to the promotion

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of intellectual freedom, essential to democracy and self government to personal development and social progress. And every person's inalienable, right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'll give brief examples of how

00:24:22.510 - 00:24:37.320

we operationalize those core values in our daily work. These values of course are central to the library profession , as I said earlier and we embrace them in everything we do. So first diversity, we recognize

00:24:37.330 - 00:24:56.030

differences and similarities and embrace the uniqueness of individuals, communities, cultures and voices in our spaces and in our collections. At U T, we intentionally invest in global collections and we have at least six or

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seven global studies librarians who go out every year into their respective regions to collect archives and materials that we could not buy on the shelve or in a bookstore . We have librarians who go to Southeast Asia to

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China, Japan, Korea, Middle East Israel, Europe and Eastern Europe, Latin and Central America and the Black diaspora. Simply put, we bring the rich depth of diversity to s collections even as we

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continue to buy physical books and online resources from global North publishers to meet the needs of the various disciplines . Equity. We are committed to providing equal access to all materials as a public institution, we provide

00:25:45.360 - 00:25:56.070

on site access to everybody. All of you are welcome. If you reside in Texas, you have access to our libraries on site. And once you're on site, you have access to all our online

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resources but not remotely. And you can also get a community card. Borrow a card for a year at U T as well. Inclusion libraries are places where I believe users should feel they belong. And

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I've just seen beautiful examples of that in your library here where they feel they are respected and treated fairly inclusion, inclusion increases diversity and are represented in our collections in our services and our spaces. We want

00:26:29.430 - 00:26:45.880

users to experience a sense of belonging and integration and international students. I was one of them describe often our libraries as a home away from home access. I mentioned that already it's a human right? We

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provide the tools and the technology to ensure unfettered access to information, making information available and sharing it. Our core values in the profession, disseminating and sharing information for more equitable and inclusive academic ecosystems is an

00:27:06.270 - 00:27:21.760

excellent springboard from which to connect social justice principles with scholarly publishing. Now I'll use a few examples. Now this week just so happens, I didn't realize and make that connection, but this week is open

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access week around the globe. Did you know that ? No? Now, you know it's an annual global event where libraries promote and raise awareness about equitable access to information called open access. The goal of

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open access is to make scholarly literature freely accessible and reusable for everyone that is free of charge and as far as possible, free of technical and legal barriers . Now many libraries enable public access to the institutions

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research through institutional repositories. This year libraries are focusing this week particularly but also the rest of this year on climate change and activating these institutional repositories as a tool for climate action. More than 3500 climate change

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research articles have been published in the last five years that are closed access but can be made openly available . Over 400 of those articles have first authors based at a US institution and a subset of those articles

00:28:48.910 - 00:29:10.240

have authors from Texas, from Texas based institutions. This year this week, libraries are signing the paper pledge, a global collaboration of hundreds of institutions working together to make climate change literature openly available and freely

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accessible by increasing the number of climate change research article in these open repositories, libraries are collectively taking action to address the climate change crisis that's affecting all of us. I would like to turn to scholarly publishing

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, an area that many or some of you are familiar with, especially for sharing research, scholarly publishing is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created evaluated for quality disseminated to the scholarly community

00:29:44.470 - 00:30:06.730

and preserved for the future libraries have traditionally procured and preserved the output of research in books or in articles through subscription uh journals. Um But now libraries are fully immersed in supporting the full life cycle of research

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. Librarians offer help from the first steps of searching for a topic and discovering information about a subject to publishing and reporting the research in publications, to archiving and preserving those as important components of the research cycle

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. It's a relatively new area of support for the libraries, but it is central to the functioning of academic libraries and it it requires an understanding of the publishing landscape. A key element of scholarly communication,

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scholarly publishing is a complex industry involving many stakeholders with a variety of practices that have resulted in persistent disparities that have been well documented such as the buyers in the global North against researchers in the global South language

00:31:03.010 - 00:31:22.490

barriers or processing cost and lack of diversity on editorial boards to name a few academic libraries have been leaders in addressing these systemic inequities. And I want to highlight some of the strategies and open scholarship including open

00:31:22.500 - 00:31:45.840

access and open educational resources. Briefly. Open access , open access publishing allows free online access to research content versus sub I'm sorry, versus subscription based journals , subscription based journals. Sorry has been the model

00:31:45.850 - 00:32:01.950

of um libraries traditionally um that was followed in the academic publishing industry. So you publish your article, you give your rights away, the publisher put it in a journal and then we as libraries buy it

00:32:01.960 - 00:32:17.890

back and pay for it. Well, you use our resources to write that article. So that's the traditional base. Open access is really intended to make that research openly and freely accessible. So here's where

00:32:17.900 - 00:32:35.020

it started in a nutshell. A group of scholars launched the Budapest Open Access initiative in 2002 so more than two decades ago to make scholarly literature freely accessible and really and reusable for everyone. The open access

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initiative tied together social justice and technology, the internet for knowledge sharing as a public good open access publishing has promised has promised greater equity by making research freely accessible. However, equitable access is not guaranteed by

00:32:57.340 - 00:33:17.900

simply removing pricing and permission barriers. Current practices in scholarly communication reflect systemic inequalities that reinforce existing power structures and sustain the knowledge gap between the haves and the have. Nots greater awareness of these inequalities can be

00:33:17.910 - 00:33:39.340

helpful in breaking down traditional gatekeeping practices. So first , as early proponents of open access libraries have taken the lead on innovative approaches to address costly inequities in scholarly communication including open access and open educational resources.

00:33:39.350 - 00:33:54.810

The two areas that I will now talk about to enable this work. Libraries created systems platforms and dedicated staff positions to support and enable users to have free access to the information they need for learning growth and

00:33:54.820 - 00:34:17.010

empowerment regardless of technology or format or delivery methods. Libraries enable public access to research through institutional repositories to capture the research output of a given institution known as Green open access. I'm so impressed by the work

00:34:17.110 - 00:34:36.110

of the University of Cape Town Libraries who went one big step further. They developed a community based publishing alternative for the African continent. In particular, it's grounded in social justice principles. The publishing platform was

00:34:36.120 - 00:34:52.280

launched to help Africans take charge of their own research and information where information is free to access for the reader and where authors don't have to pay to publish . That's true in Latin America as well. They

00:34:52.290 - 00:35:08.980

are much further ahead than we are here in the US. Second beyond the institutional repositories that I just mentioned, libraries are also negotiating open access publishing with publishers to ensure that authors do not have to pay

00:35:08.990 - 00:35:25.710

article processing costs A way publishing has been hijacked in my view by some publishers to increase their own profit margins. The cost of of the processing cost is not standard. It depends on the discipline and can

00:35:25.720 - 00:35:40.940

vary from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars depending on the discipline. Libraries don't typically support A P CS for authors and so our role is to negotiate with the publishers to make sure that our authors don't

00:35:40.950 - 00:35:55.190

have to pay those costs. I am pleased to say that several publishers have modified their business models to include open access publishing, a success metric of the O A movement. In my view. For example

00:35:55.200 - 00:36:15.850

, Oxford University Press aims to support the transition to open access publishing. They support inclusive publishing through their developing countries initiative to ensure that authors based in qualifying countries who are publishing in any of Oxford's open access

00:36:15.860 - 00:36:34.320

journals are eligible for a full waiver, so they don't have to pay at U T next door. We negotiated with Cambridge University Press to um avoid the A P CS for our authors as well. And

00:36:34.330 - 00:36:45.720

while we now pay a little bit more subscription fees to Cambridge University Press, none of our U T authors who publish in those journals have to pay it and their research is openly accessible to the world.

00:36:46.110 - 00:37:00.710

This is what we want as libraries to make sure that the research especially at a place like U T has impact globally and open access is the tool to enable that. And libraries are the are the stakeholders

00:37:00.720 - 00:37:17.200

to enable that as well? Just last year. As a result of these negotiations, we saved researchers and authors more than$675,000 during the last fiscal year . Now, there are plenty myths about open access

00:37:17.210 - 00:37:27.770

. I'm not going to go into all of them . People have questions about it. If you have questions, we can talk about that a little later . But I do want to mention just one thing

00:37:27.780 - 00:37:47.100

here before I move away from open access before o and that is that here in the USA works authored by federal government employees are in the open public domain . But the idea that government funded research should be

00:37:47.110 - 00:38:06.500

open to the public is new. So perhaps you are aware of the Office of Science and Technology Policy memo, also known as the Nelson Memo, which was published in August of 2022 on public access and

00:38:06.510 - 00:38:23.860

it outlines new requirements that will affect both faculty and students who conduct research using federal funding. And um this requirement is a major step to ensure equitable access to all taxpayers. It's your, it's our tax

00:38:23.870 - 00:38:39.030

money that enable research and federally funded research. So some of the key points real quick. The goal of the Nelson Mandela is to provide free immediate and equitable access to research that is federally funded. Second

00:38:39.040 - 00:38:53.310

one, it applies to all federal agencies including those providing funding in the humanities and in the social sciences . And third, it applies to both peer reviewed publications and underlying data. So you need to open

00:38:53.320 - 00:39:12.390

your research article but also the data that supports it . December 31st, 2025. So almost a year from now, this will take effect. I'd like now finally to turn to open educational resources as a

00:39:12.400 - 00:39:28.780

tool of social justice to provide equal and affordable access to education for all open educational resources or O E S as we call it are rooted in social justice principles and serves as a tool to provide or to

00:39:28.790 - 00:39:46.600

improve teaching and learning and promote social justice in higher education classrooms. The idea, the open, the idea behind open educational resources is simple but powerful. O S are teaching learning and research resources that reside

00:39:46.800 - 00:40:05.680

online in the public domain or have been made freely available and legally available under an intellectual property license that permit their free use and repurposing by others. Their five hours, you can reuse it. It's available

00:40:05.690 - 00:40:17.870

online, special license. You can reuse it, you can revise it, you can remix it, you can redistribute it or you can retain it if you create it yourself. So you can either adopt

00:40:17.880 - 00:40:35.270

what's available already online or you can create your own open, open educational resources. Simply put it offers an alternative to expensive textbooks. And I think many of you probably know from your own studies, how

00:40:35.280 - 00:40:50.860

expensive those can be. So again, academic libraries play a key role in supporting o initiatives. We at U T certainly um support this work. We have a special position for it. Faculty turned to

00:40:50.870 - 00:41:07.480

the libraries for help in this area and we offer open educational fellowships as a stipend supported program for faculty who want to either create or adopt open educational resources . The one criterion is that they should flip from

00:41:07.490 - 00:41:27.570

using a textbook to free open access, open educational resources and it should cost the student no money and it should be available on day, one first day of class at U T libraries. Our most recent

00:41:27.580 - 00:41:45.680

O E report showed that we saved students$1.8 million last year. This is usually supported by libraries on campuses and we're working very hard to make sure that more libraries across the US will embrace this. It's

00:41:45.690 - 00:42:04.200

more than cost savings. It is about creating equity , accessibility and parity of participation in developing textbooks. And as librarians work with both faculty and students, they have a unique opportunity to help select the relevant

00:42:04.210 - 00:42:21.860

resources and make sure that students in a classroom feel represented in the textbooks and the educational material that they use. I'm gonna close now. Um Just by saying that I hope I've highlighted for you some of

00:42:21.870 - 00:42:37.790

the newer and more diverse roles of academic libraries, what we've assumed and where they have become leaders and catalysts to advance social justice principles. There are more areas I just pick two because I'm an open access

00:42:37.800 - 00:42:50.640

scholar junkie and I love to talk about it. Um despite the underlying principles of social justice in our profession, and those of you who are librarians in the room can tell me if I'm wrong. But

00:42:50.650 - 00:43:06.240

I think in general, in general, library and information science students have not been adequately prepared for this work. I think much more can be done in the library and information science programs. There are signs

00:43:06.250 - 00:43:16.780

of that, but I think we need to do a whole lot more. It's really the librarians and I respect the role of librarians and those libraries who have stepped up to the plate, to the,

00:43:16.980 - 00:43:37.170

to resist the systemic inequities we face daily. It's hard and challenging work, but we need to remain committed and vigilant to the needs of those we serve . I'll close with Buckminster Fuller, an American architect

00:43:37.180 - 00:43:52.380

, systems theorist, writer, designer, philosopher, and futurist who once argued that changing the course of a large tradition bound enterprise could be accomplished not by a frontal attack, but rather by making the existing

00:43:52.390 - 00:44:12.630

way of doing things obsolete. Father's memorial in Cambridge Massachusetts bears the inscription call me trim tab. I had to look this up. This is a nautical reference to a small piece of metal attached to the

00:44:12.640 - 00:44:27.820

rudder of a large ship, changing the course of a ship moving with momentum on the ocean does not take place by pushing against the ball, moving the trim tab by a small amount, creates a region

00:44:27.830 - 00:44:45.750

of low pressure that crows exponentially and eventually draws the rudder which then turns the entire ship. Do you know that libraries have not changed their core mission? However, the processes the spaces and the programs have

00:44:45.760 - 00:45:01.520

changed to align with our users' needs in a digital , in a digitally networked environment. I'll close with some of the trends that the association of college and research libraries recently provided as the latest trends that I

00:45:01.530 - 00:45:16.750

think will provide the trim tabs for continuous change in the future. And that includes, I haven't even talked about artificial intelligence and tools where the libraries will have a role in developing A I literacies and other

00:45:16.760 - 00:45:32.900

digital literacies, open education such that students can become active creators of content. The parity of participation, I mentioned open science where libraries will play a role in reproducibility services, open access and the OS T

00:45:32.910 - 00:45:49.170

memo that I mentioned libraries will be key stakeholders and supporters to the faculty who will need help rec conceiving collections. We should never be about balancing our collections . We should always be about representation in our collections

00:45:49.750 - 00:46:00.560

, hybrid workplaces. I'm not sure about your libraries . We have flexible work arrangements. It can be challenging. I love that everybody needs to be back in the office, but it doesn't work for everybody

00:46:00.740 - 00:46:12.720

. So it's a very different workplace as well. And then space as service, you know, Chris has indicated to me how people are coming into the library because of the beautiful spaces now. And we

00:46:12.730 - 00:46:24.070

see that in our libraries too. I call it space as service because it's a very thoughtful and intentional way of designing space so that our students feel comfortable and at home when they come in there, it

00:46:24.080 - 00:46:38.340

should feel like home away from home. And then finally, the well being of our students and our staff, I think we've seen that especially after the pandemic and I don't know about you, but I

00:46:38.350 - 00:46:52.500

never thought we would have Narcan in the library, but we do just in case somebody overdoses, we will, we have that. I mentioned the wellness room and the spaces where people can go and pray

00:46:52.510 - 00:47:01.140

and just take a quiet minute for themselves. So thank you for the opportunity to share with you some of the critical and diverse roles of libraries during this