Libraries and Technology and Presented at Midwest Regional Conferences

This session will use the InfoCommons at Northwestern Library as a case study to examine a very successful partnership in technology application and space planning between two high-profile campus entities.

All dozen institutions comprising the CIC recently decided to join the InCommon Federation. This session will describe the motivation for and experience of joining InCommon. We'll also describe some of the use cases, including interactions with the federal government, interinstitutional access, and community source development projects.

Three curves—technical possibility, social desirability, and economic feasibility over time—describe the forces that shape college and university IT challenges. The consumerization of technology, insourcing and outsourcing, edge or leveraged services on campus, and multi-institutional community source are timely opportunities for IT leaders who can wisely discern these curves.

Libraries are supporting the teaching and research missions of universities in new ways, such as providing expertise in digital curation, electronic publishing, and content development. At the University of Kansas, the Scholar Services program strengthens an evolving research environment by promoting best practices and innovation in cyberinfrastructure and digital scholarship.

The University of Michigan's MLibrary 2.0 staff development initiative combined theoretical frameworks and practical skills, enabling library staff to make connections between services, users, and technologies. This series far exceeded expectation and has prompted us as a community to try new things and see new possibilities.

This presentation will demonstrate how one organization (the university library) has employed technology to develop a comprehensive, integrated, and participatory approach to accountability. Beginning with an overview of the imperative for accountability, the presentation will use the program's open source technology to demonstrate how accountability reinforces planning, decision making, service quality, and resource development and allocation.