2 days | 10 session | 30 speakers | 175 attendees
Limitless ideas to transform the academic community

On September 19 and 20, members of the academic community convened in New York City to discuss the pressing issues facing librarians, scholars, and publishers today.

Sessions on the first day of the conference examined ITHAKA initiatives—e-books, current journals, case studies for sustainability, preservation—and offered perspective on the use and misuse of content and the future of university publishing. Sessions on the second day placed the user at the center of the discussion and explored how evolving expectations and behaviors are shaping what content is published and the mechanisms for delivering, creating, and sharing that content.  Download the presentations below.

Making headlines.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and LibraryJournal provide conference highlights, including how technology affects forms of reading and why scholars have a difficult time completing dissertations. Check out their perspectives and takeaways from the conference.
 

September 19 Sessions | September 19 Reception | September 20 Sessions | Accommodations

9:00–10:30am: Registration and breakfast

10:30–11:00am: Welcome and plenary

• Kevin Guthrie, President, ITHAKA

11:00am–12:00pm: Morning session A
Unpacking Books at JSTOR
(Presentation)

Books at JSTOR, a new initiative to publish scholarly books on the JSTOR platform, is set to launch in 2012. This session will cover JSTOR’s vision for integrating books on to the JSTOR platform, including cross-searchability with journals and primary sources; citation linking; user personalization; and user-driven functionality. The session will also cover JSTOR’s planned model for libraries, touching on important issues such as packages and discounts, use terms, ownership, and preservation. 

• Bruce Heterick, VP, Outreach and Participation Services, JSTOR and Portico
• Frank Smith, Director, Books at JSTOR 

11:00am–12:00pm: Morning session B
Strategies for success: Ithaka S+R Case Studies in Sustainability
(Presentation)

With shrinking budgets impacting the academic and cultural heritage sectors, those who manage digital resources have to work harder than ever to secure the support–financial and otherwise–to run the digital resources they have created. Librarians, scholars, funders and others strive to make best use of new technologies to further their research and share information as broadly as possible.

Ithaka S+R’s Case Studies in Sustainability share the tactics and strategies that project leaders have used to increase the impact of their projects, while identifying the means to support them. At this session, Ithaka S+R will share findings from the soon-to-be-released 2011 case study updates, showing how the various sustainability models have fared over the last two years.

The session will include a presentation of findings, as well as a facilitated discussion, so come ready to share your thoughts on your current sustainability challenges and the tactics that have worked for you. Library directors, digital resource managers and strategists, project leaders, funders, and university leaders responsibility for or interest in managing digital resources are all encouraged to attend.

• Alastair Dunning, Programme Manager, JISC e-Content
• Matthew Loy, co-author, Sustaining Digital Resources: An on-the-ground view of projects today
• Nancy Maron, Program Manager, Ithaka S+R 

   
12:00–1:00pm: Lunch

1:00–2:00pm: Afternoon session A
Thinking in threes: the impact of the Current Scholarship Program on publishers, librarians, and users
(Presentation)

This session is open to librarians and publishers interested in learning how current journal issues on the JSTOR platform benefit all members of the scholarly community. How does the Current Scholarship Program (CSP) address user needs? How can publishers and libraries better maximize exposure and use of electronic journals? CSP titles are seeing significantly higher usage than current journal issues on siloed publisher platforms. What trends do these data show? This session will feature a librarian and a publisher reflecting on the ways CSP helps them address goals for information delivery and access.

• Jeff Carroll, Assistant Director for Collection Development, Columbia University Libraries
• Mary Rose Muccie, Director, Current Journals Program, JSTOR
• Andrew Reinhard, Director of Publications, American School of Classical Studies at Athens

1:00–2:00pm: Afternoon session B
Portico and preservation in the evolving digital publishing landscape
(Presentation)

Portico has navigated and shaped the landscape of long-term digital preservation for more than five years. This session will provide an opportunity to explore how preservation services have evolved in response to community needs, where digital preservation is going, and the challenges and opportunities for the library and publishing communities in this evolving landscape. We will encourage questions from and discussion with the audience in response to the panelists’ presentations.

• Kate Wittenberg, Portico Managing Director
• Ken DiFiore, Associate Director, Outreach, JSTOR and Portico
• Marilyn Geller, Collection Management Librarian, Lesley University Library
• Karen Hunter, former VP, Elsevier Publishers

   
2:00–2:30pm: Coffee break

2:30–3:30pm: Protecting content: balancing the needs of users and content owners 
(Presentation)

The networked capacity of the Web presents multiple channels for content to be made available and in some cases misused. This session is open to librarian and publishers and will provide valuable insights into navigating the use and misuse of online content. How are the interests of users balanced against the interests of content owners? What constitutes misuse? What is the range of misuse that JSTOR has seen? In an age of varying degrees of misuse, what is the role of Terms and Conditions of Use?

• Nancy Kopans, Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, ITHAKA
• Brian Larsen, User Services Manager, JSTOR and Portico

3:30–5:00pm: The future of scholarly publishing: revisiting “University Publishing in a Digital Age”
(Presentation)

A 2007 ITHAKA report argued that “publishing” expanded beyond the domain of publishers to other key actors, including university libraries and academic departments, among others. The report made several recommendations for how presidents, provosts, press directors, and librarians take more active roles in strategically managing intellectual outputs. Addressing issues of present concern, while pointing to new areas including online courseware and digital publishing, the report got people talking. How far have we come in the past years and what new questions have emerged?

This working session will revisit the original recommendations of the paper and share thoughts on the most pressing issues today. Participants will be encouraged to offer their views on the changing landscape of university publishing and on new directions in need of further inquiry.
 

The original paper is available here: "University Publishing in a Digital Age."
 

• Laura Brown, EVP and JSTOR Managing Director 
• Nancy Maron, Program Manager, Ithaka S+R
   

8:00–9:00am: Registration and  breakfast

9:00–10:30am: Users and access to the public domain | Video | Audio
There are millions of works in the world—manuscripts, Shakespeare, scientific articles—for which the owners are the public. Can and should this out-of-copyright content always be made available online free-of-charge? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion about these pressing questions impacting users, libraries, publishers, and foundations.

• Josh Greenberg, Program Director for Digital Information Technology and the Dissemination of Knowledge. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Moderator)

• Paul Courant, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries,  University of Michigan
• Ellen S. Dunlap, President,  American Antiquarian Society
• Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President, Alexander Street Press (Presentation)
• Robert Wolven, Associate University Librarian for Bibliographic Services and Collection Development, Columbia University Libraries

10:30–11:00am: Coffee break

11:00–12:00am: The tribes among us: seeing users through a new lens | Video | Audio
This session will explore how libraries and publishers can translate users’ needs into effective business strategies. Experts from the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds will share tactics for developing a rich understanding of communities and using this knowledge to inform organizational decisions and goals.

• Francois Gossieaux, Co-founder of Human 1.0 and Co-Author of The Hyper-Social Organization (Presentation)
• Susan Gibbons, University Librarian, Yale University (Presentation)

12:00–1:00pm: Lunch

1:00–2:30pm: Users unbound | Video | Audio
Why should readers be obliged to read cover to cover, front to back, long-form monographs if they prefer to do otherwise? Technology increasingly affords publishers and libraries the ability to offer content to their user communities in a range of ways to better suit the goals of different readers. This panel will explore how technology is allowing users to engage with content, from long-form reading to broad text mining across corpora of materials, and consider the implications of these increasingly diverse modes of interaction for library and publisher tools and services.

• Barbara Rockenbach, Director of the Humanities and History Libraries Division in the Columbia University Library (Presentation)
• Katie Edmonds, Creative Producer, Cognito Comics (Presentation)
• Richard Ziade, Partner, Arc90 (Readability) (Presentation)

   
2:30–3:00pm: Coffee break

3:00–4:30pm: Crowd power: when the audience becomes the author | Video | Audio
Users no longer consume content—they actively create it and, in some cases, manage it. Therefore, those who create digital resources must find ways to attract and maintain user engagement. This session will explore the different faces of crowdsourcing, from citizen science to crowd transcription projects. What types of activities lend themselves to this technique? How can you get “the crowd” involved and engaged?

This session will also focus on exploring different ways that users have been integrated into scholarly projects, both as contributors towards the achievement of scholarly goals and as partners in the development of scholarly resources.  The session will consider how organizations may leverage user communities in their own work more effectively.

• Alastair Dunning, Programme Manager, E-Content, JISC (Presentation)
• Chris Lintott, Co-founder of GalaxyZoo and Zooniverse, Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford (Presentation)
• Ben Vershbow, Manager, NYPL Labs (Presentation)

Accommodations
We have secured a limited number of rooms at reduced rates at the following hotels:

Hilton New York (1335 Avenue of the Americas between 54^rd and 54^th Streets | New York, NY 10019 | T: 1.800.HILTONS)
Please call the above number and mention “ITHAKA” to request the best prevailing rate based on room availability.

Holiday Inn–Midtown 57^th Street (440 West 57^th Street | New York, NY 10019 | T: 212.581.8100)
Please call the above number and mention “ITHAKA,” or visit www.hi57.com and use group code “XIT” to request the best prevailing rate based on room availability.

Radisson Martinique on Broadway (49 West 32^nd Street | New York, NY 10001 | T: 212.736.3800)
Please call the above number and mention “ITHAKA” to request the best prevailing rate based on room availability.

Comfort Inn Times Square South (305 West 39^th Street | New York, NY 10018 | T: 212.268.3040)
Please call the above number and mention “ITHAKA” to request the best prevailing rate based on room availability.

Park South Hotel (124 East 28^th Street | New York, NY 10016 | T: 212.448.0888)
Please call the above number and mention “ITHAKA” to request the best prevailing rate based on room availability.