Edition Guide
Coalition for Networked Information
Pre-Recorded Project Briefing Series
February 2024

This edition guide overviews the nine contributed videos in the February 2024 edition of CNI’s Pre-Recorded Project Briefing Series. Click the links to watch the videos and see accompanying details and resources.

A pair of briefings showcases strategies for staff development, particularly in light of libraries’ positioning as research-intensive campus partners:

• The libraries at Virginia Tech, the University of California, Riverside, the University of North Texas, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Los Alamos National Laboratory are implementing a three-year joint professional development institute (PDI) to support interdisciplinary research collaborations among library staff across the country. In Joint Professional Development Institute to Cultivate Collaborative Library Scholars, learn how the PDI will demonstrate a career path while exemplifying the benefits of embedding librarians directly in research activities. The briefing also shares preliminary results from Virginia Tech's program.
• Librarian-in-the-Loop Deep Learning to Curate Very Large Biomedical Image Datasets presents a research data management project where librarians are embedded in a medical school research team. The librarians apply artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning techniques to large biomedical images, and the work demonstrates a data management approach that engages librarians early in the research process.

Several briefings introduce innovations that help support research and education while addressing persistent technological challenges:

• In response to the need for increased accessibility to research, arXiv, an open access repository for scientific scholarly papers that is particularly strong in areas like mathematics, physics, and computer sciences, launched HTML as a format for all newly submitted papers. Accessibility in Research: HTML Papers on arXiv discusses the importance of HTML for accessibility, and how arXiv is collaborating with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to make math-heavy research papers easier to view online.
• Alethea: Transforming Student Engagement with Academic Course Materials discusses a student engagement tool that integrates learning principles with generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to help improve student reading, learning, and retention. The briefing includes a presentation by a university library director who will discuss their experience with the tool.
• Collaborative Vocabulary Building with the YAMZ.net Metadictionary provides an overview of a crowdsourced system that efficiently handles metadata consensus building. YAMZ is a domain-agnostic repository of metadata and jargon terms where anyone may comment on, rate, add, and edit terms.

Speakers from the Library of Congress (LC) discuss how, for the first time, digital strategy is directly embedded in the Library’s five-year plan in their presentation Strategic Plan 2.0: A Digitally-Infused Strategic Plan for the Library of Congress. LC’s unique positioning and the need to balance caution with digital experimentation and agility are explored in the briefing.

When Libraries Close or Merge, What Happens to Perpetual Rights to eResources? draws on data and case studies from consortium experiences, as well as a Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium-conducted survey on fair practices to examine the issues that emerge surrounding electronic library materials when institutions close or merge. This is a critical and poorly explored issue that is vital to long-term stewardship.

Lastly, two briefings consider some of the difficulties of implementing open resources:

• Samvera Community Manager Heather Greer Klein provides insight on the reasons behind the often frustrating slowdown of open software updates, the strategies communities use to respond, and why addressing this problem head-on is critical to open technology sustainability in Unblocking the Future: Finding 'Done' in Open Source.
• Infra Finder: Your Resource for Discovering Open Infrastructure provides an overview of Invest in Open Infrastructure’s new tool that facilitates the discovery and adoption of open infrastructure for research, publishing, and dissemination. Infra Finder helps decision-makers evaluate the suitability of open infrastructure options based on transformative influence, financial sustainability, governance, community engagement, service delivery, and more.

We thank the presenters for their contributions and for sharing their work with our community. Please contact them directly with questions or for further discussion. If you are interested in contributing to the next edition, the call for proposals will be released shortly.

Clifford Lynch
CNI Executive Director

Diane Goldenberg-Hart
CNI Assistant Executive Director

Paige Pope
CNI Communications Coordinator