As the world’s most prestigious golfers teed off at the second round of the Memorial Golf Tournament in Dublin, just down the road an arguably more influential group gathered to discuss “courses.” Over 200 OhioLINK library staff members gathered for the second annual OhioLINK Summit May 31 at the Online Computer Library Center to share ideas, brainstorm on initiatives and ultimately change the lives of thousands of students, researchers and faculty in Ohio.
After Executive Director Gwen Evans kicked off the day, keynote speaker Roger Schonfeld, director of libraries, scholarly communications and museums program at Ithaka S+R Libraries, addressed attendees on the future of integrated library systems (ILS), inspiring many questions and conversations and setting the tone for panels and breakouts throughout the day. These included a resources-sharing futures panel with the OhioLINK ILS Taskforce, discussing the steps they took and the questions they made sure to answer along the way.
“It’s great to see such a terrific group come together from all over the state,” Schonfeld said. “The power of the scale that OhioLINK aggregates but also that the state helps to support is pretty transformative.”
Library leaders presented nine different collaborative breakout sessions throughout the afternoon, covering topics, such as digital accessibility, e-resource discovery and maximizing human capital within the library. OhioLINK staff presented sessions like “Behind the Scenes with eResources,” “OhioLINK Governance and You” and “Member Portal Preview.”
“This was an event focused on the membership and their contributions to what we all collectively achieve,” Evans said. “It was great to see such a high turnout, such enthusiasm and the program planning committee that really shaped the program did a great job under Tiffany Lipstreu as chair.
“It’s a chance for the membership to connect with each other and share their collective knowledge as well as ask questions of us, suggest new directions to us. It’s also a chance for us to tell them how we’re supporting their goals of rich collections, shared services, shared knowledge. It brings all those things together.”
The event was open and hosted at no cost to staff from all OhioLINK member institutions, with sponsors Elsevier and Wiley covering lunch and breaks. EBSCO Information Services treated conference attendees to free professional headshots for the first 100 who signed up.
The next OhioLINK Member Summit is slated for May 29, 2020, in Columbus, Ohio, with more details to come.
Connecting libraries, learning and discovery. Established in 1992, the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is Ohio’s statewide academic library consortium serving 118 libraries, 89 institutions of higher education, the State Library of Ohio and more than 570,000 end users. Delivering both IT infrastructure and content negotiation, OhioLINK provides students, researchers, faculty and staff with access to digital research collections rivaling top university libraries in the United States and internationally—at a fraction of the cost. OhioLINK also connects library services, print and digital collections among its member institutions and manages collaborative services, including eTutoring, statewide Affordable Learning textbook initiatives, and Open Educational Resources. A member of the Ohio Technology Consortium of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, OhioLINK creates a competitive advantage for its members and supports student and researcher success in the state of Ohio. Learn more at www.ohiolink.edu.
