Announcements

COLUMBUS, Ohio (December 15, 2020) — OhioLINK announces that the State Library of Ohio has awarded grant funding to support OhioLINK’s 2021-2022 effort to expand its diversity initiative. OhioNET will be the program partner. Funding for the Ohio Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Competitive Grant comes from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

The objective is to engage students from under-represented populations in stimulating, positive library work experiences, with 1-to-1 support and mentorship, to encourage them to consider a career in libraries, and provide Diversity, Equity & Inclusion training and ongoing support to make academic libraries a more welcoming and inclusive place for under-represented library and information science professionals.

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Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Randy Gardner has named Amy Pawlowski executive director of OhioLINK, Ohio’s academic library consortium, effective immediately. Pawlowski joined OhioLINK in 2013 as deputy director for operations and e-licensing. She has served in an interim capacity since February.

“Amy has proven her leadership through this challenging pandemic environment,” said Chancellor Gardner. “Her valuable expertise in libraries and technology will ensure that OhioLINK continues to find innovative ways to make higher education more accessible and more affordable for Ohio’s students.”

In addition to her new role as executive director, she will continue to lead negotiations with publishers and information vendors to acquire shared electronic resources for OhioLINK’s...

OhioLINK is pleased to announce that print borrowing among member institutions will resume on August 10th. The statewide print lending service, which temporarily halted operations amid response to COVID-19, will again support students and faculty as they return to campus for fall. Statewide, patrons borrowed on average more than 25,000 print items per month from OhioLINK libraries during the eight and a half months that lending services were operational in fiscal year 2020.

“While print borrowing is dwarfed by our members’ online access to OhioLINK’s e-books and e-journal articles, there are books and printed materials that are simply not available digitally—especially in the humanities,” said OhioLINK Interim Executive Director Amy Pawlowski. “We are happy this vital OhioLINK service will...

No Shelf Required is an open source of information on books and digital content for information professionals, including publishers, editors, authors, librarians, and educators. Editor and author Mirela Roncevic quoted Judy Cobb for her June 24th piece on digital accessibility.

"Judy Cobb, Manager of Digital Platforms at OhioLINK, Ohio’s academic library consortium serving 117 member institutions, says that the challenges on this front are enormous for libraries. Academic libraries want to ensure inclusive access for their users and, according to Cobb, for OhioLINK this includes more than 30 platforms and well more than 35 million pieces of content. 'Libraries are under increasing pressure to ensure all platforms and content meet the highest digital accessibility standards and we need...

OhioLINK announces the departure of Executive Director Gwen Evans. Deputy Director Amy Pawlowski has been named Interim Executive Director, effective February 28, 2020.

Statement from Gwen Evans…

OhioLINK is determining how it can support the sustainability of the OER materials created through the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative. We will continue to gather cost savings data. In addition, we are working to identify barriers to OER adoption and make recommendations for practical ways to address them. We'll continue to negotiate and monitor inclusive access agreements with commercial textbook publishers as long as those agreements provide value to our students.

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/02/11/guest-post-an-update-to-ohiolinks-affordable-textbooks-initiative/?informz=1

Note: Numbers for Inclusive Access came from publishers. Numbers for OER came from internal analysis.

OhioLINK is pleased to announce a ground-breaking, transformative, open access pilot with John Wiley and Sons, Inc. This collaboration was created out of service to our members and in consideration of the growing potential (and not yet entirely understood) impact of open access on library consortia like ourselves. We're committed to supporting our membership in their open access and scholarly communication efforts and we are excited for this initial step.

We will be presenting the details and decisions to

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Columbus, Ohio (April 19, 2019) Library Journal, an esteemed national publication in the library community, recently named OhioLINK Executive Director Gwen Evans and OhioLINK Deputy Director & eResearch Licensing Coordinator Amy Pawlowski, to their 2019 list of “Movers & Shakers” for their leadership and innovation in affordable textbook strategies on behalf of Ohio’s college students and OhioLINK member institutions.

The list, revealed in their March issue, highlighted those who are brightening the future of libraries and making an impact on education. The honorees were nominated by member librarians and other stakeholders in the library community....

Akron, Ohio (Aug. 16, 2018) – OhioLINK, the ALAO (Academic Library Association of Ohio) Scholarly Communications Interest Group, and The University of Akron’s Affordable Learning Initiative group co-sponsored the inaugural Affordable Learning Ohio Summit at The University of Akron on Aug. 1-2. 

The event was designed to help foster information sharing amongst Ohio’s institutions already engaged in, or trying to start, affordable learning initiatives. About 150 librarians, instructional designers, faculty members, and administrators representing more than 40 institutions attended the two-day event. Presentations included discussions on course design, funding open textbooks, engagement efforts, and open educational resource (OER) creation.

“The importance of this movement is evident...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (March 28, 2018) — Ohio’s efforts to make higher education more affordable for all students include strategies to reduce the cost of textbooks—and a new price agreement with four major textbook publishers has the potential to save students $39.7 million dollars each year. The agreement was announced by OhioLINK, a consortium of 120 academic libraries distributed among 91 Ohio colleges and universities, and part of the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s OH-TECH consortium. 

OhioLINK negotiated and secured statewide wholesale price agreements with major textbook publishers to benefit its member institutions. These agreements will reduce the wholesale price of e-textbooks to participating colleges and retailers by up to 80 percent and courseware by up to 55 percent, with the...