The CNI Interviews Podcast

Alison Hitchens, associate university librarian, collections, technology, scholarly communication for the University of Waterloo, helped organize a gathering of researchers, librarians, and IT professionals to discuss research data management strategies. In this interview, she talks about bringing various departments together to talk across disciplines and the benefits these conversations deliver.

Judith Conklin, CIO of the Library of Congress, discusses embedding digital strategies into the Library's new strategic plan to increase accessibility and innovation. She highlights efforts to digitize the Library's collections, explore the use of artificial intelligence, and maintain strong cybersecurity.You can also watch the episode on YouTube.

Cliff Lynch, executive director for the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) discusses the evolving impact of AI on scientific research and education.

In 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy issued the Nelson Memo, a memorandum on new public access requirements for federally funded research. The memo requires federal agencies to make juried, peer-reviewed publications and their supporting data freely and easily accessible to the public upon publication. Martin Halbert, National Science Foundation Program Director for Public Access at the U.S. National Science Foundation, discusses the memo.

Donald Waters, Senior Scholar for CNI, talks about his project to investigate what scholars need to address societal grand challenges such as climate change, global pandemics, forced migration, racism, and inequality. Waters' project aims to identify what libraries and IT organizations can do to support research in these areas.

Mackenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship at UC Davis, discusses her career and her efforts to encourage women to get involved in technology. Smith also talks about the challenges of building a technologically sophisticated, flexible, and equitable library and her frustrations with people's complacency and lack of curiosity about libraries.

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) established the Commission on Fostering and Sustaining Diverse Digital Scholarship in 2021 to improve support and access to and sustainability of digital resources and humanities projects related to social and racial justice. James Shulman, ACLS Vice President, and Maryemma Graham, Founding Director of the Project on the History of Black Writing, Lead of the Black Book Innovation Project, and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Kansas, discuss the findings and recommendations of the Commission's report, which is expected to be released next year.

The OA Book Usage Data Trust and the University of Michigan Press convened a National Science Foundation-supported workshop in April to explore how best to leverage shared cyberinfrastructure to support cross-platform systems integrations and advance Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) usage data. Christina Drummond, Executive Director of the Open Access Book Usage Data Trust, and Charles Watkinson, Associate Librarian for Publishing and Director of the University of Michigan Press, discuss the outcome of the workshop and future plans for this project.