Advertise on podcast: Against the Grain - The Podcast

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Caroline Ball, Community Engagement Lead at Open Book Collective, which is a community governed, non-profit organization that helps libraries collectively support open access book publishers and infrastructures. Caroline says she has always had a love of books, and anyone who knows her would say a job in the library makes sense.  She first began working in a local public library where she enjoyed the variety of work but moved over to an academic library after fearing for her future career as she watched public libraries be stripped of funding and closed. Caroline says she had missed the university environment and learning and wanted to work with students. Eventually, her career at Derby began to steer away from collection development and resource management and move more towards teaching and pedagogy. She wanted to delve more into information literacy and get students thinking about the kind of resources they were consuming, how knowledge was produced and not just offering a straightforward training session. Caroline has authored numerous books on copyright policy, information ethics and knowledge equity, and she talks with Michael about her current role at Open Book Collective, library campaigning and activism, and her arguments behind the high-profile #ebookSOS campaign which she co-founded. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/62ZwKnSmUsc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/librarianonparade/   Keywords #OpenBookCollective #ebookSOS #KnowledgeEquity #InformationLiteracy #InformationEthics #InformationProfessionals #LibraryActivism #LIS #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Peter Brantley, Director, Online Strategy, UC Davis Library (retired). Before joining UC Davis, Peter worked with Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive, Open Library, the New York Public Library and with Dan Whaley of Hypothesis.  He's presented at the Charleston Conference with Gary Price for what he calls a "Laurel and Hardy Routine" on the pros and cons of technology. Peter says disruption, adoption, and co-optation have been constant throughout his intellectual life. He calls himself a "University Brat" who developed an early love of computing during time spent with his father working at a university, and says he taught himself how to code. A college professor sparked his interest in business and economic sociology, and in how established companies adapt to rapidly changing forms of product development, and how larger companies respond to new startups. This included biopharmaceutical companies in the late 90's and how they responded to the very dramatic changes in product development that arose with biotechnology, and the group of scientists who became involved in developing new pharmaceutical products and biotherapeutic interactions or interventions. He later became interested in how the publishing industry was responding to changes in technology and the opportunities to take advantage of the internet publishing domain as it emerged originally through the web and then through a suite of new internet enabled technologies. Peter says it is a critical time for libraries who have had to adjust their business in fundamental ways to think about not just readers and humans broadly as their audience but also engineering solutions for machines. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/xLrj3WhWU-Y LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/naypinya/   Keywords: #TechAdoption #TechEvolution #LibraryTech #ProductDevelopment #EconomicSociology #DigitalTransformation #StrategicAdaptation #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Philip Ball, Freelance Science Writer. Phillip spent over 20 years as an editor with the journal Nature and is a celebrated British science writer who has authored over 30 books on diverse topics like quantum physics, systems biology, alchemy, invisibility, and why music has an effect on us. He is also a regular columnist for Chemistry World and BBC Future.  In this conversation, Philip talks with Michael about his background. He began writing books as a young child in a shed in his garden. However, he didn't initially set out to get a degree in writing, but chose science instead for his PhD, training first as a chemist and then as a physicist. When he found that he was one of the few people who enjoyed writing his thesis, he decided to combine his interest in science and his passion for writing for his career, joining Nature early on. Philip also talks about where his interest in science originated, the changes in Nature over the years, research culture, current obstacles in science, and the role of institutions and libraries in the promotion of open science and good research practice. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/Ksv-FiAMTt8 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Twitter: Keywords: #NatureJournal #ScienceWriting #ScienceJournalism #SciComm #OpenScience #SystemsBiology #ScienceBooks #ResearchCulture #ResearchCommunity #ScienceInSociety #SciencePhilosophy #HistoryofScience #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Jonathan Grunert, Scholarly Publishing Librarian, University at Buffalo. Jonathan began his career by teaching high school immediately after college, until he realized that it wasn't the career for him. He decided to seek a higher education degree, and the first degree he landed on was library science. A senior seminar on the history of science sparked his interest and led him to pursue a doctorate at Virginia Tech in Science and Technology Studies, and a master's degree in history as well, writing his dissertation on the history of museum taxidermy in natural history museums in the United States.  In his current role at University at Buffalo, Jonathan is responsible for setting up and managing the library publishing program, UB ScholarWorks, that was launched in 2023. He talks with Michael about working to advance the idea of publishing open access with authors and researchers, why institutions set up their own publishing, and how library publishing compares with university presses. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/6z-dXSM9BdI LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-grunert-73696271/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Twitter: Keywords: #LibraryPublishing #DigitalScholarship #OpenAccess #OpenScience #InformationScience #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Description for Show Notes: Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Harry Collins, Professor Emeritus, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. Harry is one of the most distinguished academics involved in the sociology of science and has authored 25 books throughout his career. He earned his master's in sociology from Essex University, went on to earn his PhD in the same field, and spent 45 years studying one group of physicists working to detect gravitational waves.   In this conversation, he talks with Michael about the Bath School Approach, to deeply analyze how scientific facts are socially constructed. He also talks about a book he stumbled across by accident, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, and how it gave science a sociological face and helped people to begin to think of science in a new way.  Harry also talks about the shifting attitudes towards science since the 60's and 70's, and about his well-known book from 1993, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science, in which he describes science as social, explains what this means, and tells how this book led to a conversation with the director of gravitational physics at the National Science Foundation about the new field.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/Z69xPv0zEZg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-collins-9472a6179/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Keywords: #SociologyOfScience #SocialSciences #SocialConstruction #SciencePhilosophy #ScienceStudies #HistoryOfScience #ScienceAndSociety #InformationScience #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Daniel Dollar, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources, Yale University. Daniel started out by studying politics in the early 90's, going to Washington, D.C., bouncing around between jobs on Capitol Hill, and working for a senator from N.C. until a former staff director and a senior advisor to the Senate Rules Committee advised him to apply to the Library of Congress for a job in Congressional Research Service. Daniel says he was doing research and finding things in the collections of the Library of Congress for congressional offices where he learned more about how libraries operated, and that eventually led him to earn his master's in library science at the University of Maryland. Daniel talks with Michael about his career progression after library school and how he came to Yale. Daniel has become known for the phrase "Collections of service." He says libraries are research and learning organizations, and cultural heritage organizations, and that can be abstracted down to transformation and tradition. And so, the libraries, by their nature, are designed to help transform, to work with faculty, students, members of the public, to achieve their educational and learning needs and goals, to acquire the skills and get access to the information that's going to be able to meet their needs. Thus, what libraries acquire needs to change to support this as research advances and as research in medicine and in law, as well as research across the academy, becomes increasingly multidisciplinary.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/VY6BCjWIo98 LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-dollar-984566b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Twitter: Keywords:#Yale #CollectionsOfService #TransformationAndTradition #LibraryScience #InformationScience #Research #ResearchSupport #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #AcademicInnovation #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ulrich Herb, Head, Publication and Research Support, Saarland University Library. Ulrich has been based for over 20 years at Saarland University. He talks with Michael about being born and raised in Saarland (the smallest federal state in Germany), and growing up in a village directly at the River Saar, the frontier between France and Germany with a unique and turbulent history.  His father was an untrained steel worker, and Ulrich says he was always interested in social mobility, barriers in social mobility, obstacles, social justice, prestige norms and in social conflicts. So, his first degree was in sociology.  However, he did his PhD in information science, not in sociology, after a conflict with a trade union and a conversation with a professor for information science.  He then began working in the university library on a third party funded project on electronic scientific information.  Ulrich also talks about what he likes about the University of Saarland, his current role supporting publications and Open Access coordination, and he describes in detail how attitudes to open access have changed since the Budapest Declaration in 2002. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/gXewnMvZd20 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Keywords: #SaarlandUniversity #Sociology #SocialJustice #SocialHistory #OpenAccess #OpenScience #LibraryScience #InformationScience #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Full title: A Conversation with Elizabeth Gadd, Chair, INORMS Research Evaluation Group, and Head of Research Culture and Assessment, Loughborough University Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Elizabeth Gadd, Chair, INORMS Research Evaluation Group, and Head of Research Culture and Assessment, Loughborough University. Elizabeth says that she had an amazing English teacher in school, which led her to pursue an English degree, even though she had worked in a public library since she was 16 years old.  She also worked in the academic library during college. Elizabeth felt as though there was no obvious next step upon her graduation with a degree in English; she says it was unlike when "you study chemistry, you become a chemist." So, she put her library experience to good use and applied for the Standing Conference of National University Libraries graduate trainee scheme for UK University librarians (SCONNEL), and received a traineeship at University College London and then completed her masters at Loughborough University and has been there ever since.  Elizabeth talks with Michael about where her interest in metrics came from, recently completing her PhD on copyright by publication, finding some injustices of the scholarly communication system and investigating issues of copyright ownership of scholarly information from many different perspectives, designing and working on Project Romeo, how her role at the University has changed over time, moving from librarianship to research management, and how she currently works to change research culture.   The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/zp04CiBTo8w LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-gadd/ Keywords:#INORMS #Research #ResearchCulture #ResearchManagement #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #InformationScience #AcademicLibraries #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Josh Cromwell, Scholarly Communications Manager, University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. Josh is author of the recent Charleston Briefings Institutional Repositories. He has a background in history, and when asked what the appeal of joining a library was to him, he says it merged two of his interests: education and research. In this conversation, he talks with Michael about his early work in a reference position before helping to launch the first repository at his University in 2011, becoming full administrator of that repository in 2013.   The following year, while attending ACRL, Josh realized during a session that his institution was the only one there to currently have an institutional repository, which spurred him to want to begin a training program for other institutions to follow suit, so he started a conference.  Josh also talks with Michael about the shift in library strategy and the growth of Institutional repositories over the years, and whether he feels they have fulfilled their intended purpose, and he talks about his recent book and what has surprised him most from the feedback he's received from people to which he has presented.   The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/v_usIDzZBlw LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Keywords:#CharlestonBriefings #InstitutionalRepositories #LibraryScience #HigherEd #OpenAccess #InformationProfessionals #InformationScience #AcademicLibraries #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Georgios Papadopoulos, Chairman and Founder, Atypon. Georgios was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and says he started out wanting to study astrophysics, but a physicist talked him into studying math instead. In 1983, he had a professor that came from the U.S. who taught two classes in computer science: numerical analysis and computer language; Georgios was fascinated by it and decided to become a computer scientist. He came to the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar to earn a PhD in computer science from NYU. After graduation, He returned to Greece to fulfill the requirement of the Fulbright Scholarship, serving in the Greek Navy for two years as a secretary to the commander in chief of the Navy school and teaching English at the school. After his service ended, he returned to the U.S. to work in software, eventually working at WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) with Brewster Kahle before founding Atypon in Silicon Valley in 1996, a publishing platform currently hosting approximately 40% of scholarly research content. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/x6CZ_vBdByQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/papadopoulosgeorgios/ Twitter: Keywords: #PublishingTech #HigherEd #InformationProfessionals #InformationScience #SoftwareEngineering #AcademicLibraries #FutureOfLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Russell Michalak, Library Director, Goldey-Beacom College, and Founding Partner, Inclusive Knowledge Solutions. Russell has been immersed in libraries throughout his life. His mother was a librarian, and he kept coming back to librarianship despite an initial rebellion to pursue a library career. He has worked in libraries of all different sizes, budgets and resources over the last 20 years. He also has a background in history and says history is important to study as it is present now in everything we do and provides context for current events, government, and politics and also helps when working with people to have an understanding of where people come from and learning empathy for how people come to different places.  In this conversation, Russell talks with Michael about a birthday gift he received at 10 years old that helped shape his career, the evolution of Goldey-Beacom College, and the challenges and innovations in library culture there. He also shares insights on how he sees the role of AI in libraries, the importance of building relationships between libraries and faculty, and the need for AI literacy among students. He says the democratization of access to AI tools and fostering a positive library culture are both very important. Social Media: The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/B4a4jz1Gg_U LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellmichalak/ Twitter: Keywords: #AILiteracy #AIInLibraries #Access #LibraryCulture #LibraryInnovation #GenAI #LibraryResources #ProblemSolvers #InformationProfessionals #InformationScience #AcademicLibraries #FutureOfLibraries #HistoryMatters #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Orland Hoeber, Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science, at University of Regina; Founder, Dilex Search. Orland says from an early age, he has always been interested in problem solving, trying to make sense of things and understand how things worked. He gravitated towards computing slowly, starting off in science-based disciplines and a degree in mathematics. He moved away from mathematics, which he says was strict and precise with structured rules, to computer science for an outlet to leverage his creativity, which opened the opportunity for doing creative problem solving, and he earned his graduate degrees in computer science. In this interview, Orland talks with Michael about searching, the library reference desk, and searching within GenAI. He has done research into human-computer interaction, specifically searching, and has recently launched a new search tool, Dilex, for saving searches between desktop and mobile devices. He says there is a gap between what a user needs and what is being provided, and for the last eight to ten years, he has been working in the realm of digital libraries helping people find information in libraries when their search tasks are complex in nature.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/jtq-yM7DIX4 Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/orland-hoeber/ Twitter: Keywords: #DigitalLibraries #DigitalTransformation #KnowledgeManagement #ComputerScience #GenAI #LibraryResources #AcademicResearch #ProblemSolvers #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Steve Smith, AI Gateway and MCP Pilot Advisory for Scholarly Publishers. Steve has enjoyed a wide-ranging academic publishing career, with half spent in book publishing and half spent in journal publishing, and has held senior roles at AIP Publishing, Frontiers, the American Psychological Association, and Wiley.  But, before Steve began his unexpected career in publishing, he studied philosophy at McGill University, earned a PhD in mathematical logic; and he refers to himself as a "frustrated philosopher." In this conversation, Steve shares his journey into academic publishing, his insights on the evolution of publishing, particularly in the context of AI and digital transformation, emphasizing the need for publishers to adapt to new technologies and changing reader expectations. He talks with Michael about the importance of structured knowledge and metadata in the age of AI, arguing that the future of publishing lies in moving beyond traditional formats to embrace knowledge as a service. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/zY6rK5GhYA0 Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdsmith2/ Keywords: #DigitalTransformation #KnowledgeManagement #AcademicIntegrity #PublishingIntegrity #metadata #AIInPublishing #FutureOfPublishing #PublishingStrategy #ScholarlyPublishing #LibraryResources #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ben Lee, Assistant Professor, University of Washington Information School. Ben initially trained as an astrophysicist with a PhD in Human Computer Interaction, but he isn't out there looking for asteroids these days. He is currently an editor for Digital Humanities Quarterly and teaches an MLIS course. He says moving from telescope pipelines and understanding all the questions around how astronomers make catalogs of stars and celestial objects out of images isn't too dissimilar from questions around OCRing large-scale document collections.  Ben also talks with Michael about how his grandmother survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and the time he spent after college in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and in their archive, and digital questions led him to apply for a computer science program. He also talks with Michael about creating Newspaper Magazine, an archive of documentation of hundreds of millions of pages pertaining to survivors and victims of the Holocaust. Michael presented at the CNI Fall Conference on AI and Libraries, and says he believes fully open sciences is the best way forward and really our only way forward if we are to do this right. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/sDOn4MMuVOk Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ Keyword #KnowledgePreservation #ProblemSolver #Access #Research #ResearchTools #LearningResources #EdTechTools #LibraryResources #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Zakayo Kjellstrom, Investigator, Swedish Agency for the Media, which "works to promote freedom of expression and diversity in the media market, where multiple voices are heard and consumers have access to a wide and accessible range of radio, television and news media."    Zakayo currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He first earned a bachelor's in cultural studies with a focus on digital culture, and then a master's in library science, both from Lunds University, where he also worked in the University Library for several years. In this conversation, Zakayo talks with Michael about having just completed his PhD on Shadow Libraries, and why we should be interested in academic piracy and black open access. He says shadow libraries "put the finger on the very issue of publishing in a very explicit way: this needs to circumvent very robust traditional infrastructures in order to get what's needed to do your job."     The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/j-nh0XXw2C8 Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zakayo-kjellstr%C3%B6m-5945221b9/ Twitter: Keyword #ShadowLibraries #Commons #BlackOpenAccess #AcademicPiracy #ParadoxOfLegitimacy #KnowledgePreservation #ProblemSolver #Access #Research #ResearchTools #LearningResources #EdTechTools #LibraryResources #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #PublishingIssues #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts