LibraryLinks Spring 2006
Funding our Digital Future Symposium a Success
By Ed Shephard
The Binghamton University Libraries’ symposium, Funding Our Digital Future: Budgeting for Libraries & Scholarly Communication , was held on March 20 and 21, 2006. The symposium, originally conceived for the Binghamton University community alone, was advertised on several discussion lists. The response was overwhelming and over seventy persons attended from our campus, from other SUNY schools, as well as other colleges and universities in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
The main focus of the symposium was to begin a dialogue between the Libraries and the academic community on how we can face the daunting task of providing access to the ever-expanding (and ever more costly) resource base which our students and faculty need for research and curriculum. It was very gratifying to have a significant number of faculty, students and university administrators attend the symposium sessions and participate in the discussion generated by the presentations given by an excellent roster of panelists and speakers.
After introductory remarks by Nancy Stamp, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School, the first session was a wide-ranging overview of the situation facing libraries presented by John Meador, Director of Libraries at Binghamton University; Stephen Roberts, Acting Associate Vice President for Libraries at the University of Buffalo; and Suzanne Thorin, University Librarian at Syracuse University. A very thought-provoking panel about the commercial side of information provision followed, made up of representatives from the Haworth Press, Thomson Gale, and Otto Harrassowitz. This session gave the many non-library attendees a glimpse into the challenges facing publishers, information providers and vendors. The first day’s sessions culminated in a very engaging and stimulating discussion among symposium presenters and attendees that ranged across a wide spectrum of issues and concerns from all sections of the university academic community – humanities, social sciences, and sciences. This was followed by an enjoyable reception that was underwritten by the very generous support of the Haworth Press of Binghamton.
The second day’s sessions began with a very powerful and informative presentation by the symposium keynote speaker, Karen Schmidt, Associate University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who talked about campus involvement in the library budget allocation process. The final presentation of the symposium was a panel made up of members of the SUNY Collections and Access Council, which discussed the initiatives being undertaken within the SUNY system to provide greater access to research materials.
Thanks go out to the Provost and her Inter/Multi-disciplinary Symposia Program, to John Meador, and to the Symposium Planning Committee.
Ed Shephard introduces the SUNY Collections and Access Council panelists
Kit Greening of Thomson Gale talks with Mira Kofkin, graduate student in the History department
Keynote speaker Karen Schmidt