News – Page 3

PALNI Honors Extraordinary Library and Consortial Staff at All-Staff Conference

July 17, 2018 by PALNIDCM

Keynote Barbara Fister opening the conference.

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Inc. (PALNI) recognized library and consortia staff by presenting twenty-eight awards on June 12th, 2018 at their annual all-staff conference. PALNI, a non-profit organization supporting the libraries of its twenty-four supported institutions, inspires innovation, fosters learning, and reduces costs for all PALNI institutions. The event provided opportunity for the supported institutions’ library and instructional technology staff to collaborate and share in person, learn from keynote Barbara Fister, and celebrate the success experienced over the past year.

The Executive Director, Kirsten Leonard,recognized accomplishments in five categories of awards during the event:

The “Hall of Fame” award was bestowed to library staff who’ve volunteered long-standing service and invested above and beyond in PALNI initiatives.
The “Outstanding Service 2018” was awarded to those who were active facilitators in driving action items and advancing projects during the annual year.
Outstanding Service 2018 awards were also given to recognition of those who supported the WMS Implementation of Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College who have recently joined PALNI.
The “Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration” was given to select library senior leaders who have led the way in working together more deliberately and effectively.
The “Heart of PALNI Award” was given to staff who embody PALNI’s deep collaboration, and supportive culture.

PALNI Hall of Fame

Lauren Magnuson accepting “Heart of PALNI” award at the 2018 All-Staff Conference.

Heather Myers, Anderson University

Outstanding Service 2018

Julie Miller, Butler University

Olivia MacIsaac, Butler University

Vanessa French, Butler University

Erin Milanese, Goshen College

Tonya Fawcett, Grace College

Rebecca Johnson, Manchester University

Suzanne Hinnefeld, Saint Mary’s College

Andrea Cohn, University of Saint Francis

Laura Vogler, Wabash College

Support of Bethel and Saint Mary’s WMS Implementation

Brandon Board, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Karl Stutzman, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Heather Myers, Anderson University

Richard Lammert, Concordia Theological Seminary

Roger Peters, Concordia Theological Seminary

Brooke Cox, DePauw University

Edward Mandity, Marian College

Shawn Denny, Taylor University

Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration – 2018

Jill Lichtsinn, Manchester University

Noah Brubaker, PALNI

Diane Randall, University of Saint Francis

Heart of PALNI Award

Heather Loehr, PALNI/Hanover College

Eric Bradley, PALNI/Goshen College

Ruth Szpunar, PALNI/DePauw

Barb Chen, PALNI/University of Saint Francis

Lisa Gonzalez, PALNI

Amanda Hurford, PALNI

Lauren Magnuson, PALNI

PALNI Joins the Open Textbook Network

June 7, 2018 by PALNIDCM

Written by: Amanda Hurford, Scholarly Communications Director

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) recently joined the Open Textbook Network (OTN) in order to further its initiatives for affordable education and student success across the state. OTN maintains the Open Textbook Library, and is well known for helping organizations to advance the use of open textbooks and practices on their campuses. They’ve had great success with their initiative: OTN members have saved their students over 8.5 million dollars!

To kick things off, PALNI’s selected system leaders will attend the OTN Summer Institute this July for a week of intensive training. They’ll be trained to bring expertise, mentorship, and best practices back to PALNI, and specifically learn how to facilitate workshops to engage faculty. Through this model, system and campus leaders alike will encourage the adoption of open and affordable resources in the classroom, and in doing so maximize student success.

PALNI’s Affordable Education Initiatives Task Force, as a result of their exploratory efforts, recommended membership in OTN as the first step in PALNI’s program strategy in this area. The program, recently christened PALSave: PALNI Affordable Learning, includes many elements with which other consortia have experienced success, such as outreach, project facilitation, and assessment.

As part of PALNI, supported institutions will enjoy affiliate status in OTN, have access to a trained team to educate faculty on benefits of Open Educational Resources (OER), and help redesigning courses via the PALSave team, at no additional cost. Additionally, OTN staff will be coming to Indiana this fall to facilitate an Open Textbook Workshop (date to be announced).

For more information about PALSave: PALNI Affordable Learning or PALNI’s membership in OTN, contact PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford (amanda@palni.edu).

About the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI): www.palni.edu
PALNI is a non-profit organization supporting collaboration for library and information services to the libraries of its twenty-four supported institutions. PALNI provides everything from resource management systems to sharing expertise in many areas including strategic planning, reference, information fluency, outreach, data management and configuration, and has identified greater collaboration in acquisitions as a key goal.

Recent Fort Wayne Teaching Conference presentation highlights consortial Scholarly Communications, Affordable Education, and Instructional Technology at PALNI

March 6, 2018 by PALNIDCM

PALNI is engaging with faculty to create affordable and effective learning opportunities that draw upon the newest technologies and reduce costs for private colleges in Indiana at the same time. The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) has launched collaborative Scholarly Communications and Instructional Technology programs to incorporate the best of today’s technology, open access materials, and services to directly support teaching and learning by sharing expertise and deduplicating effort across the twenty-four PALNI colleges, seminaries, and universities. To introduce these projects, PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford and University of Saint Francis Teaching and Learning Services Team Coordinator Andrea Cohn presented in person, while Manchester University Virtual Instruction and Emerging Tech Librarian Rebecca Johnson joined virtually to deliver a session at the Fort Wayne Teaching Conference.

Within this conference talk, Ms. Cohn, Ms. Hurford, and Ms. Johnson presented a call to action to faculty which invites direct engagement with PALNI’s resources and in PALNI’s newest advisory groups and task forces. The corresponding groups – Scholarly Communications and Instructional Technology Advisory Groups and the Affordable Education Initiatives Task Force – will help faculty and instructional designers achieve goals around classroom tech, course design, open educational resources, open access publishing, and digital scholarship across the consortium.

“Using a method of “deep collaboration” among the consortium’s members, we are able to draw on each other’s strengths to advance these ideas,” remarks presenter and PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford. “These efforts evidence an evolution in strategy for PALNI, into programs that extend impact beyond the library and out onto campus.”

All three groups are open to join by anyone at a PALNI institution. They meet monthly to quarterly in order to advance action items as directed by PALNI’s 2017-2020 strategic plan. PALNI invites faculty involvement at the Advisory Group level, and also on more targeted task forces like Affordable Education, which require a time commitment to create impactful outputs to share across the PALNI audience.

Ms. Hurford has been pleased with the current campus-wide responses to the programs, “We have solid buy-in from library administrators, we are completing action items with good momentum, and we’ve had significant interest in our programs across PALNI campuses.”

For those in a PALNI institution who would like more information about joining one of these groups, please contact Amanda Hurford (amanda@palni.edu) for Scholarly Communications/Affordable Education Initiatives or Rebecca Johnson (rejohnson@manchester.edu) for Instructional Technology.

For more information about the presentation:

Presentation Slides: https://drive.google.com/a/palni.edu/file/d/1hr3ULW5wn9JUKbT3oqkh6Sent5wv5Duv/view?usp=sharing

instructionaltech.palni.org

scholcomm.palni.org

libguides.palni.edu/scholcomm

libguides.palni.edu/affordable_education

About the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI): www.palni.edu

PALNI is a non-profit organization supporting collaboration for library and information services to the libraries of its twenty-four supported institutions. PALNI provides everything from resource management systems to sharing expertise in many areas including strategic planning, reference, information fluency, outreach, data management and configuration, and has identified greater collaboration in acquisitions as a key goal.

Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College join the PALNI Consortium and the PALNI group OCLC WorldShare Management Services

February 7, 2018 by PALNIDCM

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Inc (PALNI) is excited to announce the addition of two institutions, Bethel College (Mishawaka, IN) and Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, IN), to the PALNI family. Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College join a highly engaged and collaborative group of private college and seminary libraries across the state bringing the number of supported institutions up to twenty-four. PALNI uses OCLC’s WorldShare Management Services (WMS) to provide direct, unmediated access to the collective collections of all the institutions without the need to export or import records. OCLC is also continuing development in WMS to support collaboration in analytics, licensing, and more.

“The PALNI board discussion on the applications from Saint Mary’s College and Bethel College was enthusiastic,” says PALNI Executive Director Kirsten Leonard. “All of us in PALNI and PALNI-supported schools look forward to combining their strengths with the many experts and leaders across PALNI. Their request to join PALNI’s Deep Collaboration speaks highly of PALNI’s ability to produce services and collections together that rival much larger consortia and institutions and their inclusion will make us stronger.”

The PALNI board of directors has committed to “deep collaboration” between PALNI institutions, providing better service by sharing resources to reduce duplication and fuel innovation. New expertise from both schools will aid the consortium to increase collaboration efforts and enhance traditional services. Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College will have access to over 200 colleagues and support staff from the other PALNI schools, a cost-efficient contract with OCLC for the WorldShare Management Services, a consortia-wide resource-sharing program called PALShare, an instructional technology collaboration, affordable education initiatives, and a host of other services that continue to grow to meet the new needs of our students and faculty.

“We are looking forward to the peer-based support from experienced librarians at libraries like ours: small, largely undergraduate libraries that face similar challenges and limitations but also have similar degrees of flexibility,” comments Saint Mary’s College Interim Director Catherine Pellegrino. “We are excited about joining an organization where we will be equal collaborators on projects and where we’ll be challenged to develop and share our own expertise for the benefit of the whole cooperative consortium.”

“We are excited to partner with the member libraries of PALNI,” remarks Bethel College Library Director Mark Root. “It will be a great opportunity for us to work with institutions that are liked minded and facing similar challenges. By partnering we will be able to expand our services and resources to our community and the PALNI community.”

The institutions’ librarians and their patrons will benefit from the consortium’s contract with OCLC’s WorldShare Management Services. “OCLC has been closely collaborating with Kirsten Leonard, PALNI Executive Director, and the PALNI consortium since the group selected WMS as their cloud-based library services platform in 2013. More recently, we collaborated with several PALNI libraries to develop and pilot the new Digby mobile app to ensure that it delivered the right experience and simplified their libraries’ work. Their input was invaluable in making this app user-friendly for their student workers. As we continue to enhance WMS to ensure it meets the needs of libraries and library groups into the future, we look forward to continuing to partner with PALNI and its newest members, Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College,” said Mary Sauer-Games, OCLC Vice President, Global Product Management.

The PALNI institutions are looking forward to meeting their new colleagues and bringing them onboard fully this spring. “Bethel College and Saint Mary’s College are ideal partners for PALNI,” shares PALNI Board Chair-Elect and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library Director Karl Stutzman. “Our track record of collaboration addresses a central challenge in higher education: the need to contain educational costs while providing increasingly sophisticated services. Adding well-aligned members like Saint Mary’s and Bethel will increase all PALNI institutions’ return on investment.”

About Saint Mary’s College:

Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind., is a four-year, Catholic, residential, women’s liberal arts college offering five bachelor’s degrees and more than 30 major areas of study, such as business, nursing, art, chemistry, and social work. Saint Mary’s College also offers two graduate degrees: a Master of Science and a Doctorate. All programs that fall under these degrees are co-educational and include a Master of Science in Data Science, a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology, and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice. Founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Saint Mary’s College seeks, according to its mission statement, to educate students, develop their talents, and prepare them to make a difference in the world.

About Bethel College:

Bethel College is a Christian liberal arts college that that offers both baccalaureate and master’s degrees in a wide variety of disciplines and areas of study. Bethel has as its mission to be a Christian community of learners dedicated to building lives of commitment for leadership in the Church and the world. In order to achieve this mission, Bethel provides liberating academic and co-curricular programs to challenge the mind, enlarge the vision and equip the whole person for lifelong service.

About PALNI:

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) is a 501(c)(3) owned by the twenty-four supported private academic institutions. The founding concept of PALNI is to collaborate to enhance teaching and learning through optimizing library resources and services. PALNI collaborates not only with other private academic institutions in Indiana, but also with other groups and consortia to reduce costs and compete academically through innovative services. Information management systems and sharing expertise in many areas including strategic planning, reference, information fluency, outreach, data management and configuration, scholarly communication, and instructional technology are just a few examples of our collaborations.

About OCLC and WorldShare Management Services:

OCLC is a nonprofit global library cooperative providing shared technology services, original research and community programs so that libraries can better fuel learning, research and innovation. Through OCLC, member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries gain efficiencies through OCLC’s WorldShare, a complete set of library management applications and services built on an open, cloud-based platform. It is through collaboration and sharing of the world’s collected knowledge that libraries can help people find answers they need to solve problems. Together as OCLC, member libraries, staff and partners make breakthroughs possible.

New PALNI Scholarly Communications initiatives take off after new Scholarly Communications Director hire, Amanda Hurford

January 17, 2018 by PALNIDCM

PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford

Since the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana, Inc (PALNI) hired a Scholarly Communications Director, a number of scholarly communication initiatives have launched consortia-wide. Those in affordable education, open access publishing, and institutional repository (IR) development topping the list. The new Scholarly Communications Director, Amanda Hurford, brings focused expertise to the supported PALNI schools and looks forward to sharing her knowledge while forming partnerships in and outside of the consortia.

“PALNI has made it possible to launch scholarly communication initiatives at our very small theological school,” Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library Director Karl Stutzman testifies to the added value. “There is broad excitement from our faculty and administrators for open access resources because they are so clearly connected to our educational mission; having a PALNI staff expert is helping us leverage PALNI’s significant technological resources to support open access journals, launch an institutional repository, and more.”

Scholarly Communications jobs have grown in significance since the Association of College Research and Libraries (ACRL) identified the crisis in their 2003 white paper, “Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication.” A 2012 Association of Research Libraries survey showed a 70% increase in the number of scholarly communications positions with 24% creating new areas to handle scholarly communication support. However, most PALNI libraries lacked the budget to create a position focused on this area on their own.

In late 2016, the PALNI Board of Directors unanimously voted to add the shared, full-time staff position continuing PALNI’s “deep collaboration” initiatives. The position, the first of its kind nationally, supports a consortial effort to advance scholarly communications, institutional repository support, and affordable education initiatives at all 22 supported institutions. Previously in the PALNI consortia, only Butler University Libraries had access to a full-time Scholarly Communications Librarian despite the growing need in all schools.

To achieve this year’s goals, Ms. Hurford leads the Scholarly Communications Advisory Group, which works to provide PALNI librarians with the knowledge, tools, and services needed to engage in these types of projects at the local level. Projects include creating a faculty OER adoption toolkit, implementation of the cutting edge Hyku institutional repository software, and building a robust support system around open access publishing using Open Journal Systems.

Ms. Hurford brings over a decade of experience in digital librarianship working for Ball State University and IUPUI. Former colleague and IUPUI Associate Dean of Digital Scholarship Kristi Palmer spoke highly of Ms. Hurford’s experience, “Ms. Hurford has been an integral part in the success of Indiana’s Service Hub with the Digital Public Library of America, participating since the Indiana Memory DPLA was formed in 2015. As the organization’s current chair she led our 2nd Annual DPLA Fest and has worked diligently to ensure the organization thrives in its mission.”

“Having recently finalized our action plan for 2018, I’m truly excited to move our ambitious goals into sustainable programs within PALNI,” Ms. Hurford states enthusiastically. “Especially interesting will be the development of our consortial institutional repository, and all the opportunities for growth and collaboration it invites in and outside of PALNI.”

PALNI releases ACRL/IPEDS instructional guides for OCLC WMS users

December 11, 2017 by PALNIDCM

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Inc. (PALNI) has released a number of open-access ACRL and IPEDS statistical collection videos and guides to assist OCLC’s Worldshare Management Services (WMS) users in the consortium and beyond.

Heather Loehr, PALNI Analytics Coordinator and Hanover College Duggan Library’s Coordinator of Information Services (Photo provided by Loehr)

All academic libraries are required to report data to the IPEDS annual survey and optionally to the ACRL survey, both necessitating significant time and data processing. Heather Loehr, the PALNI analytics Coordinator and Hanover College Duggan Library’s Coordinator of Information Services, led the project in order to create a common set of instructions that could be shared to all libraries using WMS, rather than each library developing its own guides locally. To benefit the whole OCLC community, the team included instructions for both Standard Reports–available to all WMS users–and instructions for Report Designer users.

Ms. Loehr, originally partnering with Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library Director Karl Stutzman and more recently with DePauw University Prevo Science Library’s Associate Dean of Libraries and Coordinator Caroline Gilson, saw the consortial need for consistent and time-saving instructions in 2015. “We wanted to develop methods that were easy to use and could be used consistently year after year. Consistency is key—the data is most valuable when we are confident that we are reporting on a common standard both internally as well as across the consortium. The methods we have developed are simplified to some degree, and surely more granular analysis could be done for greater accuracy, but we believe that the data acquired is accurate enough and the procedures are clear and accessible.”

The OCLC community of users enthusiastically embraced the work and was praised by the OCLC WorldShare Analytics Community Manager Team. “The OCLC Community Center was designed to foster the culture of support and collaboration among libraries. The IPEDS and ACRL reporting guides that our PALNI colleagues build every year and distribute through the Community Center is one of the best examples of impactful collaborations that we’ve seen. PALNI and their colleagues across various communities of practice are truly setting the pace for sharing knowledge about best practice workflows, as well as gathering and contributing ideas on how to improve products. Congratulations to PALNI on another round of important contributions to the collective’s effective use of WorldShare Reports!”

Before these instructional videos and guides were released, librarians had to interpret the survey instructions and develop their own data-gathering methods locally making it difficult to benchmark across the nation. Now, with over 70+ hours invested by Ms. Loehr’s team in gathering data, creating instructions, and designing the guides and videos, all WMS users can save time and reduce uncertainty by making use of the guides and videos. Having clear instructions that match data points to the survey questions reduces the range of interpretation, making the ACRL and IPEDS statistics more valuable when comparing across the nation.

The Customer Service Director of Counting Opinions, creators of the ACRLmetrics analytics tool that allows libraries to manage and measure ACRL and other performance data, complimented Loehr’s team, saying, “Peer benchmarking is an important component of assessment in academic libraries. Consistent methods for gathering data across institutions are vital for useful peer benchmarks. The excellent work led by Heather Loehr, Coordinator of Information Services with the Duggan Library at Hanover College and Analytics coordinator for the PALNI consortium can be used by all OCLC Worldshare Management Services (WMS) participants helping to guarantee consistent data gathering across all WMS peers. We thank her for her efforts and for the PALNI group’s sharing of this work.”

In addition to the guides, Loehr and Gilson hosted a PALNI online training session this year. Franklin College’s Library Director Denise Shorey attended the Fall session and greatly appreciated the work, “I’m very grateful to Heather Loehr for her role in creating guides for using WMS Reports. By aligning WMS options with IPEDS/ACRL requirements, the guides have been an immense time-saver. The step-by-step instructions provide clear guidance, and Heather was superbly patient in answering any lingering questions that I had.”

Protected: Heather’s PR GIF

December 7, 2017 by PALNIDCM

PALNI honors those who have made it a 25-year success

October 24, 2017 by PALNIDCM

“Hall of Fame” certificates handed out to individual inductees. (Photo by: Megan West/PALNI)

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Inc. (PALNI) celebrated its 25th anniversary by presenting forty-seven awards of recognition on May 24th, 2017 at Marian University’s Allison Mansion. PALNI, a non-profit organization supporting collaboration for library and information services to the libraries of its twenty-two supported institutions, was initially funded with a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant. The organization has successfully partnered to support innovation, learning, and cut costs for all PALNI institutions for more than a quarter century.

The Executive Director, Kirsten Leonard, gifted five categories of awards during the event. Each founding member attending the celebration received a “Founders Award” to recognize their creation of the PALNI organization. The “Hall of Fame” award was given to those who have helped to create the synergistic environment, strategic direction, and success PALNI has achieved. The “Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration” was bestowed to select library directors who have led the way in working together more deliberately and effectively. The “Lifetime Visionary Award” honors those in PALNI who have been able to understand the long-term demands on libraries and helped the organization to work together to meet those needs. Finally, the “Heart of PALNI Award” was given to staff who embody the warm, supportive culture of PALNI.

Founders Award

Eileen Saner, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
Ron Schuetz, Franklin College
Devon Yoder, Goshen College
William (Bill) Darr, Grace College and Theological Seminary
Walter Morrill, Hanover College
Randy Neuman, Huntington University
Rob Gratz, Manchester University
Cathy Salyers, Saint Joseph’s College of Indiana
Robert Hodge,Taylor University
Mary Persyn, Valparaiso University

PALNI Hall of Fame

Karl Stutzman, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
James Bell, Anderson University
Amanda Starkel, Butler University
Franny Gaede, Butler University
Janice Gustaferro, Butler University
Josh Petrusa, Butler University
Richard Lammert, Concordia Theological Seminary
Brooke Cox, DePauw University
Bruce Sanders, DePauw University
Caroline Gilson, DePauw University
Ruth Szpunar, DePauw University
Sherri Parker, DePauw University
Sudha Anand, DePauw University
Jessica Mahoney, Franklin College
Susan Leach-Murray, Franklin College
Eric Bradley, Goshen College
Joe Springer, Goshen College
Rhoda Palmer, Grace College and Theological Seminary
Heather Loehr, Hanover College
Randy Neuman, Huntington University
Darla Haines, Manchester University
Doris Stephenson, Manchester University
Edward Mandity, Marian University
Colleen Gocken, MCLS
Susan Fipps, MCLS
Shawn Denny, Taylor University
Lauren Magnuson, Trine University/PALNI
Barb Chen, University of Saint Francis
Maureen McMahan, University of Saint Francis
Noah Brubaker, University of Indianapolis/PALNI

Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration – 2017

Julie Miller, Butler University
Fritz Hartman, Goshen College
Anita Gray, Huntington University

Lifetime Visionary Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration

Eileen Saner, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
Dan Bowell, Taylor University

Heart of PALNI Award

Carly Dannenmueller, PALNI & Butler University
Megan West, PALNI

PALNI Celebrates 25 Years of Success

October 24, 2017 by PALNIDCM

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana Inc. (PALNI) celebrated its 25th anniversary with a day-long event, strategic planning, and an awards reception May 24th, 2017 at Marian University’s Allison Mansion. The organization has successfully collaborated to support innovation, learning, and efficiency for all PALNI institutions since 1992.

25th Celebration Photo — Brooke Cox, DePauw University Librarian, smiles as she receives her induction to the PALNI Hall of Fame award at the 25th Anniversary awards session. (Photo by: Megan West/PALNI)

The PALNI Hall of Fame award was bestowed upon organizational members who’ve demonstrated exemplary service throughout the lifetime of the PALNI collaboration. Other awards given were the PALNI Leadership in Deep Collaboration, PALNI Lifetime Vision, and the Heart of PALNI Award embodying the collaborative character of PALNI. The awards were developed from the input of all library staff.

The celebration’s highlight was the historically-themed luncheon where founding members and strategic influencers Mary Persyn, Walter Morrill, Eileen Saner, and Tom Kirk shared memories from the pioneering beginnings. Former Hanover Director, Morrill, tearfully spoke of approaching the Lilly Endowment to ask for the organization’s initial funding. “It really is difficult to go back and think of all the good times we had together (…) maybe one of the toughest was one day, a group of us descended on the Lilly Endowment Incorporated on North Meridian. We came to the very central part of the state, hats in hand, with a great deal of trepidation at that time, we approached the Lilly Endowment, Inc. (…) It was enough to found PALNI.”

Founding members (Left-to-right: Mary Persyn, Eileen Saner, Robert Hodge, Ron Schuetz, Cathy Salyers) reminisce as colleagues share stories of PALNI’s early beginnings at the 25th Anniversary luncheon. (Photo by: Megan West/PALNI)

Former Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary’s Director, Eileen Saner, brought some levity to the room with her story about how PALNI celebrated, “all of a sudden, there was a Scottish bagpiper in full regalia. He came into the room playing, very loudly, traditional Celtic music.” Instantly, the event planners in the room regretted not booking a Celtic bagpiper for the 25th celebration as well.

PALNI Executive Director Kirsten Leonard (left) and Assistant Director Noah Brubaker (right) share a laugh during the 25th Anniversary celebration. (Photo by: Megan West/PALNI)PALNI has embarked on new initiatives well beyond the traditional library to support assessment, scholarly communication, and instructional technology, among others. The PALNI board of directors has committed to “deep collaboration” between PALNI institutions, providing better service to students and faculty by sharing resources to reduce duplication and fuel innovation. Kirsten Leonard, the PALNI Executive Director, “PALNI is a trailblazer in working together at scale. Consortia worldwide are looking to PALNI for guidance and for what new services we will develop next.”

Introducing “Scholarly Communication at Scale” blog

September 1, 2017 by PALNIDCM

PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford has built upon the past efforts of PALNI members and staff to update and operationalize the blog, Scholarly Communication at Scale, http://scholcomm.palni.org/.

Scholarly Communication at Scale’s specific purpose is to provide scholarly communication information in a way that is relevant and digestible to seekers of all types and skill levels, and scalable to institutions of various size and experience. Initiatives and information to be covered include open access, scholarly publishing, institutional repositories, affordable education initiatives, digitization, preservation, copyright, and author’s rights, among others.

Many PALNI members and outside readers may be interested in scholarly communications, but don’t have time to research topics in this evolving field. As PALNI’s Scholarly Communications Director, Amanda Hurford has committed to staying abreast and sharing pertinent [or the most influential] schol comm news, scholarship, and professional development activities by aggregating vital news from many sources in one place.

The site uses a plugin called PressForward, which allows it to collect content via a feed reader and a bookmarklet tool from sources such as The Idealis, The Scholarly Kitchen, In the Open, Creative Commons, SPARC, various open access journals, and more.

You can subscribe to get an email for every post, or PALNI members may wait for a weekly digest via the Hub. Please contact PALNI Scholarly Communications Director Amanda Hurford for more information.

Written by: Amanda Hurford, Scholarly Communications Director