2023 Conference Schedule

This year’s program is “Expanding Visions” and is centered on how libraries have changed and will further change as we come out of COVID.

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

5:30 to 7:30pm

Welcome Reception (Sponsor: Richard K. Miller & Associates), The Arch Room, South Kitchen & Bar, Downtown Athens, GA

Thursday, March 9, 2023, Miller Learning Center, UGA

7:00 to 8:30 am Breakfast/Registration

8:30 to 9:00 am Welcome

9:00 to 10:00 am Keynote (Doug Olsen Business Librarian at Boston College)

Title:  From the outside in: an industry hire comes to academia

10:00 to 10:15 am Morning Break

10:15 to 11:00 am  Presentation 1: Nora McKenzie, Emory University

Title:  Learning from the Experts: Building workshops with vendors to enhance student business intelligence.

Abstract:  For many years, the business librarians at Emory University’s Goizueta Business Library have offered librarian-led business intelligence workshops to undergraduate business students. During the pandemic, however, the librarians began to brainstorm new methods for partnering with stakeholders outside the university to revitalize our workshops in the remote environment. Starting in spring 2021, we tested the first pilot of our “Learn from the Experts” series via Zoom alongside two business database vendors. In these workshops, vendors were invited to share insights into their content (including discussing real-world use cases and how their analysts gather information) followed by a librarian-led activity that encouraged students to explore each database and identify how information could be used for class projects and career preparation. The online workshops were well attended and yielded very positive feedback from students. As of fall 2022, we are now offering four vendor-led workshops with three database vendors and have plans to expand to a fifth workshop in spring 2023. Not only have these new online workshops allowed us to enhance the business intelligence training that we offer our students, but working so collaboratively with our vendors has helped us build stronger two-way relationships with those vendors. In this session, the presenter will discuss the overall process, including both benefits and challenges, of co-building workshops alongside vendors. Attendees will learn strategies for identifying potential vendor partners, methods for structuring workshops, and recommendations for managing the logistics of online workshops.

11:00 am to 12:00 pm Presentation 2: Morgan Ritchie-Baum & Summer Krstevska, Wake Forest University

Title:  Expanding within, to expand without: Expanding the vision of what’s relevant in business research & instruction

Abstract: COVID not only forced us to reconsider what we value professionally but also what is important to us personally. Forced outside the normal channels of communication and connection with friends, family and colleagues, we had to remember or relearn how to be with ourselves. In this presentation, attendees will discover how two Academic Business Librarians were inspired by and applied personal and professional interests outside the Academy to expand not only their vision of research and instruction but also the institutions’. Along the way the presenters will discuss how failures propelled new approaches and how expanding the realm of “relevant experience” brought new meaning and enjoyment to their work. Ultimately this presentation will invite attendees to reconsider what experience is relevant in their professional lives and how expanding the scope of what we “allow” ourselves to bring to the profession creates more opportunities for connection with our stakeholders.

12:00 to 1:30 pm Lunch & Digital Posters

1:30 to 2:30 pm  Vendor Roundup

2:30 to 2:45 pm Afternoon Break

2:45 to 3:30 pm Presentation 3: Nancy Lovas, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Title: Training the next generation of business librarians.

Abstract:  In the past few years, there have been over two dozen business and business-related academic library jobs advertised on BUSLIB-L and elsewhere. Hiring for these types of positions is challenging, and candidate pools are often small. And, the decline of business information courses in LIS graduate programs complicates matters. The gap between training and jobs is real, and any solution will require multiple approaches and collaborative work. So, what are we to do? This presentation details the experiential learning project I designed in Spring and Fall 2022 as my initial contribution towards addressing this issue. I will describe the development and implementation of an academic business librarianship field experience project available to graduate LIS students at UNC Chapel Hill. The semester-long experiential learning opportunity introduces the participating student to business information, course-integrated library instruction, business reference, and professional development opportunities. In the presentation, I will discuss my strategies for reaching a balance between providing a sufficient amount of work and not overloading the participating student. I will also reflect on lessons learned that inform my continued work in this area.

3:30 to 4:15 pm  Lightning Rounds

CHELSEA JACOBS, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, LIBRARIANS "SWIMMING WITH SHARKS" Abstract: One often overlooked responsibility of a librarian is to support participants in university-sponsored business and pitch competitions, including conducting intellectual property searches and guiding customer discovery, market sizing, competitor analysis, and bench marking. In the wake of the pandemic, expanded start-up funding has increased interest in these competitions among both internal and external university constituents. Librarians may be asked not only to function in their traditional support roles for these events, but also to serve as judges. Although it may be a new responsibility, librarians are well qualified for the role, one requiring the evaluation of business pitch judging criteria.

PROMOTING POPULAR BUSINESS BOOK COLLECTIONS. JENNIFER HORNE, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY Abstract: Students and faculty are often unaware that the library has popular (non-academic) books, including fiction and nonfiction titles. To promote the growing popular business collection, I have employed several marketing strategies: Created a curated digital display of popular business books hosted on the main business LibGuide and the library’s popular reading guide, Promoted these displays directly to students through an existing weekly newsletter, strategically timed to upcoming breaks when students may have more time for leisure reading, Created a pop-up library at the business school, where I bring books for students, faculty, and staff to browse and check out.

4:30 to 4:45 pm Call to Arms/Wrap Up

5:00 to 7:00 pm Happy Hour, Clarke’s Collective, Downtown Athens, GA  (Sponsor: PrivCo)

Breakfast and Lunch have been sponsored by Data Axle, Business Experts Press, Mintel, SAGE, and Statista.