This presentation traces how capitalism and neoliberal policy have shaped the library marketplace from the Carnegie era to today’s platform-dominated e‑resource ecosystem. By examining philanthropic foundations, corporate consolidation, the serials crisis, rentier business models, and platform capitalism, it reveals how market forces influence library autonomy, access, pricing, and infrastructure. Participants will gain historical context and practical strategies for navigating an increasingly commercialized information landscape.
At UNI, our latest Information Literacy Program includes a renewed focus on credit teaching, allowing librarians more time to refine their individual pedagogies and engage students in deeper critical thought. The presenters will each showcase a specific assignment from one of their credit courses that encourages critical thinking: a discussion that engages with equity, power, and ethics in knowledge creation and access, and AI Labs that encourage critical understanding of artificial intelligence.
The Student Employee Supervisors at Wartburg’s Vogel Library are always experimenting with new training methods. It is important for us to train our student teams to be self-disciplined thinkers who will approach patron interactions with the highest level of quality and integrity. In this session we will talk about the evolution of our training methods and key takeaways.
In Fall 2025, Rod Library at the University of Northern Iowa debuted the TEACH Studio, a collaboration between the library and the College of Education. This presentation will describe the process that went into developing the space and collections that support the educator preparation program at UNI along with lessons learned over the course of many years.
Dwindling library use and rumors of upcoming staff cuts compelled me to offer personalized reference services that I had previously considered outside our normal scope. These budget-neutral “concierge services” allow us to form personal relationships with library users, increase use of library resources, and build advocates in a time when the library can be too easily overlooked.
In teaching a first-year seminar on banned books and censorship, I found that controversy and disagreement can be productive starting points for teaching information literacy. By pairing current events with structured dialogue and research-based assignments, students learned to evaluate claims, consider power dynamics, and examine how knowledge is shaped. I’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and practical strategies for guiding students through charged topics without shutting conversation down.
Learn how the David D. Palmer Health Sciences Library created a low-cost library orientation program to promote library resources and services to graduate students with bingo. This presentation will walk you through planning and executing a fun, affordable, adaptable, low effort event, suitable for large or small groups using free tools.
This presentation will give an in-depth look at the shelf reorganization project of the Archives of Iowa Broadcasting at Wartburg College. Utilizing manpower, student workers, and Excel, the AIB created and implemented solutions to their decades long problem of vault organization for accessibility and preservation.
Indigenous Librarianship seeks to reclaim space and authority within library systems in order to create more ethical and inclusive Indigenous knowledge creation and preservation in the library. This presentation describes the special role academic libraries lead in the creation of Indigenized libraries by describing the work of the Xwi7xwa Library, Leech Lake Tribe’s Bezhigoogahbow Library, and Red Lake Nation’s Medweganoonind Library.
