Lightning Talks 2024

LaTeX is a document preparation system widely used in many STEM fields. As an alternative to MS Word or Google Docs, LaTeX specializes in the creation of professional documents, and excels in typesetting equations, inserting figures and graphics, and managing references.

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Libraries provides access to Overleaf Professional, a collaborative, online LaTeX/Rich Text editor, for all TMU students, faculty, and staff. Using Overleaf, the Engineering Librarian regularly teaches a “Getting started with LaTeX” workshop, as well as bespoke workshops requested by departments. While outside of the traditional information literacy curriculum taught by Librarians, teaching a technical skill like LaTeX has resulted in greater engagement with students and has highlighted the range of expertise available from the Library.

This Lightning Talk will provide a brief overview of LaTeX and explore its benefits for students, particularly those in STEM fields. It will also explore how LaTeX instruction has been used as an outreach tool and opportunity for engagement with Engineering departments, as well as the challenges of scaling LaTeX instruction.

In February 2024, the University of Dayton announced the formation of a campus-wide Artificial Intelligence working group, meant to formulate recommendations on policy, use, and directions for future research. As the library representative on the Research and Scholarship side of the team, I was tasked with building an inventory that gathered and accounted for the University’s past research on the subject, to showcase our past accomplishments, and identify gaps in our work thus far.

In this lightning talk, I will speak on the methodology I used to build this portrait of our work: collaborations with fellow faculty members, research tools employed, and some of the early findings and victories this work unveiled (such as the highlighting of extensive open access publishing on the subject, or interdisciplinary collaborations one might have been surprised to learn about).

The hope is that my fellow STEM librarians might be able to re-use some of these techniques, should they be charged with helping to tell their institution’s story on AI, or any subject that engages their faculty and has potential for future research progress.

In this lightning talk, I will speak on the methodology I used to build this portrait of our work: collaborations with fellow faculty members, research tools employed, and some of the early findings and victories this work unveiled (such as the highlighting of extensive open access publishing on the subject, or interdisciplinary collaborations one might have been surprised to learn about).

The hope is that my fellow STEM librarians might be able to re-use some of these techniques, should they be charged with helping to tell their institution’s story on AI, or any subject that engages their faculty and has potential for future research progress.

Library websites differ greatly in layout and organizational logic; while patrons can find search interfaces and useful databases, librarians looking to conduct research on other institutions and/or professionals will likely spend empty time trying to locate key information due to non-uniformity across websites.

In this talk, I will review a forthcoming research project surveying sixty large library websites for information on librarian credentials; I will discuss the motivation for my project and my experiences looking for data across different library websites. I will conclude by sharing best practices for others doing similar research and discuss approaches to making one's own information easily findable for others in turn.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are very quickly becoming commonplace in virtually all areas of work and life, including in academia. A large portion (30%) of ChatGPT's user base falls between ages 18-24 (https://www.aiprm.com/chatgpt-statistics/), and the information literacy-related issues surrounding student reliance on the tool have been and continue to be well-documented. But what about data literacy, specifically the analysis of research data? With the introduction of the Data Analyst (also called Advanced Data Analysis, previously called Code Interpreter) tool for GPT-4, OpenAI has made it easier for students to analyze data and create visualizations. However, the accuracy of this tool for processing real, possibly messy, scientific data is not well-studied. This presentation will present the preliminary results of an exploratory case study, where ChatGPT's Advanced Data Analysis tool was put to work with a longitudinal biological dataset. The conversation with the model shows that it is incredibly sophisticated and readily offers different methods for analyzing data, and can very quickly perform statistical tests and generate figures. However, similar to the basic ChatGPT, the Advanced Data Analysis tool does not always identify when underlying assumptions are incorrect and thus can offer incorrect analyses. This may present challenges in educating students in statistical methods, as they may use the tool as a crutch. As with other generative AI tools, users need to exercise caution and learn to critically evaluate and verify the information provided by the model. 

Scholarly publishing is under attack. In 2023, more than 10,000 papers were retracted from the scholarly literature and the signs of papermill activity, peer review fraud, and citation manipulation continue to increase. This talk will focus on ethical challenges facing scholarly publishers, projects underway to combat fraud, and new resources from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In the last decade, the traditional college-aged population (ages 18–22) has shifted from Millennials to Gen Z. This generational shift has necessitated pedagogical change, as discovered w/the changing response to a long-used lesson on scientific information literacy. The lesson, which had been used since 2013, specified a pre-class assignment of reading three different types of scientific articles & an in-class discussion about various aspects of the articles, led by the sciences research instruction librarian. Up until about 2018/2019, students had readily responded to the in-class discussion questions w/answers from their pre-class work. However, at that time, & especially upon the return to in-person instruction in Fall 2021, it became noticeable that students were less & less willing to speak up during the in-class discussion, & the discussion was taking more & more class time as the sciences research instruction librarian tried to draw responses from the students. Additionally, a change in the campus’s LMS starting in Fall 2023 resulted in many students not receiving the pre-class assignment, requiring on-the-fly in-class lesson plan readjustments. Consequently, the sciences research instruction librarian decided to revamp the lesson plan for Spring 2024, eliminating the pre-class assignment & changing the in-class discussion time into small-group student presentations of half a dozen different types of science-related articles. The results were very encouraging, w/students readily participating & the exercise being accomplished in a timely manner, leaving an appropriate amount of time for the other class objectives.

While it is fun to play with generative AI to write grant proposals in the style of Shakespeare or to create images of steampunk reference librarians, AI has a role in serious research. Our library has been offering a series of courses in AI as a research tool that run the gamut from a basic introduction to the concept to extensive analysis on specific tools. I would like to focus on one of these courses,

"Inciteful Research: Harnessing Inciteful & LitMap for Literature Discovery" as an example of how such a course is put together using design thinking principles. I will also present the feedback that was gathered from this session and plans for future iterations.

Participants will take away ideas about how to run an AI for research class and examples of how Incteful and LitMaps can improve research.

And no, this abstract was not written with AI...if it was, it probably would have been better!

The Information Specialist Internship Program at UW-Madison Libraries introduces undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds to careers in librarianship through a 2 year series of rotating modules across campus libraries. The Science & Engineering Libraries is often a first module for new interns to the program, and offers interns an introduction to library public services. This presentation discusses how intern supervisors at the Science & Engineering Libraries structure the module to educate students about science librarianship, give interns opportunities to complete impactful projects, and further develop their database searching skills.

When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, how can an academic library empower its user communities beyond its collections, research guides and bibliographic instructions? In highlighting a new science librarian’s active participation in a non-library related Climate Pedagogy Community of Practice, direct involvement with a faculty association’s Climate Action Committee, and meaningful partnership with the university’s Sustainability Office, this lightning talk will explore practical and value-added tactics for librarians to support campus-wide climate action initiatives. Outreach strategies to be discussed include making recommendations on where to publish a university carbon footprint commitment report, putting together a Science Literacy Week “E for Energy” ebook reading list, and co-organizing a multidisciplinary panel discussion showcasing the faculty and graduate students’ climate action research and initiatives. By contextualizing relevant information and emphasizing on relationship-building collaborations, the enhanced library outreach engagement in the context of climate actions is just-in-time and user-needs focused. This lightning talk will also discuss the challenges and lessons learned in stepping out of the library to work with other campus partners toward a more sustainable climate future.

Evidence synthesis projects are often within the purview of science librarians but with an increasing need for interdisciplinary research, working with interdisciplinary teams and topics that may not be focused upon the sciences is becoming more commonplace. This type of working environment can pose interesting challenges as well as opportunities for science librarians willing to work on interdisciplinary teams. The proposed talk will reflect on an interdisciplinary project through its early ideation through article submission with a focus on the science librarian’s role including consultation, project design, incorporating non-science databases/sources, off-shoot projects, publication decisions, and more.

Every year Michigan State University Extension coordinates with middle and high school teachers statewide in the Michigan Youth Institute (MYI) which is sponsored by the internationally-known World Food Prize (WFP) Foundation. The global WFP Youth Institute program is an opportunity for 7-12th graders to research and write a paper or poster on a global challenge related to hunger and food insecurity. In May of each year, all of the participating students, teachers, Extension educations, librarian(s), and regional experts convene on campus so students can present their solutions in small groups, with other students, teachers, and regional experts for discussion and feedback

In 2022, I met with the MSU Extension educators who lead this program. They had concerns with the lack of quality of resources recommended to the students to consult for research (Pinterest!). They asked me for help, and I created a research guide for the MYI with factual and authoritative online books and internet-based materials. Together, Extension and I presented this guide to teachers statewide through Teach-the-Teacher Zoom events so they may direct the students to the research guide.

In this lightning talk, I will describe how this collaboration began and my roles as a collaborator and expert. I’ll explain why the guide software and resources were selected, and their accessibility to the intended, student audience. Additionally, I’ll share how other GLSBC members, even those not affiliated with educational organizations, can be collaborators, participants and leaders of the WFP Youth Institute in their own location.

Have you ever left a consultation and felt like you didn’t say what you wanted to say quite the way you wanted to say it? Has there been a moment in a Faculty Council presentation where you thought you were sharing good news only to find it poorly received? If so, this talk is for you! In this lightning talk I will briefly cover tested communication strategies for librarians in the STEM disciplines, based on hard won wisdom and mistakes made, as well as evidence based practices.