Against the Grain - The Podcast

Annual Reviews

Against the Grain is your key to the latest news about libraries, publishers, book jobbers, and subscription agents. Our goal is to link publishers, vendors, and librarians by reporting on the issues, literature, and people that impact the world of books and journals.

  1. ATGthePodcast 324 - A Conversation with Gary Price, Editor, LJ's InfoDOCKET and ARL Day in Review

    3d ago

    ATGthePodcast 324 - A Conversation with Gary Price, Editor, LJ's InfoDOCKET and ARL Day in Review

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Gary Price, Editor, LJ's InfoDOCKET and ARL Day in Review. Gary, a very well-known figure across the scholarly publishing industry, is a librarian, consultant, researcher and speaker who regularly provides important and timely news, updates and information. In this conversation, he talks with Michael about his background including spending a lot of time in the library as a child, and how his mother was the first person to advise him to become a librarian, which he says is still the best advice he's ever received.  Gary talks about how his career has paralleled the internet as a research tool, how he feels a major issue is that while people in general have a positive feeling about librarians, not many understand what libraries and librarians do, the resources they offer, or that their skills are still very valuable, especially the role of curation. He believes the library and the librarian have a huge role in bringing together quality, credible, and timely information, making it a seamless package for the end user, often at the time of need, allowing them to use that collection as needed. He also gives his views on the Internet Archive, AI tools, and explains which tools he finds useful in his work.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/fC4tM3ll8uQ Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gdp100/ Keyword #LibraryInnovation #InformationLiteracy #CriticalThinking #Research #DeepResearch #ResearchTools #LearningResources #EdTechTools #AIInLibaries #AITools #GenAI #LibraryAnalysis #LibraryValue #LibraryResources #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    1h 1m
  2. ATGthePodcast 323 - A Conversation with Allison Belan, Director for Strategic Innovation, Duke University Press

    Jun 22

    ATGthePodcast 323 - A Conversation with Allison Belan, Director for Strategic Innovation, Duke University Press

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Allison Belan, Director for Strategic Innovation, Duke University Press. Allison has a background in English and Philosophy. In this conversation, she talks with Michael about her start in type setting, working on school newspapers and school literary magazines and then a school journal in college.  She talks about working as a project manager with a very small custom software consultancy that worked with a variety of corporations, like Wrangler Jeans and Blue Cross Blue Shield,  to build their first Business to Consumer (B2C) websites during the early days of the World Wide Web.  She appreciated the newly acquired technology and business skills of this job, but missed publishing. In 2004, She joined Duke University Press as assistant production manager for journals. She details the evolution of her roles over the years at Duke, to her current role as Director for Strategic Innovation and Services which includes managing the technology operations and business systems of the Press and, as Allison says, keeping an eye on what's going on in the broader industry and when something transformative about operations or business needs to happen, ringing the bell at the press with the need to get up to speed and work to begin adopting new initiatives, like AI and accessibility among other things, and supporting and aligning with strategy.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/Yxhhqfse_Gc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisoncbelan/ Keyword #DukeUniversityPress #PublishingLeadership #PublishingInnovation #DigitalPublishing #DigitalScholarship #DigitalStrategy #TechAndPublishing #Accessibility #HigherEd #LibraryInnovation #InformationLiteracy #CriticalThinking #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #LearningResources #EdTechTools #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    57 min
  3. ATGthePodcast 322 - A Conversation with Helen Bischoff, Coordinator of Liaison Services, University of Kentucky Libraries

    Jun 17

    ATGthePodcast 322 - A Conversation with Helen Bischoff, Coordinator of Liaison Services, University of Kentucky Libraries

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Helen Bischoff, Coordinator of Liaison Services, University of Kentucky Libraries. In this conversation, Helen talks about her early experiences of working as a High School English teacher in Kentucky. She reflects on how overcrowding in the school caused her to leave her classroom during her planning period to allow other teachers to share that space, and how she spent that time in the school library instead, getting to know the librarians and observing them teaching in a library classroom. These librarians encouraged her to go to library school.  She first worked at a community college library and then several institutions before joining Kentucky University Libraries where she currently coordinates a team-based liaison model across the UK libraries, holding meetings, and providing resources and consultations across a variety of disciplines like teaching and learning, research services, scholarly communication work, and outreach and engagement with the community on campus and beyond. Helen also talks with Michael about how she engages with her students using a technique called active learning.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/yQvBQRPmlak Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-bischoff/ Keyword #LiaisonLibrarian #UKLibraries #LibraryScience #ActiveLearning #InstructionalDesign #DigitalScholarship #HigherEd #LibraryLeadership #LibraryInnovation #PracticalLibrarianship #Library Resources #InformationLiteracy #LibraryInstruction #LibraryCollaboration #CriticalThinking #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #LearningResources #EdTechTools #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    40 min
  4. ATGthePodcast 321 - A Conversation with Frances Pinter, Director, Academic Relations, Central European University Press, and Founder, SUPRR

    Jun 8

    ATGthePodcast 321 - A Conversation with Frances Pinter, Director, Academic Relations, Central European University Press, and Founder, SUPRR

    The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate across sectors. Today's episode features the next conversation from the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series.  Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think, and a Conference Director, talks with Frances Pinter, Director, Academic Relations, Central European University Press, and founder, SUPRR. Frances was born in Venezuela to Hungarian parents and lived on four continents by the time she was 20 years old, which she believes greatly influenced the international approach and outlook that she has held throughout her career. Frances has been a prolific figure, and a trail blazer, in Academic Publishing for over 50 years, working with companies of all different sizes and business cultures around the world. She is currently working to help Ukrainian publishers through SUPRR (Supporting Ukrainian Publishing Resilience and Recovery) which she founded. In this conversation, Frances talks with Heather about starting her own publishing company at a very young age while working on her PhD in international relations, and the importance of working with young authors and meeting people at a young age who challenged conventional wisdom, which stayed with her throughout her career. She also talks about her work in networking a computer system with Apple, why serving on industry committees is very important and the knowledge you can gain from being active in this capacity, and the story of how she won a contract against many big players to digitize the Winston Churchill archives. Frances also tells how she was influenced by an experience with a hands-on open access project in Africa that led to her founding of Knowledge Unlatched in 2012, which was acquired by Annual Reviews in 2025. Lastly, she talks with Heather about the role that librarians have played in her professional life.  The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/0XGbG5yY4y0 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherstaines/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/frances-pinter-6091252/ Keywords: #CharlestonConference #AgainstTheGrain #KatinaMagazine #AnnualReviews #LeadershipInLibraries #InnovationInLibraries #TeamWork #Team #ConferenceEvolution #LibraryCommunity #Librarianship #ProfessionalDevelopment #LibrarianJourney #LibraryEducation #InformationAccess #LibraryCommunity #libraries #librarians #libraryCareer #librarySchool #LibraryLove #academic #AcademicPublishing #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication  #learning #learnon #information #leaders #leadership #2024ChsConf ##career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    34 min
  5. ATGthePodcast 320 - A Conversation with John Unsworth, Library Dean, English Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia

    Jun 1

    ATGthePodcast 320 - A Conversation with John Unsworth, Library Dean, English Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with John Unsworth, Library Dean, English Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia. John is a distinguished humanities scholar and professor, and retired last September as University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at University of Virginia. He earned his PhD in English from the University of Virginia in the 1980's, with his doctorate being in contemporary literature. John talks with Michael about how he combined his interest in the humanities with a career in libraries, not becoming a library director until later in his career in 2012. He discusses how he sees the role of libraries today: essential for not only preserving print collections but providing access to complex digital collections. He also discusses the role of a humanities scholar, the shift in digital humanities and the challenges brought on by AI with the aggressive scrapping done by large language models and the disruption caused to digital humanities projects and libraries and the inability to solve digital copyright issues as he sees it. He also covers how the Google Books Initiative helped Libraries with the work of Hathi Trust. Lastly, he talks about the imminent challenges he sees currently for Universities in the U.S. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/vpeP9DfpBJw Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-unsworth-2709995/ Keyword #DigitalHumanities #DigitalPreservation #DigitalCollections #LibraryScience #DataScience #MachineLearning #TextMining #DigitalScholarship #LibraryLeadership #LibraryInnovation #PracticalLibrarianship #Library Resources #InformationLiteracy #LibraryInstruction #LibraryCollaboration #CriticalThinking #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #LearningResources #EdTechTools #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    53 min
  6. A Conversation with Stacey Greenwell, Librarian, Author and Instructional Designer

    May 18

    A Conversation with Stacey Greenwell, Librarian, Author and Instructional Designer

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Stacey Greenwell, Librarian, Author and Instructional Designer.  Stacey has authored and co-authored several books on library practice, including Management Information for Professionals and Academic Librarianship, and she currently edits the open-access journal Practical Academic Librarianship. She coordinates educational services at the University of Kentucky libraries where she brings together all the instruction librarians at the University and those within their library system who have an interest in instruction to talk and learn from each other, develop courses together and discuss AI literacy tools.    In this conversation, Stacey talks with Michael about her early love of libraries. Her first job was working in a public library during high school where she filed catalog cards and got early exposure to IT being part of an automation project. She also talks about why, after she had earned her MLIS, she made the decision to move away from public libraries to an academic library at the University of Kentucky, where she began teaching as a liaison librarian almost 25 years ago, teaching her colleagues how to use office productivity tools and various website building tools, and creating online tutorials. Stacey decided to go back to school and earned a PhD in instructional systems design. She provides hands-on learning tools, materials and guidance for students and faculty, helping them critically evaluate information to gain the skills they need to be successful.   The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/nU02W1jm3O4 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceygreenwell/ Keyword #LibraryScience #LibraryLeadership #LibraryInnovation #PracticalLibrarianship #Library Resources #InformationLiteracy #LibraryInstruction #LibraryCollaboration #CriticalThinking #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #LearningResources #EdTechTools #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    44 min
  7. ATGthePodcast 318 - A Conversation with Rachel Caldwell, Academic Engagement, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst; and Robin Sinn, Director of Collections and Open Strategy, Iowa State University

    May 11

    ATGthePodcast 318 - A Conversation with Rachel Caldwell, Academic Engagement, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst; and Robin Sinn, Director of Collections and Open Strategy, Iowa State University

    Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rachel Caldwell, Academic Engagement, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst, and Robin Sinn, Director of Collections and Open Strategy, Iowa State University. Rachel and Robin are two librarians who co-founded the Library Partnership Rating which is a "collaborative and library-developed framework for librarians who seek to quantify the alignment of publishers with themselves as they consider investing library resources." It's an open, rubric based system to evaluate journal publisher practices that now has a large advisory council of five library organizations along with publishers and university presses. In this conversation, Rachel and Robin talk with Michael about what their current job titles entail, how they came into librarianship, and why they felt the need to create the Library Partnership Rating and the problems they hoped this decision-making tool would solve.  Robin says they aren't taking on publishers but, instead, working to show publishers what libraries want and need while gathering information that libraries want and need and pulling together those data points for useful conversations and collaboration to forward academic publishing. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/ETePSv0zMFo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mupshall/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-caldwell-947a10247/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-n-sinn/ Keyword #LibraryPartnershipRating #LibraryLeadership #LibraryInnovation #Library Resources #LibraryCollaboration #PublishingEthics #PublisherPractices #InformationProfessionals #AcademicLibraries #career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    47 min
  8. A Conversation with Lorcan Dempsey, librarian, consultant, writer and advisor

    May 4

    A Conversation with Lorcan Dempsey, librarian, consultant, writer and advisor

    The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate across sectors. Today's episode features the next conversation from the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. Heather Staines, Senior Consultant, Delta Think, and a Conference Director, talks with Lorcan Dempsey. Lorcan is a librarian, consultant, writer, advisor and keynote speaker at the 2025 Charleston Conference. Lorcan has had a long, distinguished career beginning over 30 years ago in public libraries in Ireland, to working at the Centre for Catalogue Research at the University of Bath to JISC and then to OCLC for over 21 years where he worked in research, served as chief strategist and Vice President. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Washington.  In this conversation, Lorcan explains why he feels that library education should think about libraries as social organizations, and in that context, a set of skills that would be required to manage them as social organizations, very much embedded within the environments they serve. He also talks about the importance of the role of library directors as storytellers to explain the library's value, the fragmented state of libraries, and how it hinders collective infrastructure, how the move to the cloud changed the relationship between libraries and vendors, the complexities of libraries sharing systems and data within those systems and managing the collective resource. Lastly, he talks about his teaching experience and the current trends he is seeing with recruitment within libraries. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/LZKrbox9USs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorcand/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherstaines/ Twitter: Keywords: #CharlestonConference #AgainstTheGrain #KatinaMagazine #AnnualReviews #LeadershipInLibraries #InnovationInLibraries #TeamWork #Team #ConferenceEvolution #LibraryCommunity #Librarianship #ProfessionalDevelopment #LibrarianJourney #LibraryEducation #InformationAccess #LibraryCommunity #libraries #librarians #libraryCareer #librarySchool #LibraryLove #academic #AcademicPublishing #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication  #learning #learnon #information #leaders #leadership #2024ChsConf ##career #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #libraries #librarianship #LibraryNeeds #LibraryLove #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #podcasts

    43 min
See All (322)

Ratings & Reviews

4
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Against the Grain is your key to the latest news about libraries, publishers, book jobbers, and subscription agents. Our goal is to link publishers, vendors, and librarians by reporting on the issues, literature, and people that impact the world of books and journals.

Information

  • Creator
    Annual Reviews
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    322
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2016-2026 Annual Reviews
  • Show Website
    Against the Grain - The Podcast

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