NEOACM'S REMOTE TECH TALK 101: RESEARCHING BEHIND AND BEYOND THE PAYWALL

TITLE: Researching Behind and Beyond the Paywall: Consortiums, Repositories, Search Engines, and Databases.

Although access to knowledge has been restricted by paywalls, states have extended that access to its communities through consortiums and OCLC (Ohio College Library Center). There is more communication, collaboration, and cooperation between academic and public libraries and the open access movement, and the rise of private libraries, have forced some profit-driven companies such as Elsevier to open up access to some of its content. In this discussion, we will look at two consortia (OhioLink and WRLC – Washington Research Library Consortium) and its impact in Ohio and the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia) area, respectively. We will examine open access repositories, OCLC, and discuss a plethora of search engines, databases, and some tools and strategies to use when conducting research.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Trevor Watkins is the Teaching and Outreach Librarian at George Mason University (GMU). He works with faculty, students, and researchers on projects, grants, and scholarships. He teaches information literacy courses and conducts library carpentry workshops for the Digital Scholarship Center at GMU. Mr. Watkins is the Technical Lead and Chair of the Web Committee of Project STAND and is a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN), a collaboration between OCLC, the California Digital Library, Shift Collective, the University of Virginia, and the Chain Bridge Group. His research interests include AI literacy, Human-AI collaboration, STEM Librarianship, information literacy integration models, open knowledge diffusion tools, and teaching and learning theories in non-traditional spaces.

Trevor is a professional member of both IEEE, and ACM (SIGAI, SIGCSE). He is also the founder of Grey Alien Technologies, where he consults with public libraries, academic libraries, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) organizations about their technology needs. Mr. Watkins holds a MS in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management and a MS in Library Information Science from Kent State University. He also holds a MS in Computing and Information Systems from Youngstown State University,

Mr. Watkins has co-authored published papers and presentations at conferences and is a 2021 IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) fellow for the IDEA (Innovation, Disruption, Enquiry, Access) Institute on Artificial Intelligence. Some of his current projects are Black Squirrel GNU/Linux operating system, Cosmology of Artificial Intelligence, and MOCA (Mason-Libraries Orientation Conversational Agent).

Agenda:
(Times are Eastern Daylight Time)

• 6:00pm - Brief intros
• 6:05pm - Presentation
• 7:00 PM - Q&A
• 7:25 PM - Closing Statement

Note: This tech talk is co-sponsored by George Mason University. The URL will be provided after Meetup RSVP. This discussion will be recorded.