Lisa Croucher, TRLN Executive Director, traveled to Charleston, SC, November 4 to November 6, to participate in various meetings associated with the Charleston Conference. The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) meeting included a presentation by James Wiser, Library Consortium Director, Community College League of California, on the accessibility lawsuit ongoing in the Los Angeles Community College System. A federal court recently ruled in favor of the National Federation of the Blind due in part to accessibility issues with the library. Mention of the case and ruling were repeated in a few subsequent meetings and conversations serving as a wake-up call about the importance of ensuring accessibility of library resources. There was general belief that this was the first of many such suits coming down the pike and that all of our institutions should be vigilant and prepared.
GOBI hosted its annual gathering of libraries, consortia, and publishers to focus on the future of print books in academic libraries. The session on Textbook Affordability, Open Access, and the Institutional Mission included a presentation by Dean Smith, director of Duke University Press. DeGruyter hosted a meeting led by Michael Zeoli, formerly of EBSCO and now with DeGruyter, that focused on similar topics, using two publications as fodder for conversation: Cost of Publishing Monographs (2016: https://sr.