Electronic Resources & Librarianship Conference 2026
ER&L Fest Tuesday Report
March 3, 2026
Written by Maria Smith, MLS, Assistant Professor/ Electronic Resources Librarian @ University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
The first item on my agenda (after the fabulous hotel breakfast) was the plenary session “What Comes Next? Moving from Paranoia to Metanoia” with Kathleen McEvoy, Nancy S. Kirkpatrick, and Alex Hodges. The discussion centered on changes that are being observed in academic libraries and on college campuses across the country. These observations included the increasing student concern with data privacy, the need for data stewardship in libraries, the critical need for academic libraries to find new ways of proving their value to administration, and the necessity of focusing on the most important things and letting go of the lesser things. In the words of Nancy Kirkpatrick, “don’t do more with less, do less with less.” Those are wise words that I will continue to ponder as I return to my library.
After the plenary I attended two sessions. The first was “Seeing the Forest: Understanding Your E-resource Collections Through a KBART-based Visualization Tool.” It was a fascinating session from a librarian that developed a free online tool that allows the user to select different ways of visualizing their library’s online holdings after uploading the KBART file provided by their library’s knowledge base. So far it is limited to the files provided by EBSCO and OCLC, but the tool may eventually expand to use KBART files from other knowledge base vendors. The link to the tool is in the slides for the session, so I encourage you to watch the recording of the session to learn how to use the tool, then start using it yourself.
Following that session, I made my way to the exhibit hall to pick up my conference t-shirt, then headed to the session titled “Making Read & Publish Work at Your University: Licensing, Workflows, and the Realities of R&P Management.” We have two R&P agreements at my institution (both recent acquisitions), and hearing from experienced librarians about how they promote them and manage the process was quite helpful. The session offered some very practical tips that I could implement as soon as I returned from the conference.
As a seasoned ER&L attendee, I have learned to set aside a block of time during which I schedule all my individual meetings with vendors. I discovered I missed fewer sessions that way than when I tried to squeeze in meetings throughout the conference. This year I chose to make Tuesday afternoon available, so my afternoon was spent in conversation with both current and prospective vendors – all very delightful people. After my meetings I took the time to informally meet with vendors in the exhibit hall. The big rush was over by that time, so I could have unhurried discussions with vendors about their products. I missed several sessions that afternoon that looked good, but all is not lost – I can still watch them in the online conference platform.
