NISO Plus Forum 2023

The NISO Plus Forum is an opportunity to engage in some of the most vital conversations in the information ecosystem and connect the often disparate aspects of that ecosystem in concrete and meaningful ways. With thanks to the American Geophysical Union for their support, this year’s conference will be held at the AGU headquarters in Washington, DC on October 3, 2023. The theme of our day of conversation and problem solving is AI & Machine Learning in Scholarly Publishing: Services, Data, and Ethics.

We will spend the day in a series of World Cafe-style workshop discussions, where we will work together in small groups to examine each of three AI & Machine Learning areas: service, data, and ethics. By the end of the day, through a series of questions that guide us toward areas of common concern, we will have identified topics to be moved forward for future NISO work. This process will ensure that everyone who attends has a chance to work with all the other attendees, maximizing your opportunities for in-person networking and collaboration. 

Register for NISO Plus Forum 2023
Hotel Information

Benefits of Attending

  • In-person networking — the opportunity to share perspectives with a diverse group of colleagues from across the information industry
  • A focus on practical work in small groups, to help shape the focus of the NISO Plus conference and NISO’s standards development priorities more generally
  • Cross-sector conversation between all the various members of the scholarly information community: libraries, publishers, vendors, researchers, non-profits, and more
  • A focus on three aspects of AI & Machine Learning
    • Services: what’s being used, what’s in development, and what does the information ecosystem need (and not need) from new services
    • Data: what can be done with collections, what rights are exchanged, and what credit is given
    • Ethics: ethical and unethical uses, tracking of AI use through research cycles, and metadata labeling for AI data sets

Feedback from Last Year

“The format was really fresh and I loved that it kept us moving around physically and gave me opportunities to meet lots of people and gain exposure to new ideas and perspectives. Thank you!”

“The format was conducive to vibrant and engaged conversation and provided an excellent opportunity to network.”

“World Cafe really allowed for diversity of ideas and discussions.”

The 2023 NISO Plus Forum is intended for information professionals who are dealing with the challenges of the recent explosion of AI & Machine Learning tools and are interested in seeking solutions and opportunities for current and future tools with others in the community. Attendees who have enough seniority and functional expertise to understand the challenges and opportunities (both external and internal to their organization) are the ideal candidates for this event. This includes product managers, community managers, department directors, heads of functional units, and others—publishers, libraries, vendors, government agencies, and more.

Preliminary Program

8:30am 	Breakfast/Coffee/Networking
9:00am 	Welcome and Overview of Day
9:30am  Introduction to World Cafe
9:45am 	World Cafe Session One - Services
10:45am Coffee Break/Networking
11:15am	World Cafe Session Two - Data
12:30pm Lunch and Researcher Provocations
1:45pm 	World Cafe Session Three - Ethics
2:45pm	Refreshment Break/Networking
3:30pm	World Cafe Session Four - Gather, Report, Outcomes
4:30pm 	Closing Remarks
5:00pm	End of Day

Social Event

We are sponsoring a social event in conjunction with SSP New Directions 2023 on the evening of NISO Plus Forum from 5:30pm until 7pm at The Board Room in DC, and would love to see you there. If you would like to attend the social event there is no charge, but we would appreciate you completing this form so that we have a rough headcount.

Lunch Provocateurs

As in 2022, NISO Forum will have a Lunch Provocation, where our speakers will challenge and question the topic at hand. This year’s provocateurs are:

Emily Singley is the Vice President, North American Library Relations at Elsevier, where she leads strategies to build trusted partnerships with libraries. Previously she served as Associate University Librarian for Technology and Technical Services at Boston College, where her management portfolio included scholarly communication, metadata, technology, digitization, and acquisitions. Prior to that Emily held library technology roles at Harvard University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Curry College. Emily has a strong record of service to the library community, serving in leadership roles with Seamless Access, the Ex Libris User Group, and the Boston Library Consortium. She holds a Masters in Library Science as well as a Masters in Music, and when she isn’t doing library relations she can be found in her garden wrestling with perennials. 

Andrew Pace leads the consortium of 17 academic libraries across the state of Maryland, centrally hosting management, discovery, and resource sharing applications for millions of print, licensed, and open access resources. His team also leads new digital initiatives in digital asset management, OER, and new service development. And the consortium serves as a hub for communities of practice, professional development, and expert convenings. Andrew held previous Executive Director positions at OCLC, where he managed cloud-based application development and later led teams focused on data science and applied research. Prior to OCLC, he was Head of Information Technology at North Carolina State University Libraries. Andrew is active in the American Library Association and was elected to the NISO Board of Directors in 2023. He has presented at dozens of conferences and is the author of several works dealing with library technology, product and project management, and community building.

Tim Spalding Tim founded LibraryThing in August 2005 as a pet project, to catalog his own library and for academic and bibliophile friends. He had no idea it would explode like it did. His latest project is Talpa.ai (https://www.talpa.ai), the first library-specific AI enabled search engine that uses library data as a “source of truth” about results.

Sponsorships

If your organization is interested in sponsoring NISO Plus Forum 2023, please take a look at our sponsorship opportunities.

Health & Safety

NISO follows all current COVID health and safety recommendations from the CDC and any local requirements based on location. NISO Plus 2023 is being held at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington DC, and as such we are following their recommendation for anyone using that space. More information can be found on our NISO Plus 2023 Forum COVID Policy page, and we will keep that page updated with the latest recommendations for attendees.