Save the Time of the User: Current Industry Initiatives and Future Possibilities for Libraries

Removing stumbling blocks for users accessing content and services continues to be a significant challenge across the information landscape. Friction points include authentication and authorization, which became even more apparent during the pandemic pivot to online learning and remote work. Recent industry initiatives have attempted to smooth these pathways and improve researcher experience. This issue-oriented session will facilitate a dialogue about industry efforts, including but not limited to GetFTR, Seamless Access, and the Article Sharing Framework, and identify how they are shaping the information access landscape. The session will explore how libraries and higher education institutions might leverage these industry efforts in their own projects and initiatives, and it will serve as an opportunity for a candid discussion of the challenges libraries face in engaging with these initiatives and a chance to identify strategies for fostering greater library/industry collaboration. There are opportunities for librarians to proactively participate in these initiatives in order to ensure they are aligned with user needs and institutional priorities. How might we foster this strategic orientation and develop incentive models to engage deeply in such topics and develop our collective capacity to leverage these infrastructures?