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The Open Textbook Library (OTL) turns 10 in 2022! To celebrate the library’s role in bringing together a community committed to making higher education more equitable, we are featuring authors, faculty, librarians, students, and others who have contributed to the Open Textbook Library through the years. This interview was conducted by Tonia Johnson, Digital Content Strategist at the Open Education Network.
Alicia Conrardy is a digital repository specialist at Colorado State University Libraries (CSU) where she is responsible for coordinating technical, bibliographic, and metadata for CSU’s digital repository collections. Her cataloging expertise and guidance during the OTL’s early years profoundly impacted the library’s growth that we’re celebrating in 2022.
Alicia, thank you for joining us and providing context that allows us to better understand and appreciate the tremendous progress the library has made during its first decade.
First, is there anything you’d like to say to the OEN community?
Hello everyone. Congratulations to OTL! 10 years sure goes by fast.
We’ve come a long way in developing a comprehensive, accurate, and efficient process to track the library’s open textbook collections. Would you please share your perspective on that collaborative achievement, and perhaps revisit CSU’s role?
CSU came on board with OTL back in summer 2016. Dan Draper, our digital repositories librarian, worked with the OTL team to support their e-textbooks initiative. As part of our relationship, I created machine-readable cataloging (MARC) bibliographic records and then had the joy/challenge of creating a .mrc file for libraries to access and upload to their integrated library systems if they so desired. Thank goodness for MarcEdit! (Those of you who know, know what I mean.)
The MARC standard is intended to provide predictable, reliable cataloging data for libraries. How did it go, implementing this system for the OTL?
I processed the initial group of approximately 250 records and continued to provide MARC records for the next couple of years. It was a good system, albeit labor intensive.
Along the way, were there any OTL titles or authors that piqued your curiosity?
Since I was cataloging all the textbooks, I was able to see all OTL had to offer. While cataloging, and in the name of identifying subjects, ahem, I must admit I took a few “side-trips,” getting lost in the interesting and varied textbooks available from OTL. My favorites included the art books and the Adventure of Physics series.
In the OTL’s first 10 years, can you recall a pivotal idea, process, or achievement that served the library’s success?
Beginning in summer 2018, Andy Seroff, OTL developer, devised an automated way of building MARC records in real-time. I provided some guidance there, and they were successful in creating this process. Though I miss cataloging the textbooks, creating the .mrc file, and the excuse to venture on the occasional side-trip, the new system is wonderful!
Do you have a birthday wish for the OTL?
It’s been a pleasure to partner with OTL and support this very important service. Here’s to another 10 years and beyond for OTL!
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Thank you, Alicia! We genuinely appreciate your dedicated effort and our lasting partnership with Colorado State University Libraries.
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