What's Past is Prologue

Over one hundred presentations from the 37th annual Charleston Library Conference (held November 6-10, 2017) are included in this annual proceedings volume. Major themes of the meeting included data visualization, analysis and assessment of collections and library users, demand-driven acquisition, the future of print collections, and open access publishing. While the Charleston meeting remains a core one for acquisitions librarians in dialog with publishers and vendors, the breadth of coverage of this volume reflects the fact that this conference continues to be one of the major venues for leaders in the publishing and library communities to shape strategy and prepare for the future. Almost 2,000 delegates attended the 2017 meeting, ranging from the staff of small public library systems to the CEOs of major corporations. This fully indexed, copyedited volume provides a rich source for the latest evidence-based research and lessons from practice in a range of information science fields. The contributors are leaders in the library, publishing, and vendor communities.

Beth R. Bernhardt is the assistant dean for Collection Management and Scholarly Communications at the Jackson Library, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Leah H. Hinds was appointed executive director of the Charleston Conference in 2017 and has served in various roles with the Charleston Information Group, LLC, since 2004. Prior to working for the conference, she was the assistant director of Graduate Admissions for the College of Charleston for four years.
Katina P. Strauch is the assistant dean of Technical Services and Collection Development at the Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, founder of the Charleston Conference, and editor of Against the Grain, the journal linking publishers, vendors, and librarians, which is issued six times a year.
Lars Meyer is the director of the Content Division at Emory University Libraries, where he is responsible for providing leadership and management for acquisitions, metadata services, electronic resources, digitization, preservation, and assessment. He also is the subject librarian for German literature.