 Thank you and welcome everybody. I'm Christine Madsen co-founder of Athenaeum 21. I'm Austin Booth, the Dean of Libraries at NYU. I'm Robert McDonald, Dean of Libraries and Senior Vice Provost for Online Education at the University of Colorado. I'm Aisha Jackson, Director of Academic Technology Applications and Design in the Office of Information Technology at CU Boulder. And I am Megan Hearst co-founder of Athenaeum 21 Consulting with Christine. Welcome everybody. Christine's going to share a few slides just to set up this conversation. In 2018, we were commissioned, Athenaeum 21 was commissioned by a university to look into why digital strategies succeed and also why they fail. We conducted existing research across higher education, government and business, and we conducted in-depth interviews with leaders in higher education and technology. We learned a lot in that conversation. For purposes of this conversation, it's helpful to have definitions. The digital strategy is a plan of action for the adoption of institutional processes and practices that transform the organization and culture to effectively and competitively function in an increasingly digital world. And it seems like that world has gotten even more increasingly digital since March or so. So we will get into that as well. This graphic is really kind of an overview of what we found in that research and how it's how the research shaped how we frame digital strategy. This graphic summarizes the findings. The answers as to why digital strategies succeed or fail are complex, but we identify that both hinge on six key elements and those are described here. So arguably more important than data and technology are leadership, organizational alignment, which intermediate between and influence people and culture. People and culture are absolutely essential to successful digital transformation. So for each of these six areas, if you go to the next slide, Christine. Our environmental scan outlines three to six key recommendations for success. Importantly, technology and data are only a fraction of the story as you can see here. Next slide please. Thank you. So we found that organizations can become overly focused on technologies in the hope that simply purchasing a technical solution will solve current pain points or magically leapfrog the organization into a seamless digital future. We have seen a number of organizations and misidentify their it plan as their digital strategy. One of the things most successful in managing and managing digital transformation really do address people culture leadership and organizational alignment early on and continuously. And, as I said, we would argue that those are as are more important as data and technology. So with this background and model in mind, we wanted to bring together two after name 21 clients from very different higher education contexts to discuss the different ways they're successfully approaching and managing the complexities at the intersection of library information technology and university information technology. And with that my colleague Christine will lead our discussion. So this panel has come about because we've all watched and discussed at various times. Some patterns emerging in the working relationships around technology on university campuses. There's a particular ebb and flow that's happened over the last few decades with responsibilities for it, sort of emerging in pockets across the campus and then being centralized. And then decentralized and now becoming centralized in certain ways again. But now you also have an interesting overlap and sometimes joining of responsibilities between it and libraries. So university it once regulated to enterprise resource planning systems desktop support communications networking is now on some developing and scaling services in areas such as cloud computing research data management online learning. But they're obviously overlaps with libraries and responsibilities infrastructure and services across all of these especially research data and online learning. So this panel discussion is about two different models of collaboration between university it and libraries that are helping achieve digital transformation in the ways that Megan has just laid out very organizationally focused ways to achieve digital transformation rather than technology focused or simply technology focused. So our two universities University of Colorado Boulder, which is a large public university and NYU, a large private university are two universities that have done unique things by combining or integrating with their library staff and have done it in two different ways. So over the course of this discussion, they'll explain their collaborative models and how they're working, what they've done and why, and we will discuss some examples. So, Austin, let's start with you at NYU. Can you describe your current IT library collaboration and its history and how it came about. Sure. Thanks, Christine. So what we have at NYU. I would describe the basic model is one in which we have central university IT staff who are actually working in the library. There's a couple things about NYU to know that help kind of set the context for this is one we are a global university so we have whole campuses in Shanghai and in Abu Dhabi and the libraries run the New York City libraries run the libraries there and the central IT in New York runs the IT structures in those places so that that global presence means we're we're really focused in the libraries on digital right digital content digital services. So, the other thing I think that's important to know is that at NYU is very decentralized right so the schools really are autonomous, including in the bulk of their IT operations and the libraries are a school where I'm a dean it's treat we're treated as a decanal unit. So, we both have our own sort of school it and we have a relationship with central university it so that that ladder is the relationship I'll talk about briefly so, as I said we have the model is that we have a university IT staff in our library. So, in two areas research computing and educational technology so research computing we have very close organizational and financial ties to research computing so these, you can see it right away on org charts and budgets, etc. So, we have central IT staff that so those are staff that are paid by central IT. And, and show up on their side on the budget and personnel sheets, but are on an org chart that were that reports up to the libraries right so they, these are folks paid by central IT in research computing whose offices are in the library who work in our org structure in our departments, and are really part of the libraries. Most of those people are in data services. There's also some digital humanities folks that fall into that category but mostly digital data services. Also, the associate vice president for research technology right so right under the CIO reports jointly to them to me as the dean of libraries and the CIO so research technology very much is part of the library operation at NYU. We also have a large digital preservation department and that reports jointly to the libraries and research technology in central IT but is located again within the library so again for research computing very much is seen as a joint project between the libraries and the CIO's service but most of activity takes place in the library. Interestingly, I think that's not quite true on the educational technology side. Educational technology side is largely handled by central IT and NYU with a couple of exceptions so we do have some staff that are paid for by the central IT structure that are in the libraries. Mostly in an operation we call digital studio. These are the folks that help faculty create videos for their teaching. But again, compared to the research technology side, the AVP for educational technology does not jointly report to me reports right up through the CIO. We also do do some the libraries do do classroom support for centrally scheduled classrooms. Again, NYU is very decentralized so most classrooms belong to the schools. So again, it's really very interesting. I mean we have a very different relationship with research computing than we do with educational technology. And the question about how this came about this structure was at NYU before I got here I got here about two years ago, but it came out of I think two things one is a was a really really strong vision by the previous library director that our library was going to be digital first, right so that we needed to have really really tight ties with it, no matter what those ties looked like organizationally. And the second was a global right again the global presence which which meant that we were going to have increased reliance on digital, really fast paced innovation. And I think a lot of attention to culture, right, because we were having to pay attention to cross cultural differences. And that meant that we were paying a lot of attention to culture in general which meant we were paying a lot of attention to cultural differences between the libraries and central it. I would say where we're going is to continue that strong relationship but really try to move, move into closer collaboration on the attack front and I'll talk about that a little later. So thanks. Thank you, Austin. Aisha, Robert, do you want to discuss how your current library it collaborations and how it came about. Sure. I'll start off and then Aisha will finish up. I think for us it really started with the relationship of the libraries and our current CEO Larry Levine gives back five or six years before I was in this position I've been here about two years as well like like Austin. And, you know, we had a lot of examples of cross collaborative work, some with our dedicated desktop support which has been in place for all the library faculty staff for for about three to four years. We've been managing computer lab type setups in a lot of our spaces, the way he has been doing that for five or six years. We've also worked pretty closely with them and our office of data analytics on our current faculty research system which ties into our institutional repository which is Sam Vera based and I'll talk a little bit about that. But as we were doing all this what I saw and coming into the position was that we really needed to work much more tighter in collaboration with with OIT and the work that the libraries were doing. And so my first year here I started working with Larry on on what a model might like that might look like. And we call it kind of an embedded model and it's a model that we're pretty distributed like like NYU as well where the colleges, you know often do their own it but OIT had worked closely with our Vice Chancellor for research as well as our Dean of the grad school to kind of bring an embedded model to their IT support. So we were looking at it for the library and it's a little more complicated because we have a lot more edge cases with what we're doing and then our own development team which the other groups did not have when they were working on that. So over the course of that first year we put together an MOU with a lot of the wonderful staff we have to take a look at what the library needs really were. And in the midst of that, that's when we were working with Athenaeum 21 on our new strategic plan. And as part of that we're doing a major reorgan the libraries. And with that in mind we went to hire a new assistant dean for IT Jamie Wittenberg, and part of the job description we wrote with OIT and the directors and OIT to take a look at what that bridge position would be so that we had someone in the libraries to help manage our stakeholder expectations, but that we could move a lot of our IT team into the OIT area so that we could benefit from their scale and redundancy in a lot of ways. A lot around the applications we've run and how they're run. You know that's that's like I would say almost a 10 year kind of build to that piece but we're we're really excited about what the new future might might hold in that. And another way I use she's going to describe this that we've been working closely lately has been in our own financial futures process. So why don't you talk about that. Absolutely. So financial futures is a campus initiative that developed out of another campus and campus initiatives called academic features. The goal of financial futures is to look at how CU Boulder can increase revenues, as well as develop cost savings at scale to ensure the continued success of the campus and supporting its core mission. The key opportunities identified was online education, a work stream was developed in financial futures focused on the development of online and executive degree programs. And his role is seen of libraries and now senior vice provost of online education, Robert served as a work stream sponsor, and I served as a work stream lead. When we started to identify possible online programs, we quickly recognize the need to establish strategic enablers. This ultimately led to our putting together all of the groups working on online education in some way on the campus under the umbrella of a consortium that is now called CU Boulder online. In addition to OIT in the library, the group includes our center for teaching and learning, continuing education in the office of academic innovation. This consortium continues to work on those strategic enablers, while also providing strategic direction for online education at CU Boulder. Great. Thank you, Aisha Robert. So back to you, Austin, you mentioned research computing as one of the core really key points of collaboration. Can you give us a little bit of an overview of how that works, maybe you sort of, you know, how it functions on the ground. Thanks. I think the best sort of example of the collaboration between the libraries and Central IT at NYU is around research data management. So we, and there it's interesting because we have, of course, a third partner which is the office of the vice provost for research, right. So the libraries have really managed this process, research data management. We're really seen as the owners of research data management at NYU. So we work where we both own it and we're the, I would say the connector between the vice provost for research office and Central IT. So we, we, I would say are the folks who are focused on service, right, the service side of research data management and on external policy questions, which is kind of interesting, I think, right. So the VPR's office really shapes the institutional policy around research data management and we are part of that conversation. But we really, I think, are the ones, well, I know we're the ones that are really thinking about public policy around research data management beyond the university so we're frequently the people who are will will draft NYU's response to public policy that's coming out, whether it's coming out from the federal government or from, you know, funders of various kinds. So I think that's kind of an interesting role we play. Then we bring, I would say we bring to the VPR the research computing folks from Central IT to talk about and develop solutions to researchers needs. So there, there we've, we've actually focused on the edge case needs right so Robert had mentioned edge cases so they were really focused on things like social media right we have a center devoted to social media and politics so we work with their research data which is really interesting most of it comes from Twitter. And we have some really interesting cases around films created by Indigenous peoples. So again, it's, it's data that we treat almost everything as data right so these are films but they raise really interesting questions about ownership and about community based data. We've also worked a lot with data around Black Lives Matter and preservation of data journalism. So we're really and so I would say what we bring to those conversations is a focus on service a focus on policy and then, you know, we're the ones who have these really close relationships with the faculty whose research projects we're talking about. And we also have what's interesting at NYU is we, we have a reproducibility librarian so somebody who's devoted to thinking about scientific reproducibility. So we bring, we bring that expertise as well to the conversation. There in terms of thinking about structures and governance. It's interesting we decided that and by we I mean all three parties so Central IT, the VPR's office and the libraries, we decided that we would handle research data governance as a separate as separate from other data governance at the university right so there's a complicated data governance structure around like institutional data all that kind of stuff but we decided that we wanted research data management not to follow that same structure but to be a little looser and to be handled by a working group that the library convenes and then those other groups join us and we decided that really because we wanted to be pretty nimble we wanted to respond quickly to changes in the environment. And we wanted to avoid a lot of the mistakes around data governance that all of us have made right like treating a data governance as a project to ignoring sort of existing committees to ignoring cultural differences etc. And we're, and we were very interested in open data, open scholarship, open science so that meant that we were kind of coming from a different place than most of the other data governance groups on campus which were really focused on security, honestly. So, the working group that we have I think that the main things that we focused on in the working group are these edge cases right because they really test us to test thinking how are we going to manage research data in these in the tougher situations and then kind of back up from that to the easier one so, and for example we have a large collection of videos that are early development videos created by psychologist, and these are created by people at institutions all over the world. So, we, right away you've got a problem with sort of dealing with IRB and at different institutions that's an interesting question then of course just the usual privacy questions. Then it's that the videos were created to study language skills but maybe could be used by researchers who are interested in something very different right so that's just a quick example so we're but that's a really interesting case study to kind of throw at your research data set up so and again so we've been working on these edge cases and then I think working on I would say three things this working group collaboration and socialization just understanding what where we're all coming from. Frankly, consolidating our web support tools and then our infrastructure development so again I think it's, it's really helped that the, I think that the libraries are sort of again serving as a lead and a liaison in a liaison function. So we were the ones for example to develop a new data repository and publication environment and that is supported by central IT and that the vice provost for research relies on. I think where we're going with that with research technology specifically is again. Really putting even more energy into policy and getting working with our government liaisons to really help us. Push our advocacy around open science and then working on the secure research data environments those are the two things that I think we're working on right now. Thanks. Thank you. So, Asia, Robert, can you give us a similar examples or different examples. An overview of how you're handling club computing research data management research computing as examples of this nexus between libraries and oh it. Sure. I think for us, you know, we did it a little bit differently, but we have really close ties with our research computing group that is an IT within our structure at Boulder. And we chartered as a research center called the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship. And it's staffed by librarians, research computing specialists. And because we're chartered under the Vice Chancellor for Research, a lot of their policy people work with us pretty closely on the data management components and that group, you know, that's the group that would draft anything we do from a public policy standpoint. That would then come up to the CIO myself, Vice Chancellor for Research and the Provost and usually we all endorse it and put that out there. They've been working closely lately with the AAU APLU public access to research data initiative. And what's so interesting there is we have a good bit of research computing infrastructure. It's all shared from a consortium model the Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium. So we have a really great research data infrastructure called the Pedal Library. And that piece has been integrated with our institutional repository, much like what Austin had described. And that's really one of the key pieces that we've formed there as a service, both the data management consulting for data management plans, as well as getting people to write connections to our research computing group when they need those resources. That's been real successful with a, you know, I would say with one of our research institutes we have many different institutes that are kind of standalone entities that are that are kind of a unique thing here at Boulder. And the Institute for Cognitive Science has made really good use of that with their large MRI facility for both packaging the data and long term archiving of the data and we're starting to extend that out to some interested parties that are interested medical campus in Denver, who want to be able to archive. They have a great data utility for live data, but they don't really have a consolidated piece for archival data and we'll be working with them in the coming year on that. But what's so interesting about it is the collaborations just gotten deeper and deeper at first it was about the libraries wanting to start a digital scholarship kind of endeavor. And the research competing group was wanting to do more with research data management and planning and how to use their pedal library tool for that. And so, as we brought it together. There's been some successful in the self grants, as well as a new collaboration with our College of Engineering and applied sciences called neuro next, which really will take our data management planning and archiving to the next level because they they have a long term plan and the grant runs quite a long time so they'll get to try this in new ways. That's pretty exciting from a cloud standpoint. We've been doing a little bit with Google cloud a little bit with Amazon from the Google cloud standpoint, we have a lot of different learning environments where they've been using Jupiter hub and Google cloud to enable that and those have been very interesting we're looking at how we can scale that up to be a service for everybody not just some programs. And then from the library side, our institutional repository in San Vera was built with Amazon cloud in mind so it really runs in the native cloud environment. And that's that was our first role experiment with it but what we're seeing there is. That's where we'd like to take eventually all of our applications and then how do we leverage our embedded setup with a way to so that as we do that. We're all learning more and more about you know what the best version of the cloud is what the best scale is and how we can you know get the pricing at the right level for us. And I think that's kind of the overview I wanted to give I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that. Thank you. You covered it Robert. And so educational technology or instructional technology is one of the places where Megan and I have seen a lot of overlap. But we've also seen a lot of different working models so we've seen libraries that are entirely responsible for educational technology at the university we've seen libraries or organizations where the libraries aren't involved at all. Can you talk about the models for educational or instructional technology at your organizations and let's start with you Aisha. Yep. There's actually not a lot of overlap with educational technology or instructional technology enterprise level support on our campus. We actually call it academic technology that's the other thing that you'll see that varies from school to school. But tech support on the Seavilder campus is primarily centrally provided by my group, the Office of Information Technologies academic technology application and design team. We were formed in 2013 to manage the learning tools provided by OIT to the campus, as well as training and consultation on those tools. And we also manage tech evaluation projects to identify technology that will help to meet our campus needs. The library still provides some ed tech support at the course level in the digital humanities and in information literacy instruction. We also OIT also works with the library on integrations where library tools are made available in the campus learning management system, which is canvas. One other thing that I'll mention is for strategic initiatives like we have an open educational resource initiative on our campus. The library might lead it but given the implications on the academic technology space for OERs, we have some representation on that initiative. The library is leading it but OIT takes part in it, given the implications for IT. As part of the campus academic futures efforts which I described in the previous question, the Center for Teaching and Learning was established. In fact, it actually celebrated its one year anniversary this week. So it's been around for a year now. OIT will continue to provide ed tech support for the campus, given the new CTL is being established. It will work in close partnership with CTL and the library to continue to promote and provide academic technology related programming, all in support of our faculty. Great. And Austin, how does this work at NYU? Yeah, so as I said earlier, I think we're, you know, we probably participate less in the ed tech side than a lot of libraries I know. We do, as I said, we are responsible for the equipment and the technology and media equipment in centrally scheduled classrooms and we do have an operation where we loan out equipment. But in general, I would say we're treated as a school, just like any other school that has ed tech needs that are met by central IT. The one area that where there are two areas actually where I think we play a larger role one is as I should just mention around OER and sort of again policy questions around ownership around questions of intellectual property questions of fair use. And, you know, honestly, some advocacy efforts there, right. And I think the other area where we really play a large role is in ed tech and are frequently asked to come in and help lead conversations has to do with what I would broadly call culture questions, right. So specifically around accommodations and ability questions, right. So we were one of the first units on campus to have an accessibility and accommodations plan. We have a digital accessibility plan. We have an accessibility and accommodations librarian. And we're also brought in to talk about critical pedagogy. So how do we bring questions around race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality class and in the intersections of all of those to the teaching about technology in general and information technology specifically. So, while we do do information literacy instruction, it's really grounded, I would say in diversity inclusion and equity efforts. And so are we are open educational resource conversations. I would say that the other area that I think is really interesting that some libraries and some IT organizations have a role in this the production of campus materials like videos, the or other kinds of digital products and at NYU that organization called NYU TV is actually part of the libraries. So there's an interesting as is NYU press so I'm not sure whether you would call those that kind of work doesn't really fall easily into education or research it's sort of that third component of engagement. But it has to do with the creation of materials so I would say we're heavily involved in that. If I can just jump in you reminded me Austin on our campus one other collaboration that's happened between no it in the library and the academic technology space is in the use of our streaming media service caltura, the library of course has an abundance of services and so we've members of my team have worked closely with the library to ensure that media is available in caltura for faculty to access via the LMS. Yeah, great example. Yeah. So this last six months or so has been a bit unusual to say at least in the pandemic situation. So how, how these models around academic technology instructional technology worked on each of your campuses. Can you continue with you Asia to talk about how how things have gone the last few months. Yeah, absolutely. I would say the relationship between the library and it has been strengthened and also extended to other groups. For example, we've partnered with the Office of academic innovation and continuing education to provide support for faculty as a campus move to remote teaching and learning in March. This included the creation of our roundtable and Microsoft teams where members of each of our staff, the subject matter experts have come together to provide a virtual space for instructors to ask questions about remote teaching and learning, but also a space for those needs to come in and contribute information. And it's really amazing to see these very you know these disparate groups come in together to collaborate to support our faculty in these troubling times. We've developed web resources together again collaboratively to further support instructors and one group in particular are continuing education group where members of the library staff and my staff and the CTL, what have been providing consultation to the whole campus. And continuing ad has historically just consulted for their faculty. They've now moved beyond that to extend consultations to the rest of the campus in order to help our instructors prepare to teach remotely. So, personally in response to the move to remote teaching, oh it was able to set up six, what we called remote capable classrooms in the library. These classrooms not only allow instructors to record their lectures so that students can access them at a later date. But it also allows the instructor to teach students attending both in person and also remotely so that we can be in compliance with the CDC space rules and who should be inhabiting a space. If the library didn't have a good relationship with oh it, we wouldn't have been able and vice versa, right, we wouldn't have been able to provide these technologies and these spaces in the timeline in which those technologies were provided. It really has been pivotal to the success of the campus moving to remote teaching and learning so quickly. I think that, you know, the big piece of the classrooms is needing those for the spaces and that's what's in our majority of our main library in Orlando library right now because we're going to be mostly a closed stacks operation this year. In order to continue the digital access we have through Hottie Trust but also so that we can kind of keep that a closed loop cycle for delivery of content, so we can keep that going the whole year, regardless of other things that might happen. That sounds similar to what's happened here. I think, you know, I think for us, there's, you know, we certainly became kind of joined at the hip with the ed tech central right in terms of helping to train faculty on what it means to teach in a digital environment just because we were more used to that than a lot of them. But again, I think what I think one of the things that's been really interesting about the last six months is to, you know, it sort of been, I mean, horrible, but it, but at the same time an interesting way of testing your models to see if they work right. And I feel like our models at NYU have worked pretty well. I think, so for example, I think that COVID-19 in some ways has been, you know, a giant has produced sort of a giant case study on open science. And so it's been interesting to see how our model reacts to that, right? Were we, you know, were we ready to really, you know, both participate in that experiment but also analyze it. And I think the answer is yes. So I think the, again, the library's role as sort of a policy leader on campus really emerged in the last six months. The same thing with digital lending, as Robert just mentioned, right, with Paddy Trust. I mean, I think we've always been seen again by Central IT as a, as the people who, you know, could work with faculty and knew something about copyright, privacy, etc. But now, so it wasn't a big shift to then talk about digital lending, right, and what kinds of rights we were talking about in that environment. It's been a good test. I think the other thing that's happened, of course, is, you know, a long overdue focus on social justice issues. And again, I think the libraries at NYU are seen as leaders in on talking about having, having difficult conversations. They were particularly, you know, good at it, but we're, we've certainly encouraged it and tried to frame the libraries as a place where these things can be talked about. So in the technology arena, I think the last six months have really brought the libraries into close conversations with Central IT around digital divides, which exists even at an institution as well resourced as NYU, you know, that does not mean our students necessarily have access to what they needed, they needed in order to participate in the, you know, the classes moving online. So I think that's been a really interesting result of the last six months. So, Austin, you mentioned testing models and in some ways changing models. One of the things that Megan and I have observed over the last few years amongst our clients, organizations is long term trends and, or sometimes short term in a sort of a pendulum that swings back and forth between close collaborations and integration, and then returning of a siloing of libraries and IT. And oftentimes this just comes from personnel changes or retirements or you get new personalities new people in, and the model changes. So, do you all have thoughts on how you create the structures and processes that position the organization for long term sustainability, despite these changes despite personnel and organizational structural changes how do you keep the positive momentum going. Robert, let's show we start with you. Oh, sure. I think for us, it's about, you know, we've started a lot of our, our collaboration with it with long term emo use. And we're doing that with our reorg and embedding process now. But I think, eventually, once you get those processes working well. It's about, you know, making that kind of co reporting line, the right kind of title and setting it up now that you know when there's a new group and in place around whether it's IT libraries research. It's all going to be subject to change to some degree but I think if you can do the best you can while you're building those to make them part of the institution a little bit. You have the longevity. Now that being said, it might not be working and the cost model may not be sustainable anymore. And you may have to rethink, you know, what you're doing at some point. But overall, all of the embedded components that I think it has tried so far have been cost savings have enabled colleges and schools to free up what they were spending on it in some ways to put more toward, you know, what their real mission is. And that's always the issue when it's a very distributed campus, because you're, you're spending like if you look at the entire IT spending for our campus. It's probably more than we should be and it's because of the embedded nature of it. Now, does that mean that some of the edge cases in our institutes, you know, they're going to need that regardless right and it's probably not good to be managing it centrally, because it's too much of an edge case. But at the same time, as we've seen from our own, you know, desktop support model that's gone across, or I team most of the colleges and schools. It does work, it does save money, and it does really put that management role. I think at the right level now is that a, you know, the spoke model. No, it's a generic model but for general business purposes. It does what it needs to do. Boston. Yeah, I mean it's interesting that because I think all of us have been around long enough to have seen that pendulum swing between centralized computing and decentralized computing and then, you know, where the libraries is along that pendulum can can change to so it's almost a matrix but I mean but I guess in terms of thinking about that that those models might shift based on personalities, etc. You know what what the question of what how to how to sustain forward movement through that. I would echo some of what Robert just said I mean beyond the obvious of you know mutual respect and open communication and sort of again respecting each other's areas of expertise. I think what you just mentioned Robert about mission, I think it's actually really crucial right sort of a realization of our missions and really listening to each other about that and figuring out ways, you know, where we can collaborate and have the most impact on both of our missions right, which can be quite quite different for libraries and central it structures. I think the question of and we'll use is interesting and I think that might may depend on the culture of the institution or the culture of the personalities that's the IO and at a library's for example, or people in a issues position for example, you know, how formal collaborations on a particular campus or at a particular institution MOUs are not common at at NYU. I think it, you know, there's a lot of sort of unspoken agreements which have advantages and disadvantages that you can easily guess that I think again though really having some spending time together to talk about mission can can be really important as a way to weather those pendulum swings, especially if the pendulum is swinging because of financial pressure right I mean I think Robert just alluded to that right so you, you know when I went and institution is under financial pressure frequently, there's a move towards centralizing for example purchasing or procurement right because it seems like an obvious way to save money or centralizing certain service levels as a way of saving money now whether that saves you money in the long run or not that would be a whole conversation I think to have but but I do think that again these you know understanding each other's mission will help help sort of whether that just one other side note about this about sort of the models is I do think there's, at least at NYU we've learned a lot from central IT that goes beyond this sort of very cliched at this point I think notion that that IT is in the back and and libraries are in the front right which is just, you know, IT is all about service to and, you know, a lot of people in libraries do what you would call backroom work as well so that that's sort of an artificial dichotomy. But one thing I think in general that libraries could learn a lot from IT people is project management and project management skills and I know when we worked right with Megan and Christine they're not in that was something that emerged and we've really been working on that and that's something you know that's a little it touches on a little bit of culture questions but I think it's it's really useful for libraries to start learning about project management again whether it's you know kind of project management light or project management heavy I think it's an area that we could learn a lot. So we've talked a lot about models and is you might have touched on this a little bit already but do you think the three of you think that there is an ideal collaborative model that optimizes IT support and infrastructure for faculty and students. So is there, you know, is there a better model bringing library staff into IT or IT staff into the library, or are there particular variables that inform which is better, or maybe better at particular times. Aisha. Regardless of the model collaboration is critical towards ensuring alignment, because our faculty staff and students will be going to each group regardless right. So we need to know where the best expertise is for each area so that we can connect people to the right resource as seamlessly as possible. Robert. Yeah, I, you know, from my perspective I think it's all in the context of the institution, because I've worked in models where you had it coming into libraries or librarians going into it in some ways. And it's really about the decision to want to work together and to collaborate and to be able to keep continuing to grow that is it doesn't happen right away like the two directors of our Center for Research data and digital scholarship told me the day. The thing they were most excited about is their collaboration is really starting to gel together in new ways. And a lot of that I think is our reorg that's kind of made them function much more like a regular research center would be, because they were still trying to mirror, you know, how would the libraries do this if we weren't a research center kind of a thing. But what I wanted them to get to be able to do is to move much more flexibly they still have to run some services for us and for research computing and for the Rocky Mountain Consortium and stuff but now I think they're starting to see, you know, there's prime opportunities for the services are bringing to campus and to libraries and it to go after with grants to help other faculty members and to grow that ability. And that's, that's what I was after in kind of setting them free on that they still are working with everybody on the policy angles for research data at the campus level and that's probably our next big hurdle is to bring together the right parties to talk about how we want to deal with research data, especially in the light of public access to that because you know that's a big part of our, our mission and it was reaffirmed with their academic futures initiatives over the last three years so we're really hopeful that that that group can drive the policy around open access to data and in new ways. It's about knowing that college context and understanding your campus. I think because because you'll get benefits either way. And it just is the cross collaborative training and the cross collaborative skills, that's like the project management that Austin was talking about that are going to help everybody. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead, Austin. Well, no, I was just going to agree with that I think I think I don't think one model is, you know, particularly better than another but I do think, you know, paying a lot of attention to institutional context is important and that sounds easy but it's actually not right. You know there's quite a bit of, you know quite a bit of hidden hidden knowledge that you, you know you would never see on an org chart or on a, you know, on a budget sheet, you know about sort of who makes the decisions and I think that, you know, learning that is difficult when you come into a new organization and then trying to create a structure that again, a decision making structure that's clear to everybody so that when something like COVID-19 happens, one is ready and that that's something that actually we're not this isn't quite a model question but I mean one of the features I would say of NYU by virtue of it of the schools being so autonomous is that there's it's really not a top down place. It really is not. There are obviously there are decisions made by the President, Board of Justices, etc, but but it hasn't been a place where top down decision making has been the culture and while there are obvious I mean you know that that's obviously quite wonderful in in many many ways. When a crisis hits that can be difficult right so not that the centralized decentralized lands itself easily to top down and not top down but that's been an in that I would say has been an interesting test because all of the sudden at least in NYU we had to become top down even in the libraries we had to because think we had to make decisions really quickly right and so that was really difficult in a place that didn't have that culture people you know we we just had to say to people right trust us that we will go back to our other culture. Eventually right so it's not quite a model question but it's a culture question that can be associated with models. I actually have a follow on question, pulling together something that you said earlier Austin and you, Robert and Aisha both touched on a little bit, which is that so Austin you mentioned a particular working group that was very key to this collaboration and establishing the collaboration and building relationships and Robert you'd mentioned your center for research data and digital scholarship. And in some ways those seem to be like third spaces that are neither libraries nor it and are, is that a key to successful collaboration having in some ways or neutral territory, or is that just coincidental. I was going to say I think, I think that can help because then you're not just on any one person's territory to start with. But overall, I'm not sure if that's been exactly like that or not although I'll tell you the other partnerships that are there because there's a statistics group, as well as applied math group that and some geospatial input from geosciences in CRDDS that's come from service support groups that some of them are embedded in departments. And they come to one of the larger help sessions is now virtual, but it's been great at driving users to them and their expertise. Because, you know, it's all about finding where that expert lives, and when they're buried in an apartment, or some other, you know, structure that's more like a government document than it is like, you know, an easy user service kind of thing. Then that's, that's where that's been I think most helpful because all those groups are glad to come to that center and take part in it. If it were just in the library just an it might not have gotten the same response. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think I think when I'm thinking about our most effective groups, they actually are groups that have people from they are in these third spaces right and they're there spaces that also don't just include libraries and IT people but include faculty, which I think whether they're drawing from centers and institutes or departments right just those we have a group like that for research computing on that has, you know, it just has a kind of heavy hitting faculty in the sciences and health sciences on it. And I think that's really important I like. And again the degree of formality working groups committees that kind of is again an institutional culture question but I think I think another important part of this has to do with sort of sponsorship right that you know trying to get right the right sponsors even if they're not in the room for some of these third spaces like the vice provost for research or the provost or president. I think that can really help. You know, make it make it clear that this isn't one, a group trying to take over another group or something like that. Great. Well thank you very much, Robert, Asia, Austin for all of your insight and sharing your experiences. It's been a really good conversation.