For business librarians working at an academic institution in the southeast, attending SOUCABL (Southern University and College Academic Business Librarians Conference) is kinda’ a no brainer. Not only is the conference free (including lunch and breakfast!) but it is also a wonderful opportunity to connect with friends and colleagues new and old and jump straight into the nuances of business liaison/librarianship. This was my second trip to SOUCABL, this time held at the beautiful University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business.

This year’s SOUCABL offerings focused heavily on instruction with the keynote speakers (Brittany Champion of Furman University and Kayla Davidson of Eastern Kentucky University) offering up lessons on using TILT in both the business classroom and as a way to incorporate intentional DEI practices that enhance student experiences in library instruction. TILT (which has been featured on this blog before) stands for “Transparency in Learning and Teaching” and really focuses on bringing radical clarity and *spoiler alert* transparency to instruction. This mindset/philosophy can be integrated and utilized in all areas of instruction from lesson planning (Why am I teaching? Why are you learning? Why will this matter?) to in-class activities (What does success look like?) to post-instruction reflection (At what point did we lose the students? At what point did we see the most engagement from students?). Ultimately, TILT’ing instruction helps ensure that we, as educators, are reflecting on and preparing to clarify the lesson so that all students have the same chance to learn, understand, and succeed. I was also intrigued by the notion that TILT doesn’t just belong in the classroom – it can be useful in any situation where people are engaging with one another towards understanding some concept or idea (hello committee meetings). As one of the presenters said, “common knowledge isn’t always so common” and explicitly zeroing in on the purpose, criteria, outcomes, etc. as we prepare, participate in, and reflect on meetings can go a long way towards creating more effective and engaging experiences. You can learn more about using TILT in the library classroom here and find more resources on learning about and incorporating TILT here

Outside of learning from and networking with colleagues working as business librarians, SOUCABL is also an excellent opportunity to connect with many vendors who specialize in business information/research. Similar to Charleston Conference, vendors are an integral part of both the programming and networking that happen at SOUCABL. This year’s conference ended with a moderated vendor roundtable where we were able to hear about trends, challenges, and provide feedback on resources and access. Some big takeaways from vendors: growing interest in offering perpetual access (for a $$ of course), launching AI tools and integrations (Mintel and Statista are each offering their own), and acknowledgment that they could do a better job about communicating to their “powers that be” that although we may not be their target audience (corporations get that spot) we are the ones usually introducing future clients to their product so we should get some consideration when big changes are afoot (like not scheduling new interfaces to launch on September 1st).

All in all it was a lovely, worthwhile trip over the border and I look forward to next year!