The University of South Carolina hosted the spring meeting of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), May 22-23. I always enjoy these meetings and the opportunity to network with regional deans and directors. It was also an important meeting for ASERL as for the second time in recent years, we added a new member, Old Dominion University! That brings us up to 39 members.

Another highlight was a tour of the recently renovated South Caroliniana Library. The Library opened as the university’s main library in 1840 and was the first freestanding college library in the United States. The main reading room was designed to look like the Thomas Jefferson Collection reading room in the Library of Congress. We also toured the Thomas Cooper Library and as always, I came away with fountain envy!

We discussed a number of interesting topics in our sessions. I was especially interested in the EMMA (Educational Materials Made Accessible) cooperative housed at UVA. This consortium shares content remediated for accessibility bringing together the talents of educational disabilities services and libraries. I also participated in a break-out session with colleagues at universities currently classed as R2 institutions under the Carnegie Classification system that may become R1 institutions if the proposed new guidelines are adopted. We discussed possible implications for libraries about these changes including increased research support expectations and higher prices from vendors.

Finally, I also learned a new term for slowly developing projects — crock pot mode. I will definitely be using that to describe some of our log term projects!