CSU Libraries Conference – The Sequel

In 2025, in response to the clear need for a system-wide approach to supporting professional development for library faculty and staff throughout the California State University, the CSU Council of Library Deans, with support from the Chancellor’s Office, launched the CSU Libraries Conference. Following a highly successful pilot last year, colleagues across the state came together earlier this month for the sequel.

With support from sponsors, corporate partners, and library organizations, including Sage, Elsevier, Clarivate, EBSCO, and California Academic and Research Libraries (CARL), and hosted at CSU East Bay, CSU Fullerton, and online, close to 800 library faculty, staff, and students participated in this year’s conference and its 2026 theme, “Building Community.” For the first time, registration was also made available to colleagues from outside the CSU, with participants coming not only from every CSU campus, but also from University of California campuses, other public and private institutions in California, as well as institutions from across the United States and abroad. Conference Chair, Michael Meth, Dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library at San Jose State University, said: "The second CSU Libraries conference provided a great opportunity for CSU Libraries faculty and staff to showcase their outstanding work, share information with each other and build community. This year, taking advantage of our hybrid format, we were able to make our conference available to colleagues from around the world. We hope this will lead to collaborations and increased visibility for our leading work and set a great example for future conferences.”

This year’s conference opened with a welcome from Junius Gonzales, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Affairs Officer for the CSU, who recognized the essential role(s) that libraries play in the success of CSU students and faculty. Matthew Doyle, currently at Sage, but, until recently, a member of the library faculty at Fresno State University, continued this theme by describing the impact of partnerships between academic libraries and publishers, noting that, since 2021, 1,690 CSU-affiliated authors have made 2,700 published contributions to Sage journals. More broadly, CSU authors have made contributions to more than 3,000 books published by Sage (monographs or chapters) and to more online learning platforms, including Sage Business and Sage Research Methods. Finally, SJSU iSchool Professor Michael Stephens encouraged participants to see their work in libraries as an opportunity to engage in “whole-hearted community building,” an idea first explored in his book, Wholehearted Librarianship: Finding Hope, Inspiration, and Balance (2019).

This year’s conference included discussions of innovation and best practices in CSU libraries on topics including maker spaces, university archives, assessment of the user experience, information literacy instruction and assessment, description and discovery of library resources, and campus and community engagement. Strategic initiatives supported at the system-wide level by the Chancellor’s Office, as well as leadership on several CSU campuses, were also a focus for discussions of library services, including the provision of access to higher education for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals and the impact of artificial intelligence tools and technologies on higher education and library services. SDSU faculty and staff presented on several topics, including AI literacy education, library engagement in AI initiatives at the campus and system levels, assessment of AI tools within the context of sustainability and professional ethics, and reading and engagement with library literature as a component of professional development. SDSU library faculty and staff also contributed to the design and delivery of the conference program as a whole, serving as members of the planning committees and as facilitators for online sessions.

One system-wide initiative discussed across multiple sessions was the CSU's participation in the national study of AI literacy education being coordinated by Ithaka S+R. This study, in which 16 CSU campuses participated, included the collection of data from faculty and students regarding their perspectives on the use of AI tools and technologies for teaching and learning, and how AI literacy is emerging as a complement to other “21st-century literacies” commonly understood to be essential to libraries and higher education, including media literacy, data literacy, etc. The SDSU research team included librarians Lucy Campbell and Keven Jeffrey, as well as faculty members from outside the library (E.J. Sobo, Anthropology; D.J. Hopkins, Theatre, Television, and Film). We expect the results of this national study to be published later this year and look forward to sharing them with the SDSU community.

Scott Walter, Dean of the SDSU Library, noted that the reflection of CSU priorities in academic affairs, students, affairs, and information technology, in the panels and programs presented at this year’s CSU Libraries Conference “confirm what we have always known about our libraries, i.e., they are not only essential partners in campus initiatives, but leaders in the system-wide view that is so distinctive of the California State University.” “Like my fellow CSU Library Deans,” Walter continued, “I look forward to the continuing development of our conference program, which has the potential not only to be a critical support to CSU library faculty and staff, but also evidence of the leadership that CSU libraries demonstrate on the national stage.”