Events

The CARLI Discovery Primo VE Committee meets monthly via Zoom. Contact the committee chair or CARLI staff with questions.

In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping communication, access, and our daily lives, it’s crucial that we don’t lose sight of the people at the center. This talk explores the intersection of AI and accessibility - and why human judgment, empathy, and oversight are more important than ever.

In this session, we’ll dive into:

• How AI tools are being used to improve accessibility (and where they fall short)
• Real-world challenges that arise when AI replaces or overshadows human input
• Best practices for designing AI systems that include people - not push them aside
• Practical strategies for keeping people “in the loop” so that technology empowers, rather than excludes

Whether you’re a designer, developer, educator, policy advocate, or simply curious about the future of technology, you’ll come away with insight and actionable ideas for building more inclusive AI-powered systems.

Presenter:

Valerie Lockhart serves as Executive Director of the MN Tech Network and is the founder of the Minnesota Women in Tech. She is passionate about liberty, accessibility, and universal design, and spends most of her time helping people learn how to leverage technology and media to become more self-sufficient and successful.

Register to attend.

Hosted by Minitex

CARLI is pleased to offer a 3-week synchronous and asynchronous course on open educational resources. This virtual course includes material that was first shared with the CARLI membership during the Open Textbook Network Train-the-Trainer workshops.

This course will be offered January 2026 with the live sessions on January 14, 21, and 28, from 9:30 am - 11:00 am. Attendees should plan to attend each live session.

The live sessions will include some presentations, but the aim of the course planners is that these will incorporate a flipped classroom model to build community among participants as all share and discuss the topics.

Technology used for live sessions: Zoom, ideally participants will be able to use video as well as audio.

Registration: More information on this course and instructions for registering can be found on CARLI's January 2026 OER virtual course registration page.

If you have any questions, please email them to CARLI Support.

Augustana College’s Tredway Library takes pride in its moniker of being the living room of the campus. However, like many others, the library faced a decrease in student engagement in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic; moreover, situational factors such as reduced campus communication outlets and several curriculum redevelopments compounded the situation by limiting both messaging opportunities and library capacity to respond to student needs. Survey data collected from senior students over the past five years underscores an initial decrease and steady regrowth in self-reported sense of belonging within the library, aligning with the pandemic and post-pandemic library engagement data.

Tredway librarians prioritized the development of targeted wellness-related collections and programming centered on giving students resources and spaces to simply be, rather than be in an act of becoming, in response to expressed gaps in student support. These projects, ranging from the expansion of a leisure collection to include self-care materials to curating lego sets for passive community programming and even to the present reimagining of a defunct computer lab into a wellness lounge, have each invited and engaged students throughout the development and realization processes. This presentation will overview Tredway Library’s path to developing our wellness initiatives with this active student buy-in, along with some pros, cons, and advice regarding each of the projects we have undertaken so far.

Presenters:

Kaitlyn Goss-Peirce (she/her) is a Research and Instruction Librarian for the Humanities Division at Augustana College's Thomas Tredway Library, where she also serves as the Library Instruction coordinator. With prior experience in public libraries and archives, one of her passions is enriching the library's role as an accessible third space. She earned her Master's of Library and Information Science from Simmons University. 

Garrett Traylor (he/they) is a Research and Instruction Librarian and Assistant Professor at Augustana College's Tredway Library. He is the library's outreach coordinator and liaison to the Arts & Communication Division, to the business, Spanish, and Swedish programs, and to the Augustana Prison Education Program. He previously worked at Illinois College for five years after earning his master's from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Traylor's varied research interests have led to publications on topics such as video games, Scandinavian cinema, adaptation theory, and poetry, and presentations on AI, wellness, and zines. Happy husband, dad to two, and dog dad.

Register to attend.

Hosted by CARLI