For decades, research libraries have been paying exorbitant journals prices and have largely been powerless to disrupt the scientific publishing system. This talk will highlight a number of ideas that should be considered given that disrupters such as AI, within an increasingly fractured ecosystem, will play a larger role.

Biography:

Elaine L. Westbrooks is the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian and Vice Provost at Cornell University. Serving in this leadership role since July 2022, she spearheads the vital operations and innovative programs of Cornell University Library and Cornell University Press. Cornell University Library holds over 8 million volumes and spans 18 unit libraries. In 2024, Westbrooks led the Library in creating its “One Library for One Cornell Strategic Plan Framework” to further advance scholarship at Cornell and beyond.  

A co-author and co-editor of books on library metadata and management, Westbrooks has been interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Vox. In recognition of her acumen and her efforts to build strategic partnerships across borders, she was honored with the Foreign Expert Award by Fudan University in Shanghai, China, in 2015 and 2016.   

As expressed in her talk “Why Democracy Needs Libraries,” Westbrooks is a staunch advocate for libraries as essential catalysts for democratic societies, and she highlights their important role in collecting and providing access to a wide range of materials that encompass diverse areas and perspectives. 

Westbrooks serves on the boards and committees of several organizations, including the Science Library Advisory Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Board of Directors of the Digital Public Library of America; the Deans Advisory Board of EBSCO; the MIT Visiting Committee for Libraries; and the Board of Directors for Sage. She received her bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh, where she also earned a master’s degree in library and information science.  

Prior to Cornell, Westbrooks held leadership roles at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.   

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