Against the Grain - The Podcast

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Jon Brassey , Founder, Trip Database. J on says he doesn't consider himself to be an entrepreneur, but a problem solver, who created the Trip Database, a medical question-and-answer service for practitioners that has been running for almost 30 years and contains over 125 million clinical article...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Gary Price , Editor, LJ's InfoDOCKET and ARL Day in Review. Gary, a very well-known figure across the scholarly publishing industry, is a librarian, consultant, researcher and speaker who regularly provides important and timely news, updates and information. In this conversation, he talks with M...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Allison Belan , Director for Strategic Innovation, Duke University Press. Allison has a background in English and Philosophy. In this conversation, she talks with Michael about her start in type setting, working on school newspapers and school literary magazines and then a school journal in coll...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Helen Bischoff , Coordinator of Liaison Services, University of Kentucky Libraries. In this conversation, Helen talks about her early experiences of working as a High School English teacher in Kentucky. She reflects on how overcrowding in the school caused her to leave her classroom during her...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with John Unsworth , Library Dean, English Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia. John is a distinguished humanities scholar and professor, and retired last September as University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at University of Virginia. He earned his PhD in English from the University of Virg...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Stacey Greenwell , Librarian, Author and Instructional Designer.  Stacey has authored and co-authored several books on library practice, including Management Information for Professionals and Academic Librarianship, and she currently edits the open-access journal Practical Academic Librarianship...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rachel Caldwell , Academic Engagement, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst, and Robin Sinn , Director of Collections and Open Strategy, Iowa State University. Rachel and Robin are two librarians who co-founded the Library Partnership Rating which is a "collaborative and library-developed framew...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Ciaran Talbot , Director: AI and Ideas Adoption, The University of Manchester Library. Ciaran studied computing and began his career as an IT support analyst in the central team at Manchester University before an IT position opened up in the library, where he has now been for over 15 years.   ...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Thorsten Fröhlich , Professor of IT Management and Big Data at IU International University of Applied Sciences. Thorsten has over 35 years of experience in higher education, IT & digital transformation, and curriculum development and he holds a doctorate in chemistry.   He is an entrepreneur, ha...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Phillip Bradley , Consultant on AI and the Internet. Phillip has titled his life story "From CD-Rom to AI". He says he decided as a child that he wanted to be a librarian and obtained an Honours degree in librarianship from the Polytechnic of North London. Phillip then went to work for the Briti...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Brewster Kahle , Founder & Director, Internet Archive. Brewster says that back in the 1980's he believed that everything would eventually become digital. He dreamed of building a Library of Alexandria where humanity's knowledge would be freely accessible. In this conversation, he talks with Mic...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rachel Miles , Research Impact Coordinator, Virginia Tech University Libraries. Rachel is "an expert in the applications and impacts of research in academia and the public sphere: how it's communicated, what makes it most visible to different audiences and why, what makes it "impactful" and how...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Stevan Harnad , Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton. Stevan is one of the most prominent advocates for open access and a distinguished scholar in cognitive science. In 1978, he founded the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences which pioneered "open peer commentary", a form...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Rupert Gatti and Alessandra Tosi , Co-Founders, Open Book Publishers. Alessandra, a literary historian specializing in Russia, and Rupert, an economist, both Cambridge based scholars, founded the biggest independent open access academic book publisher in the UK, Open Book Publishers, in 2008.  ...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

The following interview is part of the 2025 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. In this series, we sit down with leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in scholarly publishing, libraries, and the broader information world. Each conversation is a chance to hear firsthand how these decision makers tackle new challenges, rethink traditional models, and collaborate acro...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Paolo Manghi , CTO, OpenAIRE, and Researcher, Italian National Research Council. Paolo is a prominent figure in European Research Infrastructures. In this conversation, he talks about his career path, first earning a degree in information science in Pisa, then a degree in science and technology...

Today's episode features guest host  Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Gregory Laynor , PhD, Director, Meta-Research Collaborative and Systemic Review Librarian, NYU Health Science Library. In this conversation, Gregory discusses founding the Meta Research Collaborative, which aims to improve transparency, impact and research practices across disciplines. He also...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Andrew Smeall , VP, Product Innovation at Sage. Andrew is a leader in digital scholarly publishing. He began his career in publishing, and became interested in media and technology, while working at the Center on US-China Relations, which he describes as a "think tank" that produces research on...

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Michele Frison , Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Michele is originally from Italy and completed his PhD at UCL in England with a focus on cell biology. He defines himself as a cell biologist and biochemist, and much of his cur...