2026 Charleston Conference

Attain Partners will share library costing expertise at the 2026 Charleston Conference, taking place November 2 – 6 in Charleston, South Carolina. Library Consulting Lead Hilary Craiglow will join leaders from Johns Hopkins University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Rochester for a discussion on making the costs of library research support visible and well-documented.

Featured Session

Showing the Costs: Supporting Financial Stability through Research Support Cost Transparency
Thursday, November 8 | 10:15a – 11a | Grand Ballroom 3, Gaillard Center

For decades, the costs of library research support—journal subscriptions, APCs, data curation, repositories, and expertise—have been largely invisible, spread across collections budgets, operations, university ledgers, research administration, campus IT, and grants. Institutions may know these services are essential, but still struggle to document what they cost, who benefits, and how they should be recognized.

The 2026 proposed revisions to the federal Uniform Guidance (UG or 2 CFR 200), which would make journal subscriptions and article processing charges (APCs) unallowable on federal awards, put pressure on this arrangement. Whatever their final form, the UG revisions expose a basic problem: most institutions cannot say with precision what they spend supporting research, or document it well enough to defend.

This panel treats cost transparency as foundational infrastructure. With the outcome of the UG revisions likely still uncertain, panelists will take stock of the policy landscape before turning to the durable question the changes surfaced: what does it take to make library research-support costs visible?

Drawing on library and costing expertise, this panel will explore leadership perspectives on library budgets and research infrastructure, and share what cost transparency requires: identifying costs, documenting them clearly, building the data, systems, and relationships needed to keep that documentation current, and aligning this work with library values.

Speakers

• Hilary Craiglow, Attain Partners, Library Consulting Lead Practice
• Cynthia Vitale, Johns Hopkins University, Associate Dean
• Mimi Calter, Washington University in St. Louis, Vice Provost & University Librarian
• Tim McGeary, University of Rochester, Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of Libraries