Staff expertise is a key element of being a leader in the research library community. We are proud to highlight University of Iowa Libraries staff work that impacts not only our campus but leading the way in information services and innovative collaborations across the country. Read below to learn about two staff members who were recently invited to present at national library conferences.
Maggie Halterman-Dess wins scholarship to and presents at ALA’s Core Forum
Core is the American Library Association (ALA) division covering buildings and operations, leadership and management, metadata and collections, and technology, which includes storage facilities like the Annex and their operations. Library Annex Coordinator Maggie Halterman-Dess presented Inconceivable! Large-Scale Deaccessioning Projects in a High-Density Storage Facility, sharing our workflow for withdrawing materials from the Annex without creating the “Swiss cheese” problem: leaving lots of gaps behind, causing inefficiencies in shelving use and potential preservation issues. In November 2025, she presented this poster at the Core Forum in Denver, Colorado.
Matthew Butler presents at Digital Library Federation Forum
Matthew Butler, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio research manager, presented From Archives to Access: AI-Powered Transcription for Multimedia Collections at the annual Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum in Denver, Colorado, in November 2025. His presentation introduced a validated AI pipeline for generating transcripts and summaries of historic political ads. Developed collaboratively and described in a recent peer-reviewed study co-authored by the presenter, the project demonstrates tools for evaluating and enabling access to video collections, offering librarians, archivists, and developers practical methods to enhance discoverability and reuse.