Our second Digital Lenders Forum will explore the role of internal advocacy in building and sustaining digital lending initiatives in libraries. While conversations around digital lending often focus on external factors such as securing e-lending rights in licenses or advocating for vendor-supported software workflows, digital lending services significantly depend on our ability to build support, collaboration, and shared understanding within our own organizations.
This panel will explore how advocacy strategies shift across institutional contexts, organizational cultures, and stakeholder groups to realize digital lending initiatives. Panelists will share practical insights on communicating the value of digital lending to different audiences and building collaborative relationships through various organizational structures, identifying both successful and unsuccessful advocacy efforts. Questions? Email Marc Hoffeditz at mhoffeditz@blc.org.
Please note this event is open to the public and will be recorded.
Panelists
Elliot Clement is the Manager, Electronic Resources Access at The New York Public Library. He focuses on e-resources access and discovery for NYPL’s research libraries and manages the Library’s e-resources discovery service (Articles Plus), A-Z database list, and Research Guides site. Elliot holds an MLIS from St. John’s University and previously worked as a Research Experience Associate in the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities at NYPL.
Molly Dupere is the Resource Sharing Librarian at Snell Library, Northeastern University. She focuses on providing equitable service and resources to patrons at all the University's global campuses, regardless of their physical location. Molly served as co-chair of the Boston Library Consortium’s E-Book Sharing Working Group and was a co-author of the group’s report titled E-Book ILL Roadmaps: Charting Pathways for Broader Adoption of E-Book Interlibrary Loan. This report won the 2025 ALA RUSA STARS Publication Award and was featured in a profile for Katina Magazine.
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Clara Fehrenbach is the Document Delivery Services Librarian at the University of Chicago, where she oversees interlibrary loan and reserves services. Her career in academic librarianship spans over nine years, including previous roles at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An active leader in the library community, she currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Project ReShare Steering Committee and represents her institution within the Big Ten Academic Alliance and BorrowDirect.
Veronda J. Pitchford is the Assistant Director of Califa Group, a California public library consortium. As part of her role, she manages Infopeople, Califa’s national online library training arm, serves as strategic partner for national grant projects, and part of the California’s Bookshelf ebook program team which is supported in whole by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library. She currently serves on the Public Library Association (PLA) executive board and the PBS POV Documentaries Library Advisory Group, .
In her not so recent past, she founded the ALA CORE Consortial Ebook Interest group and established Illinois’ first statewide consortial ebook platform, eRead Illinois whilst at RAILS, an Illinois multitype consortium. She also worked with her ebook friends on a national convening of publishers, librarians, platform vendors, and distributors to develop a national ebook agenda. She is a die-hard library chick.