Hosted by Against the Grain (ATG) and the Charleston Conference, the ATG Trendspotting Initiative is a community-engaged process for cooperatively and collaboratively exploring social, policy, economic, technology, and educational trends and forecasting the impacts of these trends on scholarly communication, publishing, and academic libraries. These trends and their impacts will be of interest to anyone in the library and publishing field. This session will identify a number of PESTLE trends (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental) ahead of time by asking for community input. Examples of these trends could be the decline in enrollment for higher education, government regulations around data and privacy, paper shortages caused by supply chain issues, etc. We will then work through what the possible outcomes and effects on our industry could be, forecasting best and worst-case scenarios for outcomes of these trends on various timelines and identifying how they will impact the scholarly communications industry. What are the trends, issues, and external pressures that we should be focused on in the near future? How can we collaboratively evaluate possible solutions and strategies for these issues? What steps can we take to meet these challenges together? Join us for a lively discussion and interactive session focused on the future of our industry and the changes affecting all of us. || Learning Level: Strategic || Speakers: Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe; Leah Hinds

The Trendspotting Initiative is a community-engaged process for cooperatively and collaboratively exploring social, policy, economic, technological, and educational trends and forecasting the impacts of these trends on scholarly communication, publishing, and academic libraries. This session will engage participants in a "Futures Wheel" dialogue to explore the potential implications of policies and events on trust and transparency in scholarly communications and work through what the possible outcomes and effects on our industry could be. How probable are these possibilities? What are the best and worst-case scenarios for these trends on various timelines? What might disrupt these trends that we should be tracking? How can we collaboratively evaluate possible solutions and strategies for these issues? What steps can we take to meet these challenges together? This annual workshop session is always lively and through-provoking. Join us as we consider the future of our industry and the changes that are shaping it!