The “state of emergency” discussed in this presentation refers to how librarians have yielded the bulk of control over their collections to commercial entities and the implications this has for librarianship as a profession. The paragraphs roughly follow the presentation as I delivered it, but are broken into major sections.
I also call this talk the “Paranoia Presentation.” I give this talk an alternate title for two reasons: the first is to underscore that this is a serious topic — if you aren’t scared, you aren’t paying attention — and also because it’s fun to tweak serials librarians (hah, hah, alternate title!).