Katina Strauch, College of Charleston Katina Strauch began the Charleston Conference back in 1980 and The Conference has grown to be an international meeting attended by hundreds of librarians, publishers, vendors, and aggregators. She talked about why and how this happened (she thinks) and how, in 1989 (just prior to Hurricane Hugo) she decided to begin publication of Against the Grain, linking publishers, vendors,and librarians. Katina is Assistant Dean for Technical Services and Collection Development at the College of Charleston Libraries. The Charleston Conference and Against the Grain are private independently-operated entities.