UKSG Forum 2024 - Our profession in 2030: publishing, sharing and curating content now and in the future

The emergence of the diamond publishing model has created opportunities for our profession to support academics and researchers within a changing publishing landscape. For library staff working at smaller non-research-intensive institutions this presents additional challenges as we often lack the infrastructure and scale to engage with emerging publishing models.

In this talk I will reflect on some of the skills needed to harness the opportunities and management potential challenges of the increasing diversity in OA publishing models from the perspective of working at a smaller university. The impact of financial challenges approaches to support for library staff will be considered.

This session explores the core competencies and transferable skills involved in development pathways within academic libraries.

Our Career and Skills Development map, designed for the University of Southampton Library, opens development opportunities by providing transparent information about job roles and associated development, alongside practical resources to support people to gain experience and skills.

Drawing on personal experience we will use the example of specialist roles in open research to demonstrate that a focus on skills, activities and experience rather than job title can open career opportunities.

This presentation will discuss the underpinnings of the Library Collections Transformation Plan at the University of Sheffield. It seeks to conceive of library content as serving differing functions and to compartmentalise collections accordingly. The proliferation of open scholarly content, and the role of libraries in enabling it, has progressed existing notions of facilitated collections. Elsewhere, collective initiatives (the UKRR and the UK PBC) are evolving the conservational obligations of research libraries. With a better understanding of its other core functions the Library can then think about how it presents the unique and cultural significant content within its lager collections.

This presentation will briefly introduce the Cataloguing Code of Ethics 2021 and illustrate it's practical application in cataloguing and metadata work in GLAM, the publishing industry; or within the companies that sell content, systems or records.

It will focus upon the common requirements for us to know our audiences or markets; the importance of our collaborations and business partnerships; and the need for us to identify and accommodate workforce development and education so that together we can create, share, enrich and preserve the metadata that defines the quality of search, discovery and access experiences now and in the future.
https://sites.google.com/view/cataloging-ethics/

As a Product Manager at OCLC, it's my job to look into the future. The crystal ball I look into is the problems, issues, and trends of today. If I do everything right, I can help ensure that as that future I have seen approaches, we as OCLC can help libraries by offering exactly what they need when they need it.

In this presentation, I will share what I have seen in this year’s crystal ball, as it pertains to the future of the library industry.

Who or what will be creating metadata in 2030, and for which types of content? What role will linked data, knowledge graphs, and AI play, especially when used together? How will data be open and accessible while also being sustainable and persistent? And how will we link knowledge in large global graphs while at the same time allowing diverse perspectives on what truth is?

cOAlition S's "Towards Responsible Publishing" proposal aims to advance responsible publishing practices. A global stakeholder consultation on this topic revealed support for preprint posting and open peer review, but highlighted the need for seamless integration across publishing workflows and sustainable infrastructures. Building on the consultation, this presentation will highlight opportunities for libraries, institutions, publishers and more to enable and support innovative publishing practices in the coming years. The presentation will also emphasise the importance of a phased yet confident approach towards the creation of a more open, equitable and responsible publishing ecosystem, considering potential barriers and unintended consequences and continued collaboration with the global research community.


 

Library professionals work beyond books, providing direction on the ethical use of information. The AI revolution has provided challenges and opportunities for information search and use. The two speakers will dwell on the similarities and differences between search strategies and prompt engineering with a focus on academic integrity. Library professionals today are drawn into a demanding shift both in their roles and skills as they race to keep pace with the advancements in AI tools. It is envisaged that this discussion will raise the value of librarianship in the information society thus creating AI champions.