UKSG 43rd Annual Conference and Exhibition: Brighton 2020

Followed by:

Greetings from NASIG, Kristen Wilson, President, NASIG

Presentation to the 2020 John Merriman Joint NASIG/UKSG Awards, Presented by Ian Jones, Taylor & Francis (UKSG Award sponsored by Taylor & Francis)

Presentation to the sponsored students and early career professionals (Award sponsored by Elsevier, Royal Society of Chemistry and Wiley)

Transformative Agreements are shaking up the traditional journal businesses. The subscription model, though it has proved persistent and resistant, struggles to be relevant in a digital world and is under pressure from advances in OA publishing. On the plus side: subscriptions provide a stable business framework; budgetary predictability for academic libraries; a means of spreading scholarly communication costs globally across academic institutions. Journal publishers have come to rely on upfront payments for publishing services. Under these conditions, our research landscape has thrived.

However change is needed. Exploding levels of research is just one of the factors that has put the subscription model under pressure; library budgets cannot keep pace with academic taskmasters cracking the whip to ‘Publish or Perish’.  Transformative Agreements provide an umbrella under which several forms of business-model metamorphosis are occurring. This talk describes how at the Microbiology Society, we calculated the price of change against the price of staying as we were; what guiding principles and vision drove our decisions, and the way in which we approached and executed changes designed to transition to a business model fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Plan S and the drive towards a full and immediate open access future has put a sharp focus on the role research publishing and research publishers can play in speeding up the transition to full OA. This talk will explore the concept of transformative publishing, transformative journals and transformative read and publish deals in moving us towards an open sustainable research environment.                                                                      

Bringing together case studies/ live examples of those already making changes to workflows, this session will explore examples of current impact and take up, discuss what this could look like in practical terms for stakeholders and help address the main challenges stakeholders are facing in order to be able to move to a fully OA world.

When Plan S was launched in September of 2018, many observers opined that the U.S. would never embrace a transition of the existing journal literature to immediate OA, dooming to failure the Plan S vision.  Eighteen months later, and how things have changed!  Or, at least, how they are changing.  This talk will describe recent developments and current prospects for OA transformation in the US, highlighting the challenges, opportunities, and diversity of approaches taking shape across the pond. 

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

The research technologist - A valuable allrounder in any academic team - Andy Tattersall,  The University of Sheffield 

Breakout session descriptions

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

 Developing an institution's textbook and courseware strategies Caroline Mackay  Jisc Collections Becky Hartnup Becky Hartnup Consulting  

FE Learners and teachers can benefit from Chatbots that support searching within Jisc’s FE and Skills digital content services.

Benefits include:

• Enabling discovery of relevant learning resources, making it more interactive than responding to questions
• Empowering learners to have more opportunity for independent learning and resource discovery, alleviating queries to busy FE staff
• Enabling LRC and teachers to ask about subscription services, therefore increasing the digital resources available to learners
• Data gathered from queries will inform service improvements, shape how we deliver learning content, and ensure that we are best meeting the needs of the sector

ROR (Research Organization Registry) is a community-led project to develop an open, sustainable, usable, and unique identifier for every research organization in the world. In this session, the ROR team and community stakeholders will discuss the problem ROR is trying to solve, walk through the basics of the registry, share example implementations of ROR IDs, and hear your ideas and questions about how adoption of ROR IDs can enable more efficient discovery and tracking of publications across institutions and funding bodies and support existing workflows within the UK and Europe related to OA policies, the REF, and more. Let’s ROR!

There has been a growing awareness among educators of the benefits of studying arts and sciences alongside one another, the evolution from STEM to STEAM. This meeting of arts and technology is increasingly important at the Royal College of Art, where researchers are engaging creatively with the challenges of society and producing innovative and far reaching results. This talk gives an insight into the interdisciplinary research landscape at the RCA and highlights the ways in which the library is seeking to support this learning environment.

Pre-booking was required.

Sponsored by Mary Ann Liebert Inc

A group of three are currently undertaking a proof of concept project by reviewing the data captured for the CLA Licence of our key digitised readings in 2018/19.  The data will be reviewed, and authors tagged for gender, ethnicity/nationality and geographically where titles were published as well as the publishers. The findings will be sent to relevant departments to take into consideration when reviewing their curriculum and to contextualise the debate about existing attainment gap/decolonising the curriculum. The presentation will be on the general findings of this projects and the impact if any on departments and possible next steps.

Representation in libraries matters.  Recent research on the experience of BAME staff in academic and research libraries found that “that lack of diversity in the library profession was not being acknowledged, nor taken seriously, by the senior management of academic and research libraries.” This perpetuates inequality within librarianship and leads to our failing our customers.  Diverse teams perform better, have a better understanding of their customers they serve and are more innovative and creative.  In this talk I will share data on diversity at the University of Salford, what this tells us and the actions we are taking in response.

The Goldsmiths Library Liberate our Library campaign seeks to align itself with the call for social justice amongst students by identifying practices that marginalise and discriminate against those in the minority. It also calls for the de-centring of Whiteness in the curriculum as well as on the bookshelves. This presentation will highlight the work so far, which includes: the liberate our degrees book suggestions and collection, working alongside academic departments to decolonise the curriculum, collaborating with teaching staff on inclusive reading lists using Talisplayer, and delivering workshops covering subjects like – Resistance researching, and Decolonizing research methods.

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

The research technologist - A valuable allrounder in any academic team - Andy Tattersall,  The University of Sheffield 

With increasing industry consolidation around researcher and publisher services, there are growing concerns that commercial and proprietary players will “lock in” the entire research life cycle. As a result more universities and non-profits are building platforms for the publication, preservation, and dissemination of research works from articles to monographs and beyond. In 2018, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded a project with the MIT Press and the MIT Knowledge Futures Group to conduct a landscape scan of open source platforms. John Maxwell of Simon Fraser University undertook this survey which resulted in an in-depth examination of several dozen open source platforms. This poster highlights key findings, including challenges around sustainability and scalability; strategies for effective collaboration; and potential next steps.

“The library, as we know it, is obsolete. Now that most books are accessible online, the building once dedicated to silence and study is increasingly turning into a lively public gathering place—when it’s not disappearing altogether.”

Since before the turn of the millennium, I have been a “get rid of print” evangelist – libraries and library vendors should just work together on finding the best management and discovery options and users would happily follow……… or not, as it turns out. Library users are not that easy to sway, and it seems that despite a marked global decline in circulation, the joy of handling a physical book will be here for a good while still.  This poses certain problems for many libraries, as the public perception, and especially the perception of funders, has been swayed by constant messages like the one above. Now physical space is being repurposed for events, exhibitions and other cultural activities. In some countries it is also increasingly difficult to secure funding for “behind the scenes” work like material handling.

But with patrons still wanting a good selection of fresh new books, many libraries find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Facing this, the two biggest libraries in Denmark, Aarhus and Copenhagen, in collaboration with Lyngsoe systems developed a modern logistic management system much like the warehouse management system which controls the flow of goods in a supermarket: Items must be displayed attractively, and alerts sent to the system if replenishments are needed, goods that doesn’t move well needs to be weeded out and each branch have a profile mirroring the needs of the individual communities. All the way through all items are documented and checked. Every item can be traced at any given time. The library knows exactly where a particular set of DVD’s are.

Continuing professional development is hugely beneficial to individual and institutional learning, but restricted budgets, lack of time, and busy workloads are common barriers to participation. But what are librarians good at? Finding research literature. And what do librarians need a lot of? Coffee.

A journal club creates an opportunity to engage with scholarly work and share personal practices in an informal and democratic space. By bringing together the evidence and creating protected time to air reflections and concerns, a journal club can contribute to a sense of shared understandingand solidarity. I will share practical guidance on establishing and managing your own journal club.
 

Auditorium 1

The approaches to research encompassed by the umbrella term 'digital humanities' allow us to ask completely new questions, or reveal new insights into seemingly closed discussions. For those on the inside, with the relevant skills and resources, it is a radically exciting time.

What about the rest of us, the "99%" if you will? In this presentation I will talk about how Gale's Digital Scholar Lab is designed to make elements of Digital Humanities accessible to all levels of users. In particular, the new "teaching layer" introduces pedagogical tools that will bring Text and Data Mining into the classroom.

Breakout session descriptions

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA): A case study from Maynooth University Library -  Elizabeth Murphy, Maynooth University   

The relationship between libraries and society publishers has potential for becoming much closer. As societies seek to transition to Open Access (OA) there is new opportunity to work together to achieve shared strategies. In 2019 new principles to inform the development of transformative agreements were jointly developed by representatives of library consortia and society publishers as part of the SPA OPS project. A model transformative agreement toolkit built on these principles was developed, and then piloted by societies and consortia in a number of countries. This presentation will provide a first overview of those pilots and lessons learned.

Undergraduate research experiences provide undisputed benefits to students. By offering services and tools to engage, support, and promote undergraduate work, the library plays a key role in attracting and retaining an institution’s best and brightest students. In this talk, a librarian from a small arts and humanities institution in the U.S. explains how library services and an institutional repository work in tandem to create experiential learning opportunities for undergraduates while simultaneously highlighting their research. Attendees will come away with strategic lessons to promote the originality and academic enterprise of your students and emphasize the library’s role in cultivating a mission of undergraduate success.

For modern libraries of today, it is common knowledge that book collections are evolved and maintained more efficiently by using Patron Driven Acquisitions (PDA). The University Library of Southern Denmark is a “late mover” in this area - to the extent of not having a full-scale PDA system in service yet.                   

In our presentation and poster, we will share some thoughts on why this is no simple matter for a university library like us, catering to curricular and research needs of a medium sized, cross-disciplinary research institution in a non-English-speaking country. We will also share observations made during a year-long PDA experiment with few restraints, where the system was set up to allow users as much “natural behaviour” as possible.

This year's Gala event will be different - we have taken over a club to allow lots more time for networking.  Please feel free to come and go during the evening just remember to show your badge to security to get back in. Hot and cold food and drinks will be provided.  There will be quiet rooms for relaxing and chatting, plus the main event rooms - lots of opportunities for networking!

Key milestones for the evening:

19:00 Welcoming address from the Chair of UKSG, Andrew Barker and a welcome from the sponsors of our evening, Springer Nature

20:15 Our very own UKSG band will be playing a selection of hits

21:00 - 01: 00 The UKSG disco

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

 Developing an institution's textbook and courseware strategies Caroline Mackay  Jisc Collections Becky Hartnup Becky Hartnup Consulting  

Ground Floor - Foyer

Breakout session descriptions

Recorded Presentations available below 

Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA): A case study from Maynooth University Library -  Elizabeth Murphy, Maynooth University   

In creating an environment which supports inclusion and equality, culture will eat metrics for breakfast. How do you create belonging without conformity? How do you effectively align internal and external missions to ensure authenticity? This session will explore Emerald Publishing’s approach to an internal D&I programme – the opportunity, challenges, and results – going beyond the textbook approach to create a community-driven movement.

An important element for successful innovation in Libraries is developing a culture of experimentation, built on the principles of inclusion with an appreciation and encouragement of diverse ideas, thoughts, structures, and people. Often at the beginning of this process, a bold approach is needed to break existing silos, champion inclusion, take new approaches and set the overall direction. This talk will focus on how we are developing a culture of experimentation and inclusion at the University of York Library & Archives, and what can be done to make a sectoral difference.

Global Youth Work as a discipline aims to 1) provoke consciousness and 2) support those most affected, to take action. In the speaker’s situatedness as a scholar-activist, he will draw on his heretic attempts to engender pedagogies of disruption in the realisation of the dual mandate of Global Youth Work; especially in decolonising the curriculum and supporting action based on social justice.

In sharing his work in active advocacy that brings academics, students, policy makers and practitioners together, to develop curriculum currency and maintain a constant dialogue between theory and practice, the speaker will draw on his work both in England and The Gambia, in setting up a journal that promotes critical Southern voices, setting up a library with colleagues from De Montfort University in The Gambia, convening the annual “questioning the logic of the system” conference, and in generating counter-orthodoxy spaces, both in theory and practice.