The very popular UKSG Forum includes topical papers, networking and a dynamic exhibition designed to bring together our diverse membership for key conversations. We welcome all but free admission is only available to member institutions.
When
Where
Wednesday, December 3, 2025 – 09:30 GMT
to
Wednesday, December 3, 2025- 16:30 GMT
The Wing @ The Brighton Centre
Brighton,
United Kingdom
About
Sponsors
Programme
Feedback
Registration
Contact
Map
Share
About the Event
Registration
Bookings have now closed for the UKSG Forum – if you would like to be added to the waitlist please click to register
We kindly ask that only registered delegates attend, as we’re unable to accommodate unregistered guests. Thank you for your understanding.
FREE TO UKSG MEMBERS*! Check the UKSG member list
We welcome members and non-members alike, however a small charge is made for non-members of £75+VAT.
Consider becoming a UKSG member.
Please note there will be a limit of 6 people from one institution.
Summary
The UKSG Forum is one of the key benefits of being a UKSG member and attendance is therefore free to anyone working within a UKSG member organisation. In line with its charitable status, UKSG also wishes to encourage attendance by members of the wider community and therefore subsidises the event so that a nominal charge applies to non-members.
Programme chairs: Magaly Taylor, Tim Leonard
What can I expect at the UKSG Forum?
- sessions on best practice and interesting projects
- ample, good-quality networking opportunities
- a table top exhibition
The Forum is the place for ideas, debate, provocations and short briefings. The programme consists of short lightning talks that provide “food for thought”, appealing to a broad range of interests and levels.
“A laid back event, just right for networking, and a good combination of timings for lightning talks, meetings and networking.”
“The short presentations made the day very flexible. I was able to attend the sessions, switch to the exhibition.”
Accessibility
We’re committed to running accessible training and events. We want you to feel welcome, included, and able to fully engage in our sessions.
To help us, please share any access needs you have when prompted by our booking form. We may be in touch to ensure we’re making the right adjustments.
Further information on access facilities can be found here for the Brighton Centre or here for generally visiting Brighton. If you have any more questions or need more information please do not hesitate to contact events (at) uksg.org.
Directions
Social
- X (formally Twitter) UKSG and hashtag #UKSGForum2025
Sponsorship & Exhibition
Bookings for sponsorship and exhibition stands is not sold out – if you have any further questions please contact events@uksg.org
With thanks to our sponsors
Programme
- Wednesday 3 December
Time
Programme
Speakers
09.30
Registration & Refreshments
10.00
Welcome and introduction
Charlie Rapple
Kudos/UKSG Chair
See Biography
Charlie Rapple is co-founder of Kudos, which works with researchers, funders, publishers and universities to ensure research is more widely found, understood, used and cited. With a background in scholarly publishing technology and marketing, she is passionate about ensuring research is more effectively communicated. She is currently serving as Chair of UKSG, having previously served as Vice Chair, Treasurer, Chair of the Marketing Subcommittee, and co-founder of KBART. She is a member of the Editorial Board for UKSG Insights, a blogger in the Scholarly Kitchen and a Fellow of the UN’s SDG Publishers Compact. Charlie has a BA in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of Bristol, and a postgraduate MDip from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
10.05
Discovering the Hidden Insight Between Data Points
In a landscape driven by metrics, impact factors, and open data, it is easy to equate numbers with understanding. Yet what truly shapes knowledge often lies between the data points — in context, voice, and lived experience. This keynote explores how engaging research communities reveals those hidden insights that statistics alone cannot capture. By listening between the lines, we can co-create more inclusive, ethical, and meaningful scholarly communication — transforming data from mere measurement into shared understanding and equitable knowledge exchange.
Godwyns Onwuchekwa
Global Tapestry Consulting
See Biography
Godwyns Onwuchekwa is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Global Tapestry Consulting, supporting organisations to build meaningful connections and co-create effective community engagement with stakeholders around the world. With over 15 years’ experience across the public, private, and voluntary sectors, he specialises in inclusive engagement, leadership development, and embedding mental wellbeing in organisational culture. Formerly Head of Communities at eLife, Godwyns is a trained Mental Health First Aider and patient representative, holding a degree in Computing alongside professional training in community engagement, mental health, and bias awareness.
Topic Area: Collection Management and Development Case Studies
10.35
Notes from a small library: planning for the future at the University of Suffolk
This presentation will explore how the impact of increasing budgetary, staff and time constraints and a shifting landscape of options for collection acquisitions has been felt at a smaller institution with a modest library budget and team size.
A planned move to a new, smaller physical space for the University of Suffolk (UoS) library has added another challenge. The small library team have had to review collections and budgets and getting creative to maximise what can be done within a small budget, a skill which is becoming increasingly important across the sector in institutions of all sizes.
Stephanie Gibson
University of Suffolk
See Biography
Stephanie Gibson is a Learning and Teaching Librarian at the University of Suffolk, supporting healthcare courses. Her role involves course liaison, information literacy teaching and collection management for the school of Health, Sciences and Society. She has held various roles in higher education libraries, including variously focusing on information literacy, interlibrary loans, cataloguing and subscription management.
10.50
Dublin City University Print Journal Review: Unifying collections & opening spaces
As part of an ongoing spaces review project, Dublin City University (DCU) library initiated a thorough review of its print journal collections. To date, this review has informed decision making on policy around retention, relegation and disposal of both current and legacy print journals. This presentation examines the background to and detailed planning of the review so far, highlighting collaboration between library teams and the successes and challenges encountered. It discusses collection analysis, assessment and development in the context of a research-intensive higher education institution in Ireland
Claire Mason
Maynooth University Library
See Biography
Claire recently took on the role of Electronic Resources Librarian in Maynooth University Library. Previous to this she was a Senior Library Assistant in the Collections and Digital Services Directorate at Dublin City University and has worked in libraries for nearly 30 years. She began her career in public libraries in the UK and has spent over 20 years in academic libraries in Ireland.
Amanda Halpin
Dublin City University
See Biography
Amanda Halpin is the E-resources & Serials Manager at Dublin City University Library, with over 25 years of experience in academic libraries. She oversees the acquisition and management of electronic resources and print journals. Her role supports seamless access to scholarly content and ensures the library’s collections remain responsive to academic needs. Previously, Amanda was Subject Librarian for Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health courses, providing specialised support in teaching and research. She is also a member of the IReL Negotiations Group, contributing to national licensing strategies for Irish academic libraries. Amanda’s broad experience informs her commitment to improving digital access and strategic resource management
11.05
Q&A
11.10
Break and exhibition viewing
Topic Area: Digital Innovation
11.35
UWTSD Birmingham & Generative AI: We’re All In This Together
This talk explores the collaborative journey of UWTSD Birmingham in embracing generative AI across academic and professional domains. Highlighting inclusive strategies, staff development, and student engagement, it showcases how librarians, educators, and support teams are working together to navigate the opportunities and challenges of AI integration. From ethical considerations to practical applications, the session reflects on shared learning and the evolving role of academic liaison librarians and digital skills advisors in shaping AI literacy.
Olivia Edmonds
University of Trinity St David
See Biography
Olivia is currently an Academic Liaison Librarian at the University of Wales Trinity St David (Birmingham) Prior to that, she was a former Secondary English teacher of 10+ years and former Learning Resources Manager at Sixth Form level for 6 years. Her areas of interest include equality, diversity, and inclusion; digital accessibility and the use of Generative AI to support student and staff in a higher education content.
Taran Johal
University of Trinity St David
See Biography
tbc
11.55
Zandra Rhodes’ Colourful Heritage: inspiring future generations of young designers and creative practitioners
Colourful Heritage is a vibrant and inclusive project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, delivered in partnership with the University for the Creative Arts and The Zandra Rhodes Foundation. The project, centred around the digitisation of iconic garments, combines heritage preservation with hands-on creative education. It empowered underrepresented young people across Medway through fully funded workshops, creative mentoring, and an exhibition; and offered internships to UCA students. By connecting fashion, history, and education, Colourful Heritage has worked hard to inspire a new generation of diverse creatives and builds a lasting, accessible digital legacy – a fashion museum in your pocket.
Marie Hitchcock
University of the Creative Arts
See Biography
Marie Hitchcock is Discovery Services Manager at the University for the Creative Arts, having responsibility for the management of all library systems and the discovery and access of online resources. The role has recently been expanded to include management of the Collections Team bringing together the acquisition and discovery of library resources. Before working in HE she has worked as Head of Service for the three libraries at an FE college group and also as Assistant Librarian at the Zoological Society of London.
Ellen Brown
University of the Creative Arts
See Biography
Ellen Brown is a creative practitioner, educator, and neuroinclusion advocate with over 20 years’ experience designing inclusive, transformative learning experiences. She has worked across schools, arts organisations, and Higher Education, championing access for underrepresented and neurodiverse learners. With a background in community-engaged projects funded by organisations such as Arts Council UK and the National Lottery, Ellen now predominantly works within a specialist Creative Arts HE setting, developing inclusive curricula and mentoring staff and students from Foundation to PhD. Her work centres on creativity as a tool for equity, empowerment, and meaningful educational change.
12.15
Digitisation at the House of Commons Library: Public access requests
From July 2024 the House of Commons Library Digitisation team have been fulfilling on demand requests for digital access to parliamentary papers. This talk will be a reflection on the project to date, the difficulties in anticipating demand and types of material. The talk will also cover how have balanced this new program of work against our mass digitisation projects and longer term digital preservation goals.
Matthew Pentlow
House of Commons Library
See Biography
Matthew Pentlow is the Digitisation Librarian at the House of Commons Library, where he manages efforts to preserve and provide access to parliamentary records through digitisation. His work focuses on the mass digitisation projects, public access requests and developing workflows for longer term preservation/access. With experience in Digitisation across the Library and Museum sectors he is interested in how digitisation technology can develop and provide greater access for users.
Caroline Marwein
House of Commons Library
See Biography
Caroline Marwein is the Systems Librarian at the House of Commons Library, where she manages the Cataloguing, Digitisation & Systems Team and the Library’s management and discovery systems. Her work builds on experience in library, information, and knowledge management at Croydon Libraries, Freshfields, BDO, Grant Thornton, BSI, and the Energy Institute, all contributing to shaping her interest in how metadata and system design influence the representation and understanding of information and collections.
12.35
Q&A
12.45
Light lunch, exhibition viewing and networking
Join Angela Jones Evans from University of Gloucestershire for the The Sustain-agility game
This a poster session with a difference!
Delegates are invited to take part in the Sustain-agility game a board game where you will be a part of a library team navigating and overcoming a variety of challenges and hazards.
You will be faced with a race against time to win tokens for your team which you will add to an Investment Options board on which you decide how to prioritise tokens to build a sustainable library for the future. The tokens will be added up, and the final priority listing will be summarised at the end of the day.
Topic Area: Research support and data services
14.00
Cultivating an Open Data community in a post-COVID era
Since the pandemic, many institutions have faced difficulties engaging with their research communities. The past 5 years have witnessed increasing workloads for academics and the restriction of budgets to fund research activities. This has made it tricky to maintain engagement with open research practices, which are sometimes seen as an optional extra to research projects rather than an integral aspect of their methodologies. This is especially true for research data, code, and ‘alternative outputs’, which do not have the same compliance mandates required of articles and monographs. In this talk, Jenny explores her approach to this problem and how in the past year, she has recentred Lancaster’s Research Data Management service to be research-led, focusing on way of embedding RDM practice in pre-existing structure.
Jenny McHugh
Lancaster University
See Biography
Jenny McHugh is a Research Data Manager in the Open Research team at Lancaster University Library. With a background as a researcher in History and Digital Humanities, she is passionate about fostering an open research community that is inclusive of all disciplines and researcher-led. She also contributes to digital preservation strategy and advocacy, working closely with the archive and special collections team. She is the deputy theme lead for the Data Engineering strand of Lancaster’s Data Science Institute, the largest research centre at the institution, helping to shape data-led research. Likewise, she sits on the Diversity in Data Science and AI working group, which aims to support research into and by under-represented and under-served groups in data fields. She is also a member of the N8’s Centre for Computational Intensive Research, working alongside RDM colleagues across the north of England to create cross-institutional initiatives and training events.
14.20
They Asked for Everything: The Case of the Systematic Review that Swallowed the Library
Systematic reviews are booming, especially in health and education, and they are putting real pressure on interlibrary loan services. These fast-moving projects generate hundreds of requests, raising questions around copyright, licensing, cost and capacity. At Leeds Beckett, we have joined the dots across interlibrary loans, copyright and academic teams to design better workflows and keep services legal, sustainable and researcher friendly. We have also spoken with the CLA to explore how current licences support this work, resulting in new copyright provision for collaborative projects. This session is for anyone involved in resource delivery, licensing, scholarly communication or digital services
Liesl Rowe
Leeds Beckett University
See Biography
Liesl Rowe is the Senior Digital Library Advisor at Leeds Beckett University, with a prior background in acquisitions at other HE institutions. She is responsible for the digitisation and copyright clearance services, offering advice to staff and students on any copyright queries which might arise. She also works closely alongside LBU’s accessibility team, providing alternative texts which meet the access needs of our students. Liesl has written a guide to copyright and AI for staff and students, not to mention speaking on the subject at staff conferences and helping formulate library AI policy. Outside of work, Liesl can be found trying to complete all of Yorkshire’s parkrun events or improving her sword-fighting skills as a keen foilist
14.40
Q&A
14.45
Break and exhibition viewing
15.05
Copim Compass: A new OA monograph and scholarly communication resource
The last few years has seen a welcome florescence of open access (OA) resources particularly for books: numerous OA initiatives, open infrastructures, policies, best practice guidelines, explanatory guides, how-to toolkits for OA publishing, and many more. Even for those immersed in OA books, the landscape can be overwhelming and it can be difficult to know where to look for reliable information. Copim Open Book Futures therefore decided to create Copim Compass, a guide of guides; a signposting exercise to categorise, describe, and link to these resources. The resource has recently gone live: https://compass.copim.ac.uk/ In this talk, I will present the resource, describe its creation process and rationale, and outline what lacunae in the existing resources we encountered during our lengthy scoping exercise. I will also provide an avenue for interested attendees to suggest additional resources to add to our compass.
Kira Hopkins
Copim Open Book Futures / Birkbeck College, University of London
See Biography
Kira Hopkins is a Scholarly Publishing Outreach Officer at Copim Open Book Futures (Birkbeck College, University of London). They implement Opening the Future, a Diamond OA revenue model for books, and previously worked at Ubiquity Press, an open access publisher and publishing service provider, as a book editor, journal manager and partner account manager
15.25
Extending the library beyond the library
Academic libraries are increasingly aligning their research support services—such as publishing, data management, and analytics support—with institutional priorities. However, institutional stakeholders may be slow to recognize the library’s evolving value proposition, instead maintaining collections-focused views of the library. This presentation will present findings from the OCLC Research “Library Beyond the Library” project which examines how libraries are redefining their roles through innovative services and strategic collaborations. Brief case studies demonstrate how future-oriented libraries are increasing their visibility and impact.
Ellen Hartman
OCLC
See Biography
Ellen Hartman is OCLC’s Library Solutions and Member Relations Manager for EMEA and APAC. With ten years of experience at OCLC and a background in libraries, archives, and research, Ellen brings a holistic approach to libraries and information management.
Leading OCLC’s product education and presentation efforts across the EMEA and APAC region and serving as liaison to the OCLC Leader’s Council, she provides valuable insights to the library community. Passionate about bringing stories about librarianship to life, she explores how technology can support the library of the future and shares how OCLC makes knowledge and information accessible worldwide.
15.40
Q&A
15.45
Closing keynote: Checked Out or Dialled In? UK HE Libraries and the AI Shift
An overview of work, progress and strategic discussion nationally on AI adoption for Higher Education Libraries.
Presentation will explore the work being done nationally through working groups within SCONUL and UCISA on AI for Libraries, highlight some emerging work across different UK HE libraries, and lay out some options around what additional work may happen next.
Mark Hughes
Cardiff Metropolitan University
See Biography
Mark has been in role as Head of Libraries at Cardiff Metropolitan University since 2016, and prior to that worked in senior roles in both HE and Public Libraries. Mark served a term as Vice Chair and then Chair of the WHELF consortium between 2021 and 2025, and he currently co-chair of SCONUL’s Technology & Markets Strategy Group, within which he Chairs the AI sub group, and a newly elected member of SCONUL Executive Board. He has a longstanding interest in digital and technology service development, and is very passionate about library collaborative and partnership working.
16.15
Closing remarks & summary
Feedback
“I had a brilliant experience talking at the 2023 UKSG. I was well supported from the moment my proposal was accepted and the organisation made my first in-person speaking appearance a breeze! The forum is an excellent event. UKSG always put together an excellent programme with an exciting range of speakers that spark interesting conversation.”
Previous delegate/speaker
A great variety of presenters from speakers at all stages of their careers and it was good to hear from younger speaker
Previous delegate
Fantastic speakers. A good variety of topics covered and all very informative.
Previous delegate