We are delighted to present a brand new video celebrating the work of UCL Press to celebrate the Press’ 10 millionth open access download. Join our CEO, Dr Paul Ayris, and a variety of our authors to find out what it’s like to publish with us.

UCL Press, the UK’s first fully Open Access University Press, has announced that its open access books and journals have been downloaded more than ten million times around the world.

UCL Press’s pioneering publishing programme spans many of the major academic disciplines, from history to philosophy and the sciences to anthropology. The Press has published 339 books that have been downloaded more than 8.7 million times, whilst its 14 journals have attracted more than 2.6 million downloads.

Its publications – which feature monographs, edited collections, academic journals and textbooks – have reached readers in 242 countries and territories worldwide, providing access to vital academic research to readers in the Global South and beyond.

The ten millionth download was the journal article A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations by Mark A. Maslin, John Lang and Fiona Harvey, which appeared in the pioneering open science journal UCL Open: Environment.

The most popular title in the UCL Press list continues to be How the World Changed Social Media by UCL Professor of Anthropology Daniel Miller and a collective of eight other global anthropologists. The first book in the hugely popular 11-book Why We Post series, it has been downloaded an astonishing 828,129 times since it was published by UCL Press in early 2016, and it  has been translated into a variety of languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Portuguese and Italian.

Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost at UCL LCCOS (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science), commented: ‘Started in 2015, UCL Press continues to get better and better. 10,000,000 downloads and consultations underline the transformative effect that Open Access can have, particularly in the OA monograph space. UCL is proud to be developing a sustainable model for institutional OA publishing in Europe.’

Lara Speicher, Head of Publishing at UCL Press, said: ‘It is an immense achievement to have achieved 10 million downloads for UCL Press’s publications and it is thanks to the combined contributions of our incredibly talented and forward-thinking authors who have embraced the OA model, the original vision of senior leaders at UCL to start the Press in the first place and to provide ongoing support and encouragement, and last but not least, the dedication, skill and commitment of the UCL Press team who work hard behind the scenes every day to bring UCL Press’s outputs to the world.’

Explore UCL Press downloads here.

After a rather wet start to the day, the skies brightened up over the Olympic Park last Friday afternoon, just in time for the handover ceremony where building contractors Mace handed over the keys to UCL East’s latest addition – Marshgate.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the occasion, which was described officially in the UCL News, where the significance of the milestone is described. I am taking this opportunity to share my reflections on the building and amateurish photos of the library and learning spaces…

Firstly, it is monumental – as described in the press release – “the biggest structure on any of UCL’s campuses, measuring six times the size of the UCL Student Centre”. It is very much a statement, right next to the London Stadium, placing UCL at the heart of East Bank – the cultural district that is intended as the 2012 Olympics’ legacy.

But size isn’t everything, of course. I was wowed by the grandeur of the atrium space, which even unfurnished and empty of students and staff, had a warmth and sense of conviviality you would not expect from an exposed concrete building. The main foyer will host public art exhibitions, to welcome and provoke visitors to the campus.

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Over the next few weeks we will be posting updates about our steps to prepare for the opening of our service at One Pool Street on the new UCL East Campus. Today we’re taking a look at Special Collections’ presence and projects they’ve been working on.

Photograph of UCL East under construction, Spring 2022. Pool Street is visible on the left of the river with Marshgate on the right.

Content

Initially Special Collections will have two full-time members of staff based at UCL East: myself (Academic Liaison Librarian / Archivist) and Anna Fineman (Outreach Programme Manager). I am leading all academic teaching and related projects at East; Anna is expanding and developing our brilliant Outreach programme, working with communities in the four neighbouring boroughs to campus (Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest). We’re currently recruiting for an additional Conservator and a Teaching and Collections Assistant who will also be based at Stratford.

Special Collections is heavily involved in the new Public History MA which begins at Pool Street this autumn; we’re leading sessions, developing group projects for students to work on and supporting all areas of delivery of this course. It’s a really exciting degree, exploring history in non-academic contexts and we’re ready to learn as much from the students and activities as we can.

Collections

A big part of our presence at UCL East will be engaging with our collections in lots of innovative ways, and getting to know the material we hold is crucial. We’re currently identifying items that will likely be used in teaching and outreach and working with our brilliant conservation and digitisation teams to get everything as ready as we can. We’re also meeting staff working in the new spaces at Pool Street (the Urban Room and Memory Workshop) and Marshgate (Culture Lab) to figure out logistics and opening projects.

Collaboration

UCL East is a big melting pot of academic ideas and departments – especially for Special Collections who will be based in spaces led by the new School for Creative and Cultural Industries (SCCI). I am spending a lot of time meeting academics to talk about how Special Collections can support the many new courses starting at East over the next few years – it’s really exciting starting from the ground up, even if it does involve a big spreadsheet to track it all! Anna is also collaborating with our East Bank partners, building on the incredible work the Outreach team has already been doing at East for a while.

If there’s anything you’d like to know about or would like to collaborate with Special Collections with, please do get in touch! We’re always happy to hear from you.

Photograph of One Pool Street under construction

In early Spring, Prof David Price facilitated a series of virtual “Meet the Team” events to help colleagues in different parts of Research, Innovation and Global Engagement (RIGE). One of these events, held on 10 March via MS Teams, focused on our work in Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science (LCCOS), to familiarise colleagues in other parts of RIGE with the role of LCCOS.

In order to provide all staff in LCCOS with an overview of our department, this blog post provides a short summary of the session. The slides are available at LCCOS Meet the Team.

Martin Moyle, Director of Services, opened the event, explaining that the LCCOS presentation would comprise a very brief overview of LCCOS and Library Services, followed by five short presentations highlighting specific areas of LCCOS likely to be of particular interest to RIGE colleagues.

He then gave a short introduction to LCCOS, which since December 2021 has brought together Library Services, UCL Culture, Research Integrity, Research Culture and Open Science.  He highlighted the size of the new  department – with 440 staff, by far the largest constituent part of the RIGE portfolio.

Martin went on to introduce Library Services, highlighting the fact that with 4.8 million annual visits to our libraries, UCL is the busiest university library service in the UK. He also emphasised UCL’s internationally important collections, the innovative services which Library staff provide (for instance ‘Click and Collect’ introduced during the pandemic) and the sheer scale of both physical and digital resources. We hold over 2 million print items and provide access to over 1.1 million e-books, plus 86,000 e-journals and 800+ databases! On Special Collections, Martin presented the team’s role in managing, conserving and making accessible 10,000 linear metres of rare books, archives and records. He emphasised that we hold one of the foremost collections of such material in the UK, and emphasised that they are not simply kept under lock and key, but are well used for teaching, research and outreach.

Charting the Library’s performance, Martin presented key metrics (National Student Survey, Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey, Postgraduate Research Experience Survey) which showed how UCL has outperformed other UK libraries in supporting users during Covid, although our NSS scores dropped to 79.9% from 88.5% pre-Covid. Surveys shows consistent high satisfaction with the online library and lower scores for the physical library, which we know is due to historic under-investment in physical spaces and ongoing challenges in providing enough study spaces for our ever-growing student cohorts.  He also highlighted the latest UCL faculty compliance with REF OA Policy at 88-96% as a measure not only of the OA Team’s success, but as a mark of successful partnerships across RIGE.

June Hedges, Head of Liaison and Support Services, amplified Martin’s introduction with a more in-depth overview of Liaison and Support Services, which includes Open Science, Research Data Support, Bibliometrics Support and Research Integrity as well as Academic Engagement, Library Skills, Teaching and Learning Support and Open Access Services. In essence, Liaison and Support Services are all about enabling the learning and research of the UCL community, whether that is introducing new undergraduate students to UCL’s libraries and our services during the induction period, or providing support for seasoned researchers when they come to publish their outputs. Teams within Liaison and Support Services. The teams within the group vary greatly in size, from a “team” of one supporting bibliometrics, to the many in the Open Access Team, but all of them actively collaborate and work with colleagues across RIGE and the whole of UCL. June briefly introduced each team and pointed to more information about their work (via web links).

Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science) then presented on Open Science, setting the international context and outlining UCL’s strategy and the role of UCL’s Office for Open Science. Paul set out the 8 pillars of Open Science, and described how LCCOS was able to support all of these through leadership, advocacy and engagement. Detailed information on the Office for Open Science and Scholarship is available at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/ucl-office-open-science-and-scholarship. Paul also illustrated UCL’s position as a leader in Open Access since 2000, based on a chart showing research output and the percentage of OA publications within each institution in the Russell Group. UCL has consistently topped this chart over two decades, with Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial jostling for the remaining top 3 places. Finally, Paul presented UCL Press as an example of the impact of Open Science: with over 5m downloads from 246 countries, the research published through the UK’s first fully Open Access university press is reaching a truly global audience. The success story of UCL Press contributes to UCL’s leadership role in Open Science and LCCOS will continue to develop this agenda over the coming years.

Frank Penter, Director of Operations (UCL Culture) gave a sweeping overview of Museums, Collections, Public Programme, Theatre and UCL Engagement. The team manages 8 cultural venues, including 3 accredited museums and the Bloomsbury Theatre as well as collections which encompass over 160,000 objects ranging from Ancient Egyptian dresses to Jeremy Bentham’s head! Frank presented how UCL collections are embedded in teaching, with over 5,000 student uses of collections per year (and 3,100 specimens used in the Grant Museum in term 1 only!), and in research. For instance, the Petrie received 32 researchers from 5 different countries in Term 1 of this academic year.  Pre-Covid around 1,300 research visits were handled annually.  In addition to these ‘standard’ research support activities, the team also work on a number of funded projects with external and internal partners. Frank also explained that the Bloomsbury Theatre is actively used for student co-curricular activity, UCL academic and research activity as well as its range of commercial productions. Frank explained the work of the Programmes and Exhibitions team and their role in working with academics to develop activity and exhibitions in our museums and the Octagon/Cloisters. Frank presented UCL Engagement, who are here to spark connections between people and ideas. Frank illustrated what the team can help with, including advice and support, training (such as an Online Public Engagement course, or Public Engagement Skills and Practice for researchers and PhD students) and funding (such as Beacon Bursaries, Train and Engage, or Listen and Learn funds).  Finally, Frank presented the ground-breaking work of the Co-production Collective.

Emma Todd, Head of Research Culture, then presented work she has been leading on a wide-ranging transformation project. Research culture describes the environment in which research and innovation happens. It is made up of the expectations, values, attitudes and behaviours of our research communities and it shapes how research is created, how it’s stored, shared and the outputs that are delivered. Emma explained that there is an increasing focus on Research Culture within the sector – from Government and funders and also across peer institutions. Culture really does eat strategy for breakfast, as the famous quote goes from management consultant and writer Peter Drucker. If the culture isn’t right, we can’t fully deliver on UCL’s ambition. It is widely accepted in the sector that current research culture is not effective in helping sustain research excellence or the wellbeing of the people who deliver the research. Emma noted that there are also financial and reputational reasons why it’s important – funder requirements (including for quality-related research (QR) funding through REF) and our ability to attract the best researchers depends on UCL doing more to enhance its research culture. Wholesale change will require research organisations, funders, publishers and government to coordinate and consistently apply practical actions across the research community. But in the meantime, this complexity should not stop UCL from making progress on an institutional basis. Emma described what we’re doing at UCL, broken down into 3 parts. The first part between April – Aug 2021 was consultation with the research community. Part 2 is ongoing short term action in the form of a 6-month £1m+ Enhancing Research Culture Programme – ERCP (Feb-Jul 2022). Finally, Part 3 will be to develop a roadmap for cultural change (Apr – Sep 2022). Emma explained that she and her small temporary team (currently funded until 31st July) will deliver this project by working across UCL, with Faculties, colleagues in RIGE and in central Professional Services, and by integrating existing activity – of which there is a lot. A Research Culture Operations Group will oversee the ERCP and roadmap development and  report into RIGE Committee, which will have strategic oversight.

Finally, as Director of Operations, LCCOS, I spoke briefly about space strategy, focusing on library spaces. Whilst further work would be needed to establish a space strategy after UCL’s institutional strategy was more clearly defined, I indicated that libraries and learning spaces would aim to provide a range of interrelated learning environments, offering spaces with a clear identity, fostering sense of belonging for students (for postgraduate students, for instance), but also encouraging cross-disciplinary working. I added that space would also be develop to help extend the shared services model based on hubs, the Student Centre and UCL East approach, creating a local hub for students, e.g. within each Faculty​. I also noted that, as noted in previous Strategic Operating Plans, LCCOS would explore the feasibility of concentrating print stock in fewer sites to allow world-class user experience (24-hour opening, faculty identity, access to specialist services and resources including unique print collections) and improve financial and environmental sustainability. This could be complemented by Library-managed learning spaces​. This piece of work would follow from the UCL strategy and Estates masterplan, when those institutional plans are developed. I highlighted the ongoing work to establish a UCL Special Collections facility to exploit the exceptional institutional assets, particularly for cross-disciplinary research work. This could be linked to a wider Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences hub​, potentially in partnership with other academic institutions in London. Finally, I outlined potential for developing libraries further as portals between UCL and local communities​, which presents a great opportunity to work with colleagues in museums, collections, public engagement and Open Science.

I found out today about self-guided tours which UCL Communications have produced for prospective students, available at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/campus-tours/self-guided-campus-tours.

The tour consists of a digital map of campus, with videos of some of the university’s landmarks. It focuses on the central Bloomsbury campus, featuring the Front Quad and the Portico, and has a marker for the School of Pharmacy. Whilst it doesn’t showcase many of our libraries, it does feature the Main Library (with a video of the Flaxman Gallery), the Cruciform Hub, the Student Centre, the Institute of Education Library and UCL Special Collections as well as views of SSEES Library. It also includes links to the Bloomsbury Theatre, the Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL Art Museum and the Petrie Museum.

According to the website, the tour should take between 45 to 50 minutes. This might be a useful resource for first-time visitors to UCL, and I thought it would be useful to share since I don’t think these virtual tours have been promoted much internally.

We are delighted to announce that UCL Press books have now been downloaded more than 5 million times. You can see the full details here.

Since launching in 2015, we’ve published more than 200 academic books – including monographs, edited collections and textbooks. Downloads have taken place in 245 countries and territories across the world, reaching readers in countries as far afield as Afghanistan and North Korea!

To celebrate, we’ve produced a video- enjoy!

We are delighted that The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology (published on May 6th 2021) has hit the headlines across the world, with coverage in newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Guardian and Daily Mail.

Coverage in the UK and Ireland has included stories by The Scottish Herald, Reuters, The Irish Times, RTE, Newstalk, and an interview with lead author Prof Daniel Miller (UCL Anthropology) on Sky News this morning. Publications in Portugal (here, here, here and here), Germany, Brazil. Greece  (and here), Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Malaysia, Australia, Albania, Egypt, Russia, Italy, Israel, Czechia and France have also reported on the book’s findings.

The book documents the work of a team of 11 anthropologists who spent 16 months documenting smartphone use in nine countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, with a particular focus on older adults. The team was led by Professor Daniel Miller, whose previous UCL Press series on global social media usage, Why We Post, saw more than a million downloads of the open access books that detailed the findings.

The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology is written by Professor Daniel Miller (UCL Anthropology), Laila Abed Rabho, Patrick Awondo, Maya de Vries, Marília Duque, Pauline Garvey, Laura Haapio-Kirk, Charlotte Hawkins, Alfonso Otaegui, Shireen Walton, and Xinyuan Wang. It is part of the Ageing with Smartphones series, which also includes Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland and Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Italy.

The UCL Ear Institute and Action on Hearing Loss Libraries at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road were due to close on Friday 21st August 2020, necessitated by the Hospital’s relocation within UCLH. Due to the current circumstances and the resultant early closure of the Hospital building, the libraries will not re-open in this location.

Arrangements are being made for the rehousing of the collections from both libraries. Important clinical and teaching material will be retained on open shelves at the Cruciform and Language & Speech Sciences Libraries respectively. The core course books required by UCL Ear Institute/Audiology students will be located at the Language & Speech Sciences Library. The rare book and archive collections owned by Action on Hearing Loss will be transferred to the stewardship of UCL Special Collections, and will remain available for consultation by members of UCL, UCLH and the wider public. Other material from the Libraries will be available for next-day delivery from the Library Services Store.

The UCL Cruciform Hub is now the centre for library provision for UCL Ear Institute staff and students, including information skills support delivered by the training team. The Cruciform Hub is also the home library for healthcare staff and students at the University College Hospital campus, providing a range of facilities and tailored clinical support services.

UCL Library Services is grateful to all those who have made use of the UCL Ear Institute and Action on Hearing Loss Libraries over the years, and proud that we are continuing our long association with Action on Hearing Loss through UCL Special Collections. Further information will be provided as UCL’s plans to re-open its buildings and Libraries develop.

Christmas has officially arrived here at the Archaeology Library. We have used our creative skills to decorate our Library space and made it look very Christmassy. We have also received a letter from far, far away in a form of a Christmas poem. As this is the most magical, festive and incredible time of the year and we would like to share this experience with all of you.

We would also like to use this opportunity and wish you ALL to have a cheerful, holly, jolly, and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too!

Christmas joy…
Hoping to get my
Reading list finished
In time for the end of the term.
Stopping for a moment, I
Take in the
Merry lights on display
And hope the students and
Staff have had a great term!
– Lewis Rushton