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LILAC conference 2024 – express your interest in attending

By Angela Young, on 5 December 2023

Deadline for expressing interest – 5pm Tuesday 19 December.

LILAC 2024 will be held at Leeds Beckett University from Monday 25 – Wednesday 27 March 2024. LILAC is a hugely inspiring and motivational conference, focusing on information literacy in libraries, and is relevant to anyone involved in teaching library skills or with an interest in information literacy. It comprises 3 days packed with seminars, workshops and lectures, a networking evening and conference dinner.

If you are interested in attending LILAC 2024, please complete the LILAC conference request form by 5pm on Tuesday 19 December and ask your manager to give consent by completing the manager’s consent form by the same date.

As the conference is costly, places for UCL LCCOS staff to attend are limited. The decision on who may attend will be made by the Staff Training and Development Oversight Group.

Eligibility for UCL LCCOS staff:

  • Priority will to be given to LCCOS staff who have never attended LILAC before or who have had an abstract accepted.
  • Applicants must have completed their probationary period at the time of application.
  • All attendees will be expected to contribute to ‘Lessons in LILAC’, a training and development activity to cascade training to colleagues as part of the eXperience eXchange – Library Skills in May 2024, an online staff training and development event for LCCOS staff involved in training and liaison activities.
  • Applicants must have line manager approval.

Please contact Angela Young with any questions.

Representing LCCOS at the recent M25 Conference

By simon.bralee.15, on 13 July 2023

Abi Heath , Library Manager, UCL School of Pharmacy, reflects on the recent conference organised by the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries.

This year’s M25 conference theme was Sustainability and Kindness and two of School of Phrmacy (SoP) Library staff presented on how we have embedded sustainability and wellbeing at SoP Library. Our talk looked at the initiatives we introduced as part of our Green Impact Award with a particular focus on our induction plant giveaway as well as looking at our wellbeing activities. Alongside the success of these initiatives, we talked about some of the challenges of these activities as well as what we would like to do in the future. Whilst people liked the idea of houseplants an archivist did raise the question of these attracting pests!

Other presentations looked at CILIP’s Green Libraries Partnership, estate initiatives from beehives to building fabric at London Met and Royal Veterinary College, the journey of sustainability at University of West London and staff CPD and green initiatives schemes at Royal Holloway.

It was interesting to see what our universities are doing to tackle the climate emergency and we left the conference with a range of ideas. It was also great to see that a lot of the initiatives are ones that SoP and other UCL libraries have already implemented.

Highlights and food for thought included:

  • Learning about CILIP’s Green Libraries Manifesto
  • Seeing how particular collections can highlight the impact of climate change – the National Library of Scotland used its historic maps to show the impact of costal erosion.
  • London Met initiative around recycling Halloween costumes and encouraging students to make their own costume instead.
  • Bean to Bean – using old coffee cups to grow plants in.
  • Including litter picking as part of campus walks.

The recordings of all presentations are available on the members area of the M25 website.

Attendance at UHMLG Summer Conference, June 2022

By david.charles.green, on 27 July 2022

Report on UCL Library Services members’ attendance at the University Health & Medical Librarians group (UHMLG) Summer Conference, held in Swansea 16 & 17 June 2022 (see attached file).

Notes from UHMLG Summer Conference June 22 – all FINAL

UCL Press Textbook webinar- Oct 27th, 2-3pm

By Alison Fox, on 14 October 2021

Join UCL Press during open access week to find out more about their new open access textbook programme and how UCL academics can get involved.

Date: Wednesday October 27th
Time: 2pm
Sign up: https://ucl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SvPKEH_JTv2ziahZTCMmEA

The debate over access and affordability of eTextbooks is high on the agenda for many institutional libraries and publishers and many are calling for an open access solution.
In response, UCL Press is currently developing a new programme of open access textbooks, for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and modules, across disciplines. The new textbook programme will be the first OA textbook list in the UK and builds on the success of the Press’s publishing output and the significant increase in requirements for digital resources, in a changing teaching and learning environment. The programme offers the Press an opportunity to showcase and promote teaching excellence across a broad range of fields and contribute to the open culture UCL is continuing to build.
In this webinar we will discuss in more depth, why and how UCL Press are creating their open access programme and the opportunities, practicalities, and benefits of committing to, publishing and disseminating home-grown textbooks.

We will also focus on other initiatives and projects from UCL and from around the world to provide a forum for lively discussion about open access textbooks and education resources more broadly.

We encourage you to join us to hearing more about this programme and other OA initiatives.

Sign up: https://ucl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SvPKEH_JTv2ziahZTCMmEA

Annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)

By Wojciech A Janik, on 13 December 2018

Last week I had an opportunity to attend the 2018 Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Boston, Massachusetts. ASEEES is the leading international organization dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in regional and global contexts.

ASEEES convention.

It is one of the largest gathering of professionals (academics, librarians, publishers, etc.) working in the field of Eastern Europe and Eurasia in the world, so it was great opportunity to meet colleagues from a plethora of organisations, to exchange ideas, make new links, and discover new opportunities, and of course the right place to highlight our own work and achievements.

Round table The Global Encyclopedia of Informality: Towards Understanding of Social and Cultural Complexity at the 50th Annual ASEEES convention.

The convention lasted four days and was filled with panels and meetings. I was able to attend a number of panels, ranging from “Russian Imperial Cultural Heritage Abroad: 1917-1945”, chaired by Edward Kasinec from Columbia University, to “Copyright and Related Rights: A Look at the State of Play in Publishing, Music Licensing, and Broadcast Media” chaired by Janice T. Pilch, a library colleague from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. I found the panels, and especially the discussions that followed, to be very useful and informative. I also attended a UCL SSEES and UCL Press related event: round table “The Global Encyclopedia of Informality: Towards Understanding of Social and Cultural Complexity”, which was chaired by Elena Denisova-Schmidt from the University of St. Gallen and attended by Predrag Cveticanin from the University of Nis, as well as Eric D. Gordy, Michal Murawski and Alena Ledeneva, all from UCL SSEES.

Finally I participated in the roundtable panel: “Leveraging E-resources to Foster Access for Libraries”. The panel was chaired by Angela Cannon from the Library of Congress and my roundtable partners were: Liladhar R. Pendse from the University of California, Berkeley, Zina Somova from East View Information Services and Gudrun Wirtz from the Bavarian State Library. Among other issues we discussed how scholars researching Eastern Europe are using new publishing technologies and initiatives to disseminate their output and to reach new audiences. I used this opportunity to highlight research output related to Slavonic and East European studies/themes that can be accessed via UCL Press or UCL Discovery. Finally, at the ASEEES Committee on Libraries and Information Resource Membership Meeting, I provided a summary report on behalf of the Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Services (COSEELIS) of which UCL SSEES Library is a part.

The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library.

I also had an opportunity to visit the Widener Library, an important part of the Harvard College Libraries that is also home to Harvard’s Slavonic collections, where I met library colleagues working in the Slavonic section of the Widener Library.

The convention provided me with the opportunity to discuss some potential projects with colleagues. The project met with interest and offers of support from colleagues from Harvard Library, the Hoover Institute, the New York Public Library and the Bavarian State Library.

All in all I found my participation at the convention as very helpful and informative. Both the knowledge and professional contacts gained during the conference will be very useful in my work and future projects.

 

Boston. View from the Massachusetts Bridge.

Frankfurt Book Fair, October 2017

By Alison Fox, on 24 October 2017

Posted on behalf of Lara Speicher, Publishing Manager, UCL Press

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the oldest and largest book fair in the world. Founded in 1454, it has taken place regularly ever since, and it attracts more than 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries and over 278,000 visitors annuallydownload(2016 figures). It has five separate halls each with several floors. The Fair has a dual purpose: for most international publishers it is a trade fair where they come to do business every year: to sell international rights, and meet with suppliers and other collaborators and colleagues, and that is what the first three days of the Fair are devoted to. For many of the German publishers, it is very much a Fair to promote their new books to the public, and visitors come at the weekend to see the displays of books and attend author presentations.

Each year there is a country of honour, and this year it was France. The Fair was opened by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron, demonstrating the importance of the Fair to international trade and culture. Every day on the German news there are reports from the Fair’s activities, showing the central place it holds ifbfn the country’s calendar.

This year was the first year that UCL Press exhibited. We had a small stand in Hall 4.2 where we were surrounded by other UK and European university presses, and other science publishers and small scholarly publishers. I attended for the first three days then Jaimee Biggins, UCL Press’s Managing Editor, came to look after the stand for the weekend and attend a Convention of International University Presses (see here for more).

I had over 25 meetings during the three days I was there, and among those I met were other university presses and other institutions with whom we have collaborative projects already happening or in development, such as Chicago and Cornell University Presses; other university presses for sharing of knowledge and information, such as Sydney University Press and Wits University Press; publishing associations with whom we are collaborating such as the Association of American University Presses, the Association of European University Presses and ALPSP; our existing suppliers and distributors such as NBN, OAPEN, JSTOR and Science Open; and potential new suppliers and collaborators.

Among the most interesting of this last category was a company called Baobab who distribute both print and ebooks to African university libraries. As an open access publisher with a mission to disseminate scholarly research around the globe, I was particularly keen to hear whether Baobab might be able to help UCL Press distribute its open access books to African university libraries. It turned out that Baobab has an existing service that distributes free ebooks on behalf of NGOs and aid agencies that UCL Press can take part in. Although OA books are made freely available online, ensuring that they reach targeted communities is not always easy since OA supply chains for monographs are not fully developed. So this new partnership is very encouraging and exciting, and it meets one of the key drivers of UCL’s global strategic objective of ‘increasing independent research capability around the world’ by making high-quality scholarly research freely available.

All in all it was a very worthwhile event for raising UCL Press’s profile, strengthening our existing relationships, and forging new ones, and we are already planning Frankfurt 2018!

The International Convention of University Presses

By Alison Fox, on 23 October 2017

Posted on behalf of Jaimee Biggins, Managing Editor, UCL Press

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world’s largest trade fair for books. It takes place in October every year. UCL Press had a stand at the Fair this year where we could showcase our books, and have meetings with other academic publishers and suppliers. While at the Fair, I attended the 5th International Convention of University Presses. The Convention featured about 100 representatives from more than 22 countries and each year it offers an opportunity to discuss new trends in international academic publishing. It is a great way to network with other university presses and those working in academic publishing and gain an international perspective.

The topic this year was ‘Translation: Unlocking New Worlds of Ideas’. The day focussed mainly on foreign language authors who want to be translated into English. The keynote ‘What factors determine the circulation of scholarly books in translation?’ by Gisèle Sapiro (Director of Research at the CNRS –The French National Center for Scientific Research) set the scene for the discussion. It sparked quite a debate especially around the funding for translation of scholarly works. Scholarly books are costly to translate and do not sell many copies, so there is quite a dependence on subsidies. Other sources of funding are international organisations and private foundations. Also interesting to note is the trend of scholars choosing to write in English so they will be read right away – this is sometimes at the sacrifice of publishing in their national language. There is also a certain pressure by publishers on academics to publish in English to gain access to the widest readership possible.

In the round table discussion there was a presentation of different translation grant programmes, with speakers from organisations in countries such as Canada, Germany, Norway and France all outlining funding programmes that support translation. It was interesting to hear about schemes to support authors by offering grants which cover the cost of translation and also expenses such as book launches and promotional activities. All of the programmes aimed to make academic books more visible through translations. The criteria for this funding varied – for example the Council for the Arts, Canada, base their funding on the impact, merit and feasibility of the project. Unfortunately it is a trend that there are many more applications received than grants available. Astrid Thorn Hillig from the Association of European University Presses said that university presses need to come together collectively to claim the importance of translations and support more translations.

The day ended with pitching of a number of projects for translation by various publishers. Each speaker had two minutes to pitch their potential project, offering a synopsis of the book, and the selling points which provide a case for it to be translated. All in all the day was a real eye-opener into the world of translation and was a great way to connect with international colleagues.

Collections at Risk (CILIP rare books conference 2017)

By ucylgng, on 18 October 2017

At the beginning of September I visited the University of Sussex to attend the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group’s annual conference on the theme “Collections at Risk”. The three days of the conference covered different types of risk, from mice and silverfish to thefts to catastrophic floods. Terrifying, but very useful!

As in previous years, the attendees and speakers were from a range of libraries and institutions, from the keynote speaker Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan, consultant archivist at the UNESCO Memory of the World project, who spoke about using the UNESCO brand as a way to promote and protect collections, to Anastasia Tennant from Collections and Cultural Property – Arts Council England, who gave an informative talk on some of the ways export laws and tax breaks work to keep special collections material from being sold abroad.

This year’s conference was largely practical, looking at ways to prevent and mitigate risks to the collections whether within the library or out and about. There were, however, two sessions that particularly stood out to me.

First, Sarah Bashir, who is the Preservation Manager at Lambeth Palace Library, shared some of the work she and her team do to look after their collections with a very small budget. It’s easy to say “prevention is key” in the abstract, but she put prevention in context. I think we all know that regular cleaning is important to prevent mould and pest infestation, but when was the last time anyone saw the powerboxes on the floors being cleaned? She also reiterated the importance of monitoring – not only does regular monitoring help ensure that early problems are nipped in the bud, tracking the results of your monitoring provides valuable data in the event of a major problem (or, as another attendee pointed out, when trying to secure funding for building works!).

Second, Adrian Edwards, who is Head of Printed Heritage Collections at the British Library, gave a talk about preventing thefts. While much of his talk was about the sorts of things you’d expect, from having a good policy on bags and coats to excellent invigilation, I was surprised at the emphasis he placed on the role of good cataloguing in securing library collections. Without good records of holdings, you can’t be 100% certain of what you’ve got. And without those same records and records of reader access to the collections, you can’t prove that a stolen item was really yours in the first place.

Adrian summed up by explaining how the best security policies are embedded in all aspects of library work, from reader services to cataloguing; I think it fair to say that the well-being of our collections generally ought to be embedded in all aspects of our work.

COASP – Conference of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (Lisbon, 20-21 September 2017)

By Alison Fox, on 27 September 2017

Posted on behalf of Lara Speicher, Publishing Manager, UCL Press

The annual conference organised by OASPA took place in Lisbon this year, and for the first time members of UCL Press were there to present a paper and to attend the conference. Now in its 9th year, COASP presents a key opportunity for publishers and affiliated colleagues – such as librarians, funding agencies, government, academics and higher education communities – to gather and discuss developments in open access for scholarly research.

This year’s conference started with an inspiring talk by Jean-Claude Burgelman, Head of Open Data Policy and Science Cloud for the European Commission, who outlined the Commission’s vision for open access to scholarly research. This included an announcement that the Commission would start to publish articles themselves and would be seeking a partner to provide a journal publishing platform with fast publication times and open peer review, along the lines of that adopted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust (both of whom use the F1000 publishing platform).

Sessions followed on open infrastructure, APCs, research evaluation and assessment and peer review, with speakers including the Head of Scholarly Communications at Cambridge University Library, Danny Kingsley, the Publisher for PLOS, Louise Page, and the Head of Open Research for the Wellcome Trust, Robert Kiley. Interspersed, were panel presentations featuring related initiatives in OA infrastructure, policy and publishing.

The conference and the society are geared towards scientific journals, and there was therefore very little on OA monograph publishing. I was on the only panel discussing OA book publishing, focussing on peer review for OA monographs, along with Anke Beck, CEO of De Gruyter, and Aina Svensson, Head of the Electronic Publishing Centre at Uppsala University Library. Many delegates commented after our presentations on how different peer review is for books than for journals, since it involves considerably more editorial development and discussion, and often makes a significant contribution towards the shaping of the overall book, rather than simply evaluating quality.

Overall, it was an immensely useful couple of days and, as always at conferences, it was also a chance to see our many colleagues and partners in the industry who come from far and wide and who we don’t see very often, and to meet new publishers and hear about other initiatives and practices from around the world. I was particularly interested to meet the university presses of the University of Technology Sydney and Adelaide University, who both have thriving OA book and journal publishing programmes. It was also great to meet the Head of University of Missouri Library’s Open Scholarship and Publishing Services, who have a fantastic open access textbook programme that has seen great success so far, and from which UCL Press’s developing OA textbook programme can draw inspiration.

UCL Press to host and curate University Press Redux 2018

By Alison Fox, on 7 June 2017

We are delighted to share the news that UCL Press will be hosting the second  University Press Redux Conference in February 2018. We will be the second Press to take up the programming challenge. The conference was launched and hosted by Liverpool University Press in 2016, and has become a biennial event.  From 2018 onwards,  the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) will be supporting the organisation of this biennnial event from now on to build on its success.

Find out more about the 2018 conference at https://www.alpsp.org/UPRedux.

The 2018 Conference will take place over two full days at The British Library Conference Centre, London on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 February 2018. Registration will open Autumn 2017. Confirmed speakers so far include:

  • Peter Berkery, Executive Director, Association of American University Presses
  • Amy Brand, Director, MIT Press
  • Richard Charkin, Executive Director, Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Max Landry, Chief Executive, The Conversation, UK
  • Frank Smith, Director, Books at JSTOR
  • Jan-Peter Wissink, Managing Director, Amsterdam University Press
  • Timothy Wright, Chief Executive, Edinburgh University Press

Find out more at https://www.alpsp.org/UPRedux.