United Kingdom

Managing an academic research library in the 21st century has no blueprint. Since the introduction of electronic resources, fundamental changes to the work of the library have been underway. Leading a modern library that is subject to perpetual shifts in its priorities, mandate, and budget, requires a set of skills and competencies not taught in library or information science programs. A unique assortment of mentorship, executive coaching, business and/or legal training, and hard won experiences are required to be successful in this new environment. Contrary to popular belief, library directors have more in common with Chief Executive Officers than they realize. But far too often the transition to library leadership is sabotaged when the expectation to manage a collection is confronted with the reality of managing an organization. This conversation among library leaders will introduce the concept of the Library CEO, offering a practical framework for both current and aspiring leaders to become proactive in managing a high performance workplace.

UKSG Annual Conference 2025

The Library CEO: Managing Politics, Technology and Talent as the New Paradigm

technical paper

The UKSG Annual Conference is a major event in the scholarly communications calendar which attracts delegates each year from around the world - librarians, publishers, content providers, consultants and intermediaries.

We will talk about the development of the Metadata Team at the University of Leeds. Over the last seven years the team has evolved from a traditional, book-in-hand Cataloguing Team to a forward thinking, dynamic Metadata & Discovery Team. We are now involved in myriad projects ranging from internal Special Collections cataloguing to the development of international linked data and BIBFRAME partnerships. 

We will cover five key areas that have contributed to this development. We will share techniques, approaches and examples from the last few years that illustrate the value and importance of a people-centric approach to metadata and discovery.

From Cataloguing to Discovery: a journey of innovation and resilience

Just as independent bookshops survive through online partnerships and customer loyalty, could learned society publishing thrive through similar collaborative approaches? This session presents new global evidence from Research Consulting and CCC on how society publishers are navigating industry transformation. We’ll examine changing publication patterns, revenue trends, and how libraries, vendors and partners can help societies maintain their independence while accessing world-class publishing capabilities. Learn how embracing “irrational” choices in scholarly communications could help preserve the diversity of academic publishing.

Bridge Over Troubled Water: Supporting Society Publishers in Turbulent Times

How do we evidence the impact of inclusive library collections on the university community? How do we convince university leadership that the value-added potential of the library is worth the investment?

Raising the grade and closing the gap? Exploring the link between inclusive library collections and student success

PGRs are some of the most excited and driven researchers, eager to engage with open access and open research. However, they are also incredibly influenced by the environment in which they find themselves, particularly by their research supervisor’s own behaviours and opinions around open research. Their status as students often limits their access to tools and support available to employed researchers. Equally, their status as researchers can lead to the assumption that they already understand the research and publishing landscape. What can libraries do to support PGRs in becoming ethical and open researchers? Are the one-shot training courses, often voluntary, enough? This talk will discuss barriers and strategies around support for PGRs as they embark on their research careers.

Supporting postgraduate research students in scholarly communications and open research

With a high percentage of students with a declared disability the Open University has been working with publishers and academic teams to produce accessible course content since 2008. This has been advanced through accessibility testing, enhancements in pedagogy and the use of assistive technologies and content conversions.

The OU library recently concluded an internal research project on the student experience of library converted materials. The research sheds light on the accessibility preferences of students with a declared disability.

In this workshop we aim to guide attendees through the research findings contextualised by an overview of the various accessibility processes at the OU. With the aim of facilitating a group discussing around the following questions:

How best do we ensure the student voice is kept central to discussions about accessibility?

How best can we empower students to reach accessible content? What does accessibility best practice look like from publishers? What format should be prioritised?

OU Library support to help students study online

The current crisis in research integrity in scientific publishing is characterized by several interrelated issues that undermine the credibility and reliability of scientific research. Key aspects include the reproducibility crisis, peer-review failures, publication bias, data fabrication/falsification, plagiarism, predatory journals, pressure to publish, and differing cross-cultural norms around what constitutes best practice in research dissemination.

These issues collectively threaten the foundation of scientific knowledge, making it imperative for the scientific community to address and mitigate these challenges to restore trust and integrity in research. While this is a complex systems problem that implicates/touches all major stakeholders in the scientific community researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, and service providers the scholarly communication ecosystem seems to have shifted the majority of the burden for managing these recent crises to publishers.

Is this fair? Does it make sense? How realistic/sustainable is it for publishers to bear this burden/cost and what is the role for other stakeholders to ensure the credibility of the scientific record? This panel discussion – no presentations! – will feature publishers, librarians, and funders tackling the difficult question of who bears the responsibility for research integrity. Its costs are high. Are we ready to shoulder them together?

Shared responsibility (or failure)? Who should bear the burden of maintaining the integrity of the scientific record? A panel discussion
scientific record? A panel discussion

In this highly interactive, practical session, we’ll introduce the COUNTER Code of Practice for usage for usage reporting and guide you through the ins and outs of obtaining and working with your reports. You’ll come away understanding the value of normalised metrics for comparing across publishers and over time, which metrics to use and when, and of course best practice for harvesting your data using automated tools

COUNTER-intuitive: up close and personal with usage metrics

At a time when libraries across the country are looking closely at the affordability of their online subscriptions, a group of London universities is investigating whether pooling resources and sharing procurement could offer a sustainable solution. Senate House Library, Royal Holloway University of London, Central School of Speech & Drama, and King’s College London have come together, with help from Jisc, to trial joint licensing of a selection of e-resources.

We didn’t know if this would be successful but adopted a “learning by doing” approach: try it and find out. We’re tackling issues such as access and authentication, monitoring usage and negotiating fair pricing with suppliers. At time of writing we have launched three new resources, obtaining greater access, better terms and lower pricing than any institution would individually. Negotiations on a fourth resource is underway.

The project remains a small but practical example of creating a new shared service. The project could grow to include more of Senate House’s federal members institutions, acquiring access to more of the resources they want.

Phil and Nick will explore what has worked, what hasn’t, and what we have learnt through working together.

Stronger Together: creating a new regional consortium for collective licensing of e-resources

Providers of digital platforms and eBooks invest significant resources in improving accessibility and ensuring compliance with standards, but this is only part of the picture of successful resource provision for end-users. The benefits of these investments can be undermined if the users – and those in libraries and universities who support them – are unaware of how to translate technical improvements into user satisfaction.

Users have to navigate multiple layers to get at the content: discovery services, VLEs, reading list systems, publisher and aggregator platforms, varieties of file formats, university-provided software and software on their own computers and mobile devices. And even when all these layers are optimised for accessibility, users may not be aware of the features available to them.

This panel draws on a triple perspective – the content provider, accessibility consultant and accessibility librarian – and will answer questions such as:

What should librarians expect from their content suppliers?
How do their accessibility statements help you?
What does an accessible library service look like?
How are students supported in developing their digital skills?
What workarounds exist when accessibility barriers are found?
How does a university reduce their own accessibility risks under the accessibility regulations?

End-to-end accessibility: joining the dots between publisher practice and user experience between publisher practice and user experience

This breakout session will cover how the game “What about Open Science?”, was created with our UKSG Innovation Award, and the speakers approach to game development and education on Open Science. This competitive Open Educational Resource ‘game’ was designed to create discussion around common open science concepts and ideas that everyone should understand but do not always fully grasp. The game has been tested by OSCAIL in Dublin, Ireland; by SURF in The Netherlands; and at the 19th Munin Conference in Tromsø, Norway. The game will be published online as an OER during UKSG 2025. 

The breakout session will include a presentation on game development – from inception to fruition. We will discuss highs and lows, the many pivots, and our experience with Open Peer Review of the game. In addition, we will discuss some of the game ‘remixes’ and key feedback from the launch. There will be time for questions and answers with the speakers.

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The Library CEO: Managing Politics, Technology and Talent as the New Paradigm

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From Cataloguing to Discovery: a journey of innovation and resilience

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