UKSG 2024 took place in Glasgow again this year and we discovered that three of us (Ebony, Cath and Jess) would be attending so took the opportunity to meet in person as we’ve only ever met before online. We thought it would be a good idea to write a little piece for the blog to share our reflections on the conference to maybe help others decide whether it’s something they might want to attend in future. The call for papers has actually just gone out for next year’s conference which will be in Brighton. Just a note to say if you present a breakout session you get your attendance, accommodation and reasonable travel for free. You do have to present your breakout twice over the three days. There are other options, like lightning talks but I think you just get your conference place paid for if you are delivering one of those. More details on the Conference website.

UKSG Conference is the conference for the organisation UKSG which started life as the United Kingdom Serials Group conference and was very much focused on purchasing and E-Resources. Now more than a third of the membership is based outside the UK and the conference covers a much wider range of topics including scholarly communications and research support. So the organisation is known as UKSG. The conference is attended by delegates from across the global knowledge community, including librarians, publishers, intermediaries, technology vendors, consultants and more. As well as presentations and workshops there is an exhibition area with various vendors having stalls you can visit, with an array of freebies and information on offer.

Cath

I had the great pleasure of being a breakout speaker for two different presentations. When I put the papers in I didn’t expect both to be accepted but they were which meant I was doing 4 sessions over the 3 days. I had a co-speaker for my session on Open Journals, Rebecca Wojturska from Edinburgh Diamond and were talking about our two services (mine being LJMU Open Journals Service). Unfortunately Rebecca was unable to make it at the last minute but as I had her notes I decided to go ahead anyway with the presentation. Coupled with that, she was supposed to be on a plenary that my colleague had organised on predatory publishing and I volunteered to step in to take her place. I was also presenting on our LIRG research project which meant I ended up presenting 5 times over the 3 days. So I think for me UKSG was tiring! However it was very rewarding too. I enjoyed being able to talk about our research project as well as listening to others, when I wasn’t speaking myself. The conference also offers to opportunity to meet up with colleagues and make new connections. Following on from the conference I’ve had 3 meetings with people I met there.

In terms of the sessions I found useful, there was the session from Simon Herrick and Toby Green on the 5% manifesto for REF which I thought was very interesting. This has led to a follow up conversation with Simon as he also attended my session on the research project and is coming to talk to the LIRG committee about what they are hoping to achieve. I also enjoyed the session from Elaine Sykes and Tom Grady on how to achieve sustainable funding for open access books. All in all, UKSG is an excellent conference for learning from others, meeting colleagues from other institutions and making new connections.

Jess

One of the big themes of the UKSG Annual Conference was the UK’s transition to open access via transitional agreements, also known as transformative agreements or Read and Publish deals. Key findings from JISC’s recent review of these agreements were presented during a plenary session (the full report can be accessed here) and in one of the breakout sessions, librarians from King’s College London shared their approach to managing Read and Publish deals, including a checklist they employ to evaluate these deals.

As I work for the NHS Wales e-Library service, which does not currently have these agreements set up, I found these sessions particularly insightful. It was valuable to listen to and learn from the reflections of higher education institutions who have had these agreements in place for several years. I am eager to keep updated on the progress of transitional agreements, and any alternative initiatives that may be introduced in the future.

Overall, UKSG Annual Conference was an enriching experience and, with the participation of publishers and content providers at the conference, I am optimistic that the event has provided an excellent opportunity for collaboration between publishers and the LIS community to continue to effectively shape the future of open access scholarly communications.