09.30 – 10.00

Registration and coffee 

10.00 – 10.10 

Welcome and introduction to the conference from SCONUL Co-chair Anna O'Neill 

10.10 – 11.00

Keynote speech: Making technology work for 8 billion people, not 8 billionaire
Rachel Coldicutt, Founder and Executive Director, Careful Industries

11.00 – 11.50

Panel discussion and Q&A: Defending Openness in a Fragmenting World
The library community has a commitment to openness embedded in its DNA - fostering access to knowledge for all, formalised in our commitment to the open access in publishing and to open research. However, there are countervailing pressures within our society including growing economic and political nationalism; cybersecurity concerns around open systems; financial pressures on institutions to prioritise retaining IP over open sharing; on-going academic scepticism of OA publishing; and concerns over LLMs capturing and commercialising research which is openly shared.  How can the advocates of openness address these challenges and continue to move the open research agenda forward?

Speakers include:

• Andrew Barker, Library Director, Lancaster University
• Vanessa Proudman, Director, SPARC Europe

11.50 – 12.10

Coffee & tea break

12.10 – 13.00

Library Exchange Labs
SCONUL is introducing a new initiative to allow members to come together, network and share challenges, opportunities and experiences or simply to connect with people with similar priorities via a set of three library surgeries.  Each session will have a facilitator.

We will be holding surgeries on:

• Digital transformation and managing legacy technology
  Questions members might want to explore include: Given tight budgets, how can we utilise our existing technologies in new ways? Are there collaborative approaches to help us manage the transformation process? How can we get involved in priority projects for our institutions?  And are there technologies we may be able to dispense with as a result of technological shifts?
  
  
• Space planning
  In addition to the questions of renovation and redevelopment of libraries, the kinds of questions members might want to explore include navigating the shifting landscape as institutions consolidate buildings and estates; harnessing our students’ love for our spaces for library advocacy; meet the sustainability challenge and the opportunities and challenges of co-location and partnerships?
  
  
• Squaring the circle on meeting institutional priorities with a shrinking budget
  Members might want to consider exploring new approaches to team structures as well as what it means to lead with authenticity both with institutional leadership teams and library teams given the necessity of changing the nature of the service that we can offer, as well as how we can we support staff navigate the change process.

13.00 – 13.45

Lunch

13.45 – 14.35

Lightning talks and Q&A: The Collaboration Zone: harnessing our collective power
We will have three lightening talks highlighting new and exciting collaborations taking place across the library community.  We will hear from:

• David Beales, University Librarian, Brunel University of London, will talk about the new OER community of practice being built for the UK and Ireland to advance open education.
  
  
• Dr Jessica Gardner, University Librarian and Director of Library Services, Cambridge University Library, who will discuss the Libraries Alliance, launching in April, which brings library bodies together to magnify our voice to policymakers, government and other stakeholders to change perceptions and increase understanding of libraries.
  
  
• Jane Saunders, Associate Director: Content and Discovery, University of Leeds, and Amy Warner May, Associate Director, Scholarly Resources at The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, on their new Open Metadata project designed to make the shift to a new open landscape.

14.35 – 14.55

Coffee & tea break

14.55 – 15.50

Panel discussion and Q&A: The next generation of students: a discussion on Gen Z and Alpha
The next generation of students (Gen Z, born 1995–2009, and Gen Alpha, 2010–2024) are commonly seen as digitally fluent, preferring interactive, personalised, and "bite-sized" learning, and as expecting on-demand, flexible education. How true a picture is this of these generations of students, and how will our institutions adapt their teaching and support systems to meet the needs of these cohorts. What will this mean for libraries?  How will we shape how we support our users and deploy our systems and resources?

Speakers include:

• Lesley Castens, Director of Education Services, University of Plymouth
• Jonathan Neves, Head of Research & Surveys, Advance HE

15.50 – 16.00

Concluding remarks from SCONUL Co-chair Rachel Beckett

16.00

Close