Really good to hear how RLUK has developed mentoring so effectively as a leadership tool. Back in the very early days, I and Chris Banks talked about our experience of an initial mentoring pilot at RLUK 2010 in Edinburgh #RLUK26

@simonjbains.bsky.social of Aberdeen Uni Lib mentioned in #UPREDUX2026 OA challenges session as an OIPA member. Aberdeen is very open indeed as a Library of Sanctuary enabling local asylum seekers & refugees the opportunity to access research so skills can be maintained. share.google/vaj0V0p19kTF...

All conferences should have an official illustrator working live.

Fascinating to be in my third event in two weeks discussing research sharing, and again in a very different community. No publishers or librarians here (other than me!).

After a week in London at #R2RConf and #CopimConference my open research roadshow continues at a 'Scottish Research Integrity and Culture Week' event at @rcsed.bsky.social in Edinburgh where I'm on a panel to talk about 'expanding openness' for arts + humanities.

Scottish #ResearchIntegrity and Culture Week is finally here! 🎉 Check out the full list of events happening throughout Scotland, both in-person and online, here www.sricw.co.uk/programme

We're very pleased to publish what we hope will be a useful resource helping those that are new to thoughts about building inclusive collections

Now we’re frustrated by things like institutional debt says Gatti. Though I’d say these severe financial challenges have sharpened the institutional focus on the costs we have railed against, and we’re starting to see the results #CopimConference

Gatti: “Collective grumbling is very powerful”. #CopimConference

#CopimConf is summed up by @rupertgatti.bsky.social and we thank all the folks involved in making this happen and powering the projects that underpinned it 👏

"Don't ask me what our business model is". That's a very familiar feeling... #CopimConference

There are barriers in the way of using experimental publishing to support the emerging interdisciplinary spaces, noting in particular the conservative academic culture. This is something we aspire to @abdnunipress.bsky.social and capacity is certainly one of the barriers we face #CopimConference

Interesting to note that generative AI (just mentioned) has not had much airtime at #CopimConference. #R2RConf was obsessed by it.

This was a really inspiring call to action in the context of being more inclusive and interdisciplinary through experiment that isn’t happening in the traditional sector. Even if the speaker did (I think) just call me a prehistoric ape 🦍 #CopimConference

A shout out to Michigan University Press @uofmpress.bsky.social on their innovative experiment representing work in a way traditional publishing can’t do. I think that MUP’s director @charleswatkinson.bsky.social is watching this event online… #CopimConference

Now hearing from @uolpress.bsky.social at #CopimConference. How the other new OA presses do things are always so helpful to hear as we learn as we go at @abdnunipress.bsky.social

Fascinating to hear from Loughborough about theses when your daughter is doing a PhD at Loughborough! #CopimConference

As a panellist, with a different (literal) perspective, I can now say with confidence that this is the segment of the scholarly research communications community that collects laptop stickers #CopimConference

👏 Brilliant; well done @abdnunipress.bsky.social team!

Agreed with @emmabooth.bsky.social that lobbying LMS vendors is frustrating, but not that metadata is low priority when procuring (in my experience) #CopimConference

The @thoth-metadata.bsky.social metadata report that @emmaboothmather.bsky.social has just highlighted at #copimconference is at thoth.pub/blog/10.7095...

Reflecting, not for the first time, that #CopimConference and #R2RConf have been so close in terms of content, date, and location, but not community. There was a whole workshopping series during Research to Reader where (mainly) publishers discussed "Book Metadata, Discoverability & Usage"

Hearing from @emmabooth.bsky.social on that great irony that open access books are hard for libraries to make discoverable #CopimConference

I’m delighted to see that the amazing Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei of @thoth-metadata.bsky.social has PhD from @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social #CopimConference

Zeyen: accessibility goes beyond the need for compliance with standards. Scholarly writing is often inaccessible to others. There are wider questions about good science communications and also a need to acknowledge how much time this can take #CopimConference

Another good point from Pete Barr. Librarians aren’t the ultimate decision makers in their universities; lots of factors in play. No one who knows me would accuse me of supporting the status quo, but Aberdeen hasn’t left any of the deals. I’d be delighted to talk about that. #CopimConference

Graham Stone is positive about things changing in the context of open monographs, and it’s helpful, as he does, to take a longer view and reflect on how far we’ve come. I’ve been in this space for 20 years: much has changed for the better! #CopimConference

Ensure your content budget strategy makes ‘open’ a commitment, and is signed off at the highest level. Another great point from Pete Barr. There’s important ‘soft politics’ here. Do we have the diplomacy and leadership skills to be sure we can make this approach succeed? #CopimConference

Totally agree on this analysis from Pete Barr on the situation as it stands with the reasons for walking away from publishers doesn’t play into reinvestment in different models #CopimConference

Subject librarians as ‘gate keepers’ raised as an issue. Not all of them, but it’s a challenge. This is one of the reasons I led a process to change our structure entirely at the University of Manchester. At Aberdeen the change has been less dramatic, but we have found it necessary #CopimConference

After the final slide of that talk, I am now very distracted by mathwithbaddrawings.com #CopimConference

Jill Cirasella: has crafted 'soft funds' proposals to invest in Diamond. I have done precisely that with library-related donor funding at @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social - the challenge is then reaching sustainability after time-limited start up funding ends. #CopimConference

Martina Benz - moving our funding from the large publishers to diamond OA support is a 'difficult conversation'. This is key. Few of us work in universities where there is any spare money. I'm working on the basis I'll be told by my VC - 'great idea - tell us how you'll fund it'. #CopimConference

I’ve moved smoothly from #R2RConf over the last two days to #CopimConference today and tomorrow. I’m fascinated to know if anyone else is attending both events. Very, very similar in theme, but it feels like two different communities.

My reflection, as a librarian working in an institution that is being called to action, is that my academic colleagues are all consumed by what AI is doing to their teaching. Connecting to researchers (who are also educators) via the librarians who know them best would be my recommendation #R2RConf

So far, I don't think either of our two keynote speakers this afternoon have specifically identified librarians as having a role in contributing to the solutions to the big AI challenges they've identified. (Happy to be corrected if I missed it) #R2RConf

Big shout out to @nikeshgo.bsky.social now I've discovered his bluesky handle. Stunningly good presentation. #R2RConf

Gosalia does a brilliant job of exposing the injustices of AI for researchers in the global majority. We should all be appalled about this. It’s not just a static problem, it gets worse with every iteration. #R2RConf

ChatGPT training data is 93% English language says Nikesh Gosalia. Is AI democratising access to scholarly publishing or encoding colonialism at scale? The evidence suggests we are heading down a dangerous path #R2RConf

I've not been to every session in the packed #R2RConf programme but I think a strong contender for the 'unexpected quote of the event' award I've just invented has to be "It's not as easy to put a pig bladder in a human as you'd think". (Dennis Brown, American Physiological Society).

“Inclusive journals publish a higher proportion of the highest-cited papers than their selective counterparts” Ritu Dhand @springernature.com #R2RConf

Scientist in audience agrees peer review is in need of change, but reacts to the presentations as 'acronym soup'. Meanwhile a speaker notes libraries can't afford the existing publishing model (thanks), and a commercial publisher offers insights on how authors react to these new services #R2RConf

First session at day 2 of #R2RConf, it's just gone 9am, and I've already discovered something interesting. "State of Preprints in the Life Sciences" zenodo.org/records/1832...

I was pleased to have this short opportunity to share our work at @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social exploring how we can do more to help the local community of seekers of asylum. It was so powerful to have been able to discuss this with professionals with lived experience and those who support them.

Fascinating end to day 1 of #R2RConf as the AI debate changes many minds on the issue of AI being a good thing for scholarly publishing. The clincher for me being that no one seems to deny the risk to underrepresented communities, and the amplification of a damaging global north perspective.

Great talk on using scenario planning to think about AI strategies from Keith Webster @library.cmu.edu , and a thought provoking thought to end on: the present moment used to be an unimagined future. #R2RConf

Breaking out of my BlueSky silence to announce that I’m at #R2RConf @r2rconf.bsky.social today and tomorrow. Revelations and provocations to follow (possibly).

Touching tribute to Paul Ayris. The UK open research community owes him a great debt. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

I'm looking for a new deputy here at @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social! If you're seeking a rewarding role on a career path as a library leader, there's no better place to be than the lovely Sir Duncan Rice Library. A great job _and_ amazing views - what's not to like? www.abdnjobs.co.uk/vacancy/depu...

Splendid to have reached this milestone for @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social; it’s been a long road. Well done to all involved - a great project team 👏🏻