Academic Libraries North (ALN)

This week's ALN Staff Development Weekly Update is available at academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo.... More job opportunities in the region this week, plus details of two calls for contributions - on solo experts and green OA. Get involved!

This week's ALN Staff Development Weekly Update is available at academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo.... Lots of job opportunities in the region this week, plus details of how you can get involved in our staff development programme for 2025/26, and some interesting looking external events.

In this week's ALN Staff Development Weekly Update you'll find
details of the first few events in 2025/26 programme, an opportunity to get involved in a solo expert event and a frontline forum event, as well as a host of job vacancies in the region: academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo...

In this week's ALN Staff Development Weekly Update you'll find
details of the first few events in 2025/26 programme and a host of job opportunities in the region: academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo...

Not at all jealous of any of that, @playbrarian.uk! 😀

In this week's ALN Staff Development Weekly Update you'll find
details of a job opportunity with ALN; the first couple of events in 2025/26 programme; a first look at our new Staff Development infographic; and an NLISN neurodivergent library staff survey: academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo...

Open Position: Community Engagement Lead (full time) at Open Book Collective Looking for a colleague interested in helping the Open Book Collective advocate for and deliver a more sustainable and equitable future for Open Access book publishing

🚨 OBC is hiring! We are looking to appoint a Community Engagement Lead to support our outreach work. The role would suit someone passionate about delivering a fairer, sustainable future for #OAbooks. Deadline August 17th. Please spread the word! openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/open-pos...

Two books laid out on a table.

Check out these beautiful books, very kindly donated to us by our #ALN25 platinum sponsors, @manchesterup.bsky.social, for our analogue social media competition 📚 Thank you so much! Congratulations to our lucky winner, Kirsty Hemsworth 😊

Two books laid out on a table.

Check out these beautiful books, very kindly donated to us by our #ALN25 platinum sponsors, @manchesterup.bsky.social, for our analogue social media competition 📚 Thank you so much! Congratulations to our lucky winner, Kirsty Hemsworth 😊

This week's ALN Staff Development Update details the last event in the 2024/5 programme, jobs and opportunities such as details of new ways to join the NLISN; EDI initiatives and SCONUL initiatives; and proposed dates for Frontline Forums 2025/26: academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/staff-develo...

Promotional graphic for an event titled 'Strengthening Open Access Through Collaboration: Building connections with OPERAS UK,' scheduled for July 21, from 14:00 to 15:30 WEST. The hashtag #NationalNode appears at the top left. The bottom features the OPERAS UK logo twice. On the right, there is a photo of people working at a table with laptops, notebooks, and office supplies.

Join @jisc.bsky.social online next week to explore how organisations can deepen collaboration to tackle shared challenges in #OpenAccess

We have an exciting panel of speakers lined up for you!

🌐 Strengthening through collaboration
📅 21 July 2025 | 10:00–12:00 BST
🔗 www.jisc.ac.uk/events/stren...

Little by little we made our way to keynotes, workshops, tours of the poetry library, sponsor stalls, lunch and lightning talks. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did 😊

MMU Business School atrium with conference delegates

Monica Westin, Keynote speaker

Rachel Beckett (Director, Library and Cultural Services, Manchester Metropolitan University)

What an incredible day at #ALN25 last Friday! 🎉

Huge thanks to our planning team, presenters, attendees, sponsors, and everyone who helped bring the day to life - we couldn’t have done it without you!

We’re about to host the closing talk of the conference, where we’ll announce the winners of our competitions and bring the day to a close #ALN25

Silver sponsor graphic.

Our sponsors help to make the conference the success it always is!

Thank you to our silver sponsors: Content Online; De Gruyter Brill; HS Talks; The Social History Archive; VitalSource; Clarivate; and Bloomsbury Publishing.

#ALN25

Gold sponsor graphic.

Our gold sponsor for the in-person day is OCLC (www.oclc.org/en/home.html).

Thank you for supporting ALN Conference 2025 😊

#ALN25

Platinum sponsor graphic.

Our Platinum sponsor for the conference is Manchester University Press (manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk) @manchesterup.bsky.social

Thank you for supporting ALN Conference 2025 😊

Lecture theatre.

Now we're hearing a talk from our gold sponsor, OCLC #ALN25

love this! #ALN25

A watercolour sketch of a bird with purple, rose, and black feathers

A printed labelled picture of a chaffinch which has purply grey feathers, a rosy orange chest and black patterned tail feathers.

#ALN25. Brilliant wellbeing session Painting by numbers with Fred Milton. Decided to paint outside the lines but my chaffinch doesn't look too bad and I feel much more relaxed for it.

Now we've got some more workshops and short papers. We hope you're enjoying the day so far! 😊 #ALN25

Fantastic tour round the Manchester Poetry library: really got me thinking about art in library spaces and how welcoming it makes the space #ALN25

Collage of paper love hearts, photographs and poems.

A visit to the rather wonderful (and only public one of its kind) Poetry Library. #aln25

➡️ Take part in our analogue social media competition and create a short social media-style post on a piece of card, which will be pinned to our board.

The winners will be announced at the end of the day #ALN25

Competition graphic

We're running two competitions today! ✨

➡️ Share a photo that sums up your experience of ALN 2025. Please email us at academiclibrariesnorth@gmail.com or directly message us with your photo @academiclibrariesnorth on Instagram by 2pm.

A tree in a public green space with a red brick building in the background

Lunchtime in the sunshiiine! #aln25

How do we engage with AI? Possibly an existential threat to publishing and libraries. The library are one of the only bits of the library which have a director of AI, so working closely with them, putting their content in a LLM. #ALN25

Completely endorse recommendation from Simon Ross of Manchester Uni Press to visit the Manchester Poetry Library. If in Edinburgh, go to the Scottish Poetry Library! @byleaveswelive.bsky.social #ALN25

Slide

You can play at home...5 minutes to think, talk or draw one factor or issue related to your library work and think through the futures #ALN25
Monica Westin's keynote.

A modern glass sided building with a concrete awning, in front of which is a green leaved tree.

Going to be bright and warm today. Don't forget to hydrate if you're coming to #aln25.