13 November 2020
It's hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the year - and what a year it has been. We have managed to pivot all of our Autumn events online helped by our experience hosting the free webinars that we run each year. We have found that attendance has increased greatly, feedback has assured us there has been no lessening of the quality, and our lively November conference, which ended yesterday, saw more than 400 delegates from 33 countries listen to a range of engaging and expert speakers. Our thanks to Charlie Rapple of Kudos, and Katherine Rose of Imperial for putting together such a compelling programme.
Looking forward to 2021, our Education Committee (chaired by Elizabeth Newbold at STFC) are reviewing the topics for our seminar programme which, for the first half of the year at least, will be digital. They have done a great job in moving the Autumn seminars online at such short notice - not just copying the in-person events but adapting them to a digital only audience to keep up the interaction which is so key to our training courses. The calendar for 2021 will be published soon, so watch this space (and email us if there are particular topics you want to learn about - they might be suitable for one of our free Webinars, a programme run by Sarah Pittaway of the University of Worcester.
We have one more seminar (actually a series of events) to run this year - E-Resources for FE and a free webinar, "Inclusion zone: A case study in digital accessibility" https://bit.ly/35iKxCX Both are free, so please do sign up if they are of interest!
The Insights team, ably managed by Elaine Koster, have published an editorial highlighting the most recent articles. You can read it here. Please do consider submitting your own article - Insights is a peer reviewed journal that is fully open access, with the APCs paid for by UKSG (thanks to your membership fees!).
Looking forward to 2021, and the recent announcement that the annual conference (April 12-14) will be going online, we can let you know that we will be working with Underline to deliver what we hope will be a top notch event which will include new features - such as technical and product demonstrations - that it wasn't possible to deliver for the in-person event. We are excited about the possibilities for the exhibition (and exhibitors) and details on how to book your booth will be out in the next week or so.
![The winning team for the 2019 Quiz The winning team for the 2019 Quiz](/sites/default/files/styles/panopoly_images_quarter/public/upload/2020-11/uksg_quiz_winners_2019_-_border.png?itok=XoAmSEL4)
We will still be hosting the Quiz (thanks to Mark Hester for agreeing to host it again), are looking into online yoga, trying to fit in the UKSG band and other ways of ensuring that you are able to network (and maybe have some fun) while you are in attendance. Still working on a digital disco though - so any suggestions would be very welcome!
The Trustees have been working hard on creating the programme for the event, and have been in contact with speakers to invite them. We still have slots to fill, so don't be disheartened if you haven't been contacted yet. The programme should be published in early January.
Finally, our membership renewals are going out now - please do look out for the notice and send us your purchase orders or other instructions so that we can get the invoices to you in a timely manner. We thank you for your continued support - this has meant that we have been able to continue with much of our community programmes even with the dire impact on our finances that cancelling the conference had this year.
All the best to you, from all of us here at UKSG!
Bev
Bev Acreman
Executive Director