CREATIVE PEOPLE
Imagine2030
Annual report 2023-24
'Escape the Library' sessions
Our 'Escape the Library' sessions have been central to our engagement with a diverse range of groups across 2023/2024.
These interactive sessions offer a fun and accessible way for participants to explore the Library’s resources, facilities, and support services through self-directed learning.
Over 300 participants have attended 'Escape the Library' sessions, which were delivered to a variety of groups including:
- Manchester Access Programme students (Year 12)
- Attendees of the Universally Manchester Festival (members of the public)
- University Summer School Attendees (Year 10)
- New University of Manchester students
Customer Services colleagues setting up the room for the 'Escape the Library' session
Customer Services colleagues setting up the room for the 'Escape the Library' session
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, inspiring us to adapt the content and format of the sessions and extend to a wider range of groups.
Together24 conference
In June, for the third year running, we convened for our Library staff Together conference.
As always, conference content was crafted from staff submissions and Together24 was a true celebration of our fantastic hard work and dedication.
Agile working training
Managers from the Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption Directorate (AIIA) and the Projects and Business Analysis teams took part in Agile Working Training to learn a flexible way of working that helps teams collaborate better and achieve results faster.
Agile isn’t just about managing projects; it’s a way of thinking that focuses on innovation, being adaptable, and making continuous improvements. This aligns well with the Library’s Imagine2030 vision.
Agile involves various practices, like working in short, focused bursts of time and holding full-day meetings to discuss tasks and challenges. It emphasizes the importance of the 'product', understanding customers' needs, gathering their feedback, and delivering results quickly, while being open to reviewing and improving what has been produced.
We plan to adopt this approach in upcoming Library projects, hoping it will help teams respond quickly and creatively to changes.
Exhibitions: whose history?
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library exhibition programme across 2023-24 focused on lesser-told stories, welcoming 250,000 visitors to the galleries.
Our Founders and Funders exhibition explored The University of Manchester's financial ties to the transatlantic slave trade, offering valuable context for the wider bicentenary celebrations. Co-curated with current and recently graduated MA History students, the exhibition provided practical experience in conveying historical narratives to public audiences through exhibition interpretation and events. Some of these students have since pursued careers in the cultural sector. The Rylands benefited from new research on its special collections, including the McConnel & Kennedy and Owen Owens & Son archives, as well as new insights gained from collaborating with emerging historians. A lasting outcome of this exhibition was the Founders and Funders blog series, showcasing students' work and encouraging further research into Manchester's links to slavery.
We Have Always Been Here was an exhibition that examined themes of self-representation, identity politics and community solidarity found in collections across the Library, including the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre. It served as a starting point to demonstrate how the Rylands is for and about everyone. The Rylands also held concurrent Collections Encounters events focused on Deaf education and our LGBTQ+ collections. Engaging with people from Deaf and LGBTQ+ communities provided valuable insight, and the lessons learned from these engagement sessions will shape future public engagement at the Rylands.
OUR ACHIEVEMENTS
Awards
Dave Hirst: The University of Manchester Teaching Excellence Award for Flexible Learning and Digital Delivery and the Student Voice, (Highly Commended).
The Library Student Team (Team Leader: Jennie Blake): The University of Manchester Teaching Excellence Award for Inclusive Education and the Student Voice.
Léa Anderton: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Adam Cooke: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Rachel Cox: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Tabita-Gabriela Juravle: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Iqra Malik: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship
Bonnie McGill: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Lily Pearson: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Kai Prince: Institute of Teaching and Learning AdvanceHE Senior Fellowship.
Publications
Blake, J., Cooke, A. and Nisic, J. (2023). ‘Creative and Digital Partnerships in Collaboration’, in: Abegglen, S., Burns, T. and Sinfield, S. (eds.) Collaboration in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.
Whalen, J., (Contributor), NDSA Storage Survey Working Group. “2023 Storage Infrastructure Survey Report.” NDSA. October 2024.
Conferences
Agha, F., and Malhotra, D., (2024, January). ‘Student Panel’, Academic Libraries North: Students as co-creators: working with students as partners across library services, Lancaster, UK.
Ayres, B., (2024, 18 March). ‘DRI system components - What is important to each of the DRI components and how do they work together?’, N8 Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) Retreat 2024, Manchester, UK.
Ayres, B., Warren, E., (2024, 20 June 20). ‘Open Research with our Figshare data repository’, Research Services Conference 2024, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Barton, C., (2024, June). ‘Artificial Intelligence – How have Learning Developers engaged?’, ALDcon24, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK.
Blake, J., (2023, December). ‘We’re pretty sure it isn’t a calculator: AI, education and digital information literacy’, AI and Libraries, ALN Technology CoP, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK.
Blake, J., Malik, I., and Pearson, L., (2024, July). ‘Belonging, inclusion and collective effort: The Manchester Library Student Team’, AdvanceHE Teaching and Learning Conference, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
Blake, J., and McGill, B., (2024, March). ‘We’re pretty sure it isn’t a calculator: The role of research libraries and information literacy in navigating the Artificial Intelligence landscape’, Research Libraries UK (RLUK), online.
Blake, J., and Miller, K., (2024, January). ‘Reflections on ten years of student involvement across library services and the evolution of the Student Team – From frontline staff to teaching’, Academic Libraries North: Students as co-creators: working with students as partners across library services, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.
Blake, J., and Pearson, L., (2024, June). ‘When you join us, we will change: Community, communication and belonging’, Student Communications 2024, Birmingham, UK.
Blake, J., Studd, R., Sivalingam, R., Jackson, S., Finn-sell, S., Weise, N., Prince, K., and Malhotra, D., (2024, June). ‘The Belonging Network – The journey of staff and student partnerships in fostering belonging, being and mattering’, The University of Manchester Teaching and Learning Conference, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Booth, E., (2023, 4 October). ‘Supporting not-for-profit, community-led open infrastructure for Open Access books: The University of Manchester Library perspective’, Collective funding models for open access books 3: a Jisc OABN webinar, online.
Caradonna-Snow, L., (2024, 21 June). ‘Conserving the Guru Granth Sahib JI: an experience of shared knowledge and engagement with the Sikh community', International Institute for Restoration and Preservation Studies LLC (IIRPS), San Gemini, Italy.
Caradonna-Snow, L., (2024, 21 June). ‘The introduction of an IPM strategy at The University of Manchester Library’, International Institute for Restoration and Preservation Studies LLC (IIRPS), San Gemini, Italy.
Carlton, S., (2024, 20 May). ‘How libraries can support authors with open access requirements for UKRI funded books: The first four and a bit months at Manchester’, How libraries can support authors with open access requirements for UKRI funded books, online.
Carlton, S., May, L., (2023, 23 October). ‘Introducing Rights Retention: Reflections and learning from the N8’, online.
Carlton, S., Rye, O., (2023, 25 October). ‘Supporting OA Monographs at The University of Manchester’, On the fringes of the publishing landscape: OA monographs and institutional publishers, online.
Chatt, F., (2024, 14 March). ‘Roundtable on working in and with 20th century archives’, Multiple Transformations of Archives, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester, UK.
Chatt, F., (2024, 29 May). 'Introduction to the Humanitarian Archive', Debating Humanitarianism: New Approaches and Methodologies, Florence, Italy.
Chatt, F., (2024, 29 August). 'The purpose of the Humanitarian Archive', 17th Pan European Conference on International Relations, Lille, France.
Collier, G., (2023, 5 December). ‘Hogwarts Online: Digital engagement with research at The John Rylands Library’, NW England Archives Network: Using Archives on Social Media Platforms to Engage with Users, Share Collections and Build New Audiences, online (Liverpool John Moores University, UK).
Collier, G., (2024, 24 April). ‘Introduction to the archives: Student life at Manchester’, Moving Out and Moving on in the Post-War Decades: Data and Methods for Researching Young People’s Lives, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester, UK.
Firth, M., Miller, K., and members of the Flexible Learning Programme, (2024, June). ‘Embedding the Assessment Toolkit: how can we ensure resources and expertise in Assessment is embedded in Assessment & Feedback practices?’ The University of Manchester Teaching and Learning Conference, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Gallagher, J., (2023, 30 November). ‘Digital Preservation: Institutional perspectives and policies’, RLUK Digital Scholarship Network, The University of Glasgow.
Gallagher, J., (2024, 20 February). ‘Digital Special Collections’, CILIP Rare Books & Special Collections Group New Professionals event, online.
Gallagher, J., Gifford, I., (2024, 8 February). ‘AI ready library collections: Experiences from The University of Manchester’, JISC: Making your collections AI ready, online.
Hynes, J., (2024, 28 June). ‘Excited about Scite: Reflections on our experiences of using Scite at The University of Manchester’ Sunmedia 22nd Academic Information Solutions Seminar, Chūō City, Tokyo, Japan.
Library Student Team, (2024, April). ‘Belonging at Manchester: All together in our contexts’, Evidence-based education: the value of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, Leeds, UK.
Library Student Team, (2024, May). ‘Collaboration, Agency & Student Partnership: 10 Years of The University of Manchester Library Student Team’, Collaboration, Agency and Student Partnership Symposium, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Library Student Team, (2024, June). ‘Student accessibility, inclusion and equity: How to maintain academic agency in the age of AI?’, The University of Manchester Teaching and Learning Conference, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Martin, J., (2024, 20 May). ‘Florence Lockwood (1861-1937). The extraordinary life of a Colne Valley Suffragist’, Lecture presented to the Huddersfield Local History Society, The University of Huddersfield, HLHS.
Martin, J., (2024, 11 - 12 September). 'Smoke, squalor, and public engagement: How the Modern History Archives at The John Rylands Library, Manchester, support research’, The British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden.
Martin, J., Chatt, F., (2024, 11 - 12 June). ‘Humanitarian Archive roundtable panel’, Socialist Humanitarianism in the Long Twentieth Century, The University of Manchester, Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), Manchester, UK.
McGill, B., Malik, I., and Manoj, P. B.G., (2024, July). ‘Are workflows working? Bardeen and the case of automated research’. Artificial Intelligence Symposium 2024: AI Journeys – Being Human (AdvanceHE), Manchester, UK.
Scott, H., (2023, 24 - 26 October). 'How Pure institutions save time in tracking research data with Data Monitor', Pure International Conference 2023, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Sharma, M., (2024, 20 June). ‘If Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes', Conservative Public History, online.
Smith, J., (2024, 5 - 8 February). ‘Email Archive Workflow’, Digital Preservation Coalition Workflow Webinar Series 2024, online.
Smith, J., (2024, 5 March). ‘Elizabeth Gaskell in the digital world’, Elizabeth Gaskell Society Lecture Series, Manchester, UK.
Talbot, C., (2024, 5 - 9 June). 'Reimagining libraries for the AI era', Universally Manchester Festival, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Talbot, C., (2024, 5 July). 'Surfing the wave: Positioning the academic library for our next era', Academic Libraries North (ALN) Conference, St. George’s Centre, Leeds, UK.
Talbot, C., (2024, 10 - 11 July). 'AI and the digital humanities. Talking about the opportunities for experiencing collections and research, for enhancing curation and metadata workflows through AI', CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) Leadership Conference, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, UK.
Talbot, C., (2024, 11 August). 'Presentation talking about opportunities for applying AI to collections and archive processes, and some of the challenges we may face in the course of doing so', Goldsmiths, University of London Library staff conference 2024, London, UK.
Theis, A., and Blake, J., (2024, June). ‘Academic integrity, collaboration and the student voice: Contribute to the creation of a central online resource on Academic Integrity’, The University of Manchester Teaching and Learning Conference, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Tomlinson, N., (2023, September). ‘Rethinking teaching and learning (spaces) through the lens of embodied learning’, ALDinHE Regional Event, Leeds, UK.
Tomlinson, N., and Kneen, S., (2024, June). ‘Bringing embodied approaches to on-campus research methods teaching for large STEM cohorts: Design, challenges, learning’, ALDcon24, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK.
Warren, E., (2024, 5 July). ‘Working to understand what Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) really need from the Library’, Academic Libraries North Conference 2024, Leeds, UK.
Warren, E., Liggins, C., (2024, 29 February). ‘Making the most of Open Research with Figshare’, Research Communications Conference 2024, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
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