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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

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#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

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

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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

Example of a publication that includes embedded media on Michigan’s Fulcrum publishing platform.

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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

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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

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

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"

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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).

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

Slide on screen showing the data that supports the quotation.

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

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Simon Bains @simonjbains.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

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.

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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.