Top takeaways from the Copim Conference 2026 through the eyes of a complete newbie to Open Access | Copim Community
flavoursofopenscience's bookmarks 2026-03-26
Summary:
This is a guest post by Jacqui Hunt, Information Resources Librarian, Leeds Beckett University, a recipient of a bursary for the Copim Conference 2026.
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As an early careers librarian, who hasn’t been in the field for very long, I had the opportunity to attend the Copim 2026 conference at Loughborough University in London. Before I went, neither I nor my team knew too much about Open Access, but this proved to be an enlightening experience.
Here are my top takeaways from the two-day event.
It’s a game changer for academic institutions. What was abundantly clear from the get-go, were the opportunities Open Access can offer. OA books can be fairly and sustainably funded, widely distributed, are more accessible and more experimental. Janneke Adema & Joe Deville have led two projects so far – COPIM (2019–2023) and Open Book Futures (2023–2026) – opening the door to so many possibilities, and in the keynote highlighted the main purpose of this conference was ‘the potential of working together’.
Insights into Building a Diamond OA ecosystem. International Speakers shared their own inspirational experience of launching/sustaining OA at their institutions proving that there is always a way, you just need to take the right approach. Despite budget issues, Jill Cirasella (The City of New York University) encouraged her institution to look at it as an ‘investment’ in their future. Universities in Nigeria used Bookhub to raise awareness amongst their scholars and networked across the country to strengthen their collective voice. Sarah Thompson (University of York & White Rose University Press) offers support for academic writers to encourage their involvement in OA. Finally, Martina Benz’s (University of Konstanz, Germany) message about sustainability was emphatic, citing this as a key selling point. There is no one size fits all approach – but these might just help create the winning combo to get your Institution on board.
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