The summer is really flying by and we’re looking forward to this year’s Icepops conference which is taking place at the beautiful John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester in September. We are really delighted to now be able to issue the draft programme, with an exciting line up of speakers participating in lightning talks. We have both UK and international speakers speaking at the conference and are delighted to see some familiar faces on the programme including our previous keynote and guest on our podcast, Doug McCarthy, and a long time friend from Sweden, Inga-Lill Nilsson. Other speakers include: Ana Enriquez from Pennsylvania State University Libraries and we are also delighted to be joined by previous speakers at Icepops and guests from our webinars including: Megan Kilvington, Irene Barranco-Garcia, Christine Daoutis, Bridget McCall, Kirsty Knowles and Lisa Moore. Sarah Brear from the CLA will also be speaking as will Diane Crawford-Leighton.
Keynote speakers
This year’s keynote speakers have now given us full details of their talks. Our keynote speaker Monica Westin, will be giving a talk entitled: “Atomic Scholarship: Reassembling authorship and research impact in the age of AI-synthesized knowledge.” She tell us:
As generative and agentic AI shifts scholarly discovery from discrete bibliographic citations to algorithmically synthesised, synopsis-oriented knowledge representations, new “knowledge units” are blurring both the copyright boundaries that shield academic expression and the metrics that define impact and value for libraries and publishers. In my keynote I will trace the legal, technical, and ethical ripple effects of post-LLM information production and examine how this shift challenges and potentially reshapes the core roles of academic libraries and publishers as stewards of quality, provenance, and equitable access. I will suggest approaches for creating healthier, symbiotic partnerships across and with AI-driven discovery systems and propose guardrails like new copyright-balanced licensing models, authorship protocols, contribution weights, and refreshed impact metrics to help keep scholarly communication transparent, credible, and well-incentivized. Finally, as a proponent of Open Access, I will reflect on the unique role of OA in this brave new world and current challenges and opportunities for the broader open knowledge movement.
Later in the afternoon we have a featured presentation from Mat Bancroft who will be in conversation with Chris, discussing copyright and the British Pop Archive.
Mat is the Curator at the British Pop Archive, John Rylands Research Institute and Library. The British Pop Archive launched publicly in 2022 and is a national collection of pop culture, youth culture and counter-culture materials. Part of the University of Manchester’s ‘Special Collections’, the archive is housed at the John Rylands Library in the heart of the city. It currently comprises 28 individual archives, plus small donations, including the archive of Ian Curtis, Cosey Fanni Tutti & Chris Carter, Tony Wilson, Kevin Cummins, Linda Brogan and Mike Pickering.
The contemporary nature of the materials within the archives, dating from the 1950’s through to the present day – means that nearly all of the content of the British Pop Archive will be in copyright. In this in-conversation, Chris Morrison discusses the ways that the British Pop Archive manages acquisition of and access to the collection with curator Mat Bancroft.
Book your place!
Tickets are selling fast and we have a limited number available, so don’t delay and book your place at Icepops today!
Copyright Literacy 
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