Icepops 2025
Icepops is the International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars.
The sixth edition of Icepops (Icepops 2025) took place at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester on Tuesday 9th September with the ALT CoOL SIG AGM and library tours taking place on Wednesday 10th September. Our keynote speaker was Monica Westin, Associate Director Content & Discovery, Manchester Metropolitan University. We were also joined by Mat Bancroft, Curator at the British Pop Archive, John Rylands Research Institute and Library. In addition, the conference included lightning talks and lots of opportunities to share creative approaches to copyright literacy and copyright education. As usual there was an evening social and we arranged tours of local libraries, including the British Pop Archive. This event is supported by the CILIP Information Literacy Group and we were delighted to be sponsored by the CLA, ERA, PMLL and ALT.
The final conference programme is now available which includes links to the presentations from the day and a selection of photos.
Bookings are now closed
Icepops was devised by Chris Morrison and Jane Secker and is run in conjunction with the CILIP Information Literacy Group.
Call for papers
The theme of the 2025 conference was “Copyright, safe spaces and sanctuary” with the following sub-themes:
- Reflection, empathy and emotion
- Long term thinking and planning for the future
- Building and supporting communities
- Supporting and nurturing others
- Finding joy in your work
Conference format and programme
The conference programme is now available.
The conference includes:
Lightning talks: Presenters typically have 5 minutes to deliver a plenary presentation on copyright education.
Evening Social: Food, drinks, chat and song – more details coming soon!
Who should attend?
Icepops is aimed at copyright specialists and non-specialists, librarians, archivists, curators, learning technologists, educational developers, teachers, lecturers, publishers and creators involved in copyright education. The focus is on all levels of education from schools to higher education and continuing professional development. US, UK and international delegates are invited to share their experiences with colleagues.
Bursaries
We are delighted to offer 5 fully funded bursary places at Icepops 2025, due to generous support from the Copyright Licensing Agency. The bursary includes a full place at the conference with up to £200 towards travel and accommodation. The bursary winners were announced via a blog post.
What people have said about Icepops:
Booking and costs:
Bookings for Icepops 2025 are closed.
Costs : Includes attendance, refreshments, an evening social and the post-conference events. Travel and accommodation will need to be booked separately.
ILG / CILIP member / Presenter / Student rate: £60 (including VAT)
Full rate: £75 (including VAT)
Accommodation: There are a wide variety of hotels close to the venue and details will be posted shortly.
Our Keynote Speaker
Our keynote speaker is Monica Westin, Associate Director Content & Discovery, Manchester Metropolitan University. Monica’s talk is entitled: “Atomic Scholarship: Reassembling authorship and research impact in the age of AI-synthesized knowledge.”
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.
Featured Presentation
Mat Bancroft, Curator at the British Pop Archive, John Rylands Research Institute and Library will be in conversation with Chris Morrison discussing copyright and the British Pop Archive.
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.
Previous editions of Icepops
The fifth edition of Icepops was a pocket edition and took place at Leeds Beckett University from 8-9 September 2024. The theme was Copyright and the human being. They keynote speaker was Kyle K Courtney from Harvard University. Presentation and resources from the event are available from the online programme.
The fourth edition of Icepops took place at the University of Glasgow from 19-21 July 2023. The event was co-sponsored by CREATe (UK Copyright and Creative Economy Centre) at the University of Glasgow and included a pre-conference event on e-books and e-lending. Our keynote speakers were Prof Nicola Whitton, Northumbria University and Dr Amy Thomas, University of Glasgow. Presentations, resources and photos from the event are available from the online programme.
The third in-person edition of Icepops 2022 was held at the Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy on Thursday 8th September, followed by an evening social and tours of the Bodleian and Museum of Natural History on Friday 9th September. Our keynote speakers were Prof Emily Hudson, Kings College, London, Dr Andrea Wallace, University of Exeter and Douglas McCarthy, Europeana Foundation.
You can view presentations and photos from 2022 and we held a webinar on Friday 23rd September 2022 to share highlights from the conference.
Details about the previous conferences are available including the presentations and photos from 2018 and presentations and photos from 2019.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Icepops! was held in June 2021. The programme includes links to the presentations and recordings of the lightning talks. You can also access further details about speakers including their abstracts. Please note our World Cafe sessions were not recorded, but there are further resources available from World Cafe presenters.
Organisers and sponsors:
The event is being organised by Chris Morrison and Jane Secker (copyrightliteracy.org) and the Information Literacy Group.
Copyright Literacy 