Reimagining Openness in Academic Libraries
Sponsored by 
Online on 24th June 2026 and in person on 6th July 2026 at the Dalton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Ticket Prices
Bookings for #ALN26 are now open!
Please email us if you’d like to arrange any discounts for booking multiple attendees from your institution (please also see our guidance for bulk bookings).
Our Early Bird ticket prices are as follows:
ALN Members
- Early Bird ALN member online day: £30
- Early Bird ALN member in person day: £75
- Early Bird ALN member both days: £85
Non-ALN Members
- Early Bird Non-ALN member online day: £40
- Early Bird Non-ALN member in person day: £110
- Early Bird Non-ALN members both days: £125
Speakers are charged the Early Bird rate for whichever day they are presenting on (the price is dependent on whether you’re from an ALN institution or an external organisation).
If you are a sponsor, please book your place via a link which you should have received directly.
From 18th May, the Early Bird ends and the prices change to:
ALN Members
- ALN member online day: £40
- ALN member in person day: £98
- ALN member both days: £105
Non-ALN Members
- Non-ALN member online day: £60
- Non-ALN member in person day: £150
- Non-ALN members both days: £165
Programme
Thank you to everyone who submitted a proposal to be a part of the programme for #ALN26. A sub-group of the conference planning team is currently reviewing submissions and will be meeting in late March to go through them together. Once all submissions have been reviewed and everyone has been contacted, we will start to pull a programme together for the two days. We will aim to share the programme as soon as possible, even if it is only in a draft format initially.
Sponsored places
We are offering 10 sponsored places for both presenters and delegates at #ALN26. Sponsored places will cover attendance at both the online and in-person days, as well as provide a contribution towards travel costs (up to £80) for attending the in-person day. We are offering the places to those who work in an ALN institution or are studying in the North of England for a relevant qualification. We welcome applications from underrepresented population groups in the library community, and those who may otherwise have experienced barriers to attending to apply for a sponsored place.
If you are successful, you will be expected to produce a personal output within four weeks. This could include contributing to social media during the conference, producing a blog/vlog post summarising the sessions attended, or another creative way of showcasing your experience that can be published on the ALN website.
To apply for one of the sponsored places, please email alnconferenceteam@gmail.com. Use the email subject ‘ALN Sponsored Place Application’ and include the following information:
- Your name, job title, and name of the ALN institution you work for/study in.
- A maximum of 250 words on your anticipated learning outcomes of the conference, how you feel you will benefit from attending, and how you hope to put your learning into action.
- Your suggested output for promoting/contributing to the conference – e.g. a blog post.
- Whether you would like to attend the online day only, or the whole conference.
Applications should be received by the 29th April.
Call for current students to show case their work/experiences
New for this year, we’re excited to introduce an opportunity for students and early-career professionals to deliver a short talk as part of the conference. This is a great chance to share your experiences of being a student, reflect on your journey into your first role within libraries, or showcase the research you carried out for your dissertation. Whether you’d like to highlight challenges you’ve overcome, lessons you’ve learned, or insights from your research, we welcome a range of perspectives and stories. If you’re interested in contributing and sharing your experiences with the community, we’d love to hear from you.
*This is optional – you can apply for a sponsored place to attend without giving a short talk.*
If you do wish to deliver a short presentation (5-10 minutes), please indicate the title, short outline of the topic of your talk and whether you are hoping to attend for the in person or online day, in additional to process above. Please note this process is outside the call for papers for the overall conference so deadline for application is line with sponsored places which is the 29th of April.
Keynotes
Professor Stephen Pinfield, School of Information, Journalism and Communication at the University of Sheffield will be providing our keynote for the online day on 24 June 2026.
Caroline Ball is the Community Engagement Lead for the Open Book Collective, a charity working to bring together open access book publishers, publishing service providers, and libraries to work toward a sustainable future for open access books. Her previous roles include academic librarian, copyright and licensing advisor, and lecturer in publishing, as well as voluntary work as co-founder of the #ebookSOS campaign. She is also an active Wikipedian, was awarded the UK Wikimedian of the Year award in 2020, and currently serves on the Wikimedia UK board of trustees. Her research interests centre on knowledge equity, information ethics, and systemic barriers and biases in dominant knowledge systems. We are delighted to have Caroline deliver our keynote for the in person day on the 6th July 2026.
Caroline’s keynote title is: Open Access and Its Blind Spots: Rethinking Access, Legitimacy, and Knowledge. You can see Caroline’s abstract here.
Sponsors
We are working with new and returning sponsors who have supported the conference in recent years.
Platinum:
We are delighted to announce our platinum sponsor this year is Kortext.
Gold:
Our Gold in person sponsor is Bibliotheca + 3M
Silver:
Our Silver sponsors are: ACS Publications, Cambridge University Press, OCLC, Taylor & Francis and The Social History Archive.
Competition Prizes:
We have competition prizes from Facet and Taylor & Francis.
If are interested in sponsoring the conference, please get in touch with us at alnconferenceteam@gmail.com
Social Media
Please follow us on our socials to keep up to date on all things #ALN26:
Bluesky: @academiclibsnorth.bsky.social
Instagram: @academiclibrariesnorth
LinkedIn: Academic Libraries North: Posts | LinkedIn
Academic Libraries North 2026 Conference Committee: alnconferenceteam@gmail.com
Our Call for Papers has now closed!
We invited submissions exploring any aspect of the topic and in the following formats: Workshops (in person day only), Short papers, Lightning Talks, Panel Discussion, or even a Wild Card format! We welcome submissions from all colleagues working within any institution, whether they are ALN member institutions or not. We encouraged submissions from those looking to present for the first time and we particularly welcomed submissions from people belonging to under-represented and marginalised communities and sectors, including but not limited to global majority and UK ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+, those with disabilities and those who are neurodivergent.
Further details of the conference theme and sub-themes can be found here. We also created this resource to support you when developing a proposal. This is aimed in particular at first-time presenters, but everyone is welcome to view it.
We used this form for proposal submissions which were expected by 13th March 2026. You were asked to answer a short set of questions, which were combined to form an abstract.
If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, please contact us at alnconferenceteam@gmail.com.