After leaving the luxuries of our hotel’s breakfast hall and a walk through sunny Harrogate, we entered the UKSG annual conference at the Harrogate International Centre. Greeted with a goody bag and name tag we ventured, keen to be true ambassadors of students, into the conference hall, ready to enter as many ipad competitions and eat as much free chocolate as possible. The room was full of networking librarians and publishers and we enjoyed talking to representatives from a range of publishing companies and businesses.

We had two talks, one on Monday and one on Tuesday where we shared with the audience the findings from our research and our own perspectives on using resources. After our thirty minute talk, we provided them with a chance to ask us any questions.

The attendees of our breakout session were especially interested in our view of e-books in comparison to printed books. When sharing our opinions we also pointed out that our opinions aren’t only our own but also other students’ whose opinions we’ve received through our survey, focus group and all the conversations we’ve had with them regarding this topic.

Talking at the UKSG conference was a brilliant experience for all of us. Over the two days we had an audience of more than one hundred people to share our views with. It was great to talk to some of them afterwards including not only publishers but also other bloggers, university library staff and journalists who were eager to ask us more questions. From attending the conference we have learnt how difficult publishers find it to access students’ opinions and that the SAGE scheme at Sussex University is a completely unique way of combating this issue. We look forward to carrying on writing and improving our blog, reaching a wider audience, attending more conferences and organising more student-run events.

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