Keynote Speaker for 2022 Conference Announced

The Collaboration is thrilled to welcome back long-time regional colleague, Antony Brewerton as this year’s keynote speaker.

Each year the Conference Group chair and committee seeks to identify and invite a keynote speaker who can draw insights around the core conference theme for attendees. More importantly though, the committee tries to find speakers who can also energise, empathise and engage with the audience in new and exciting ways

For this September’s (6-7th) event focussing on Redefining Engagement, the Conference Group is thrilled to have found someone who embodies all these qualities and more to serve as our opening keynote speaker at the 2022 conference. This is Associate Director for Academic Library Services, and Keeper of Collections at the Bodleian Libraries Antony (Ant) Brewerton. Many in the region will be well familiar with Ant and his engaging, personable manner from his years working at the University of Warwick’s library. In recent times Ant may have departed for an exciting new role at the University of Oxford, but the Conference Group were pleased to find him so willing to consider a return engagement to help launch our conference.

Conference Group Chair, Deborah Munro said ‘I am positively delighted that Ant has accepted our invitation to return to the Mercian Collaboration and speak at the conference. As a well-respected senior library manager, he brings with him a lifetime of experience coupled with the unique awareness of the Collaboration’s regional library scene.’

For his own part, Ant himself was also excited by the prospect. ‘It will be a great pleasure to be back with my Mercian colleagues talking about a topic so close to my heart.  I can’t wait!’

The call for conference speakers recently closed, and in the coming weeks the Conference Group Committee will be reviewing and considering all applications before announcing the outline event programme. Bookings for the conference will open mid-summer, with once again no charges being made to attendees.

Further Information

For more information on the conference, visit the dedicated micro-site, contact group chair Deborah Munro (d.munro@aston.ac.uk) or any member of the Conference Group team.

For any and all other questions relating to the Collaboration, contact the Executive Officer.