In this issue we bring you an autumn feast of articles and features to while away the dark evenings. First up is an interview with Roly Keating, reflecting on his first year as Chief Executive of the British Library. He describes the challenges and opportunities as he leads the British Library in achieving its goal of becoming one of the indispensable destinations on the web for anyone with a commitment to doing serious research.

Other people featured in this issue are Françoise Pellé, who tells us that it is impossible to be bored in her role as director of the ISSN International Centre, and we introduce Hannah Baldwin, the newest member of our editorial board. You can also find out what a typical day has in store for Phil Adams, librarian and curator of The Digitalpreservation Daily.

We have a number of articles based on plenary sessions given at the UKSG Annual Conference, Bournemouth in April. One of the most inspiring sessions of the conference was Joshua James Harding's, where he described how he became a paperless student. This is required reading for anyone involved in supporting or publishing for the new wave of digital students. Laurel L Haak has also written up her presentation on Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), explaining how this identifier has the potential to be the glue that solves the name ambiguity problem in scholarly communications. Liam Earney writes about two projects, KB+ and GOKb, that are addressing another scholarly communication problem by creating open data for knowledge bases.

The lightning talks were a new and very popular feature in the conference programme this year, and Sharon Duan and Claire Grace have written up their talk. It is a case study which will resonate with many librarians who face the challenge of efficiently acquiring e-books to meet the demands of their students, tutors and researchers.

The conference always presents the dilemma of which breakout sessions to choose – so, for those of you who missed them, we have brought you two articles based on these sessions. Mark Patterson describes how the funders behind eLife seek not only to create an open access journal, but one which addresses the deficiencies in the existing scholarly communications system. Joanna Ball's article is a case study on how the University of Sussex has tackled the management of research data on a shoestring.

Other articles in this edition include Rick Anderson and Mark England's on patron-driven acquisition of journal articles using ReadCube at the University of Utah and a useful update on the development of FundRef, provided by Kirsty Meddings.

Steve Shadle's article is a ‘must read’ for all publishers, explaining how libraries rely on publisher-generated data to enable resource discovery. Anna Clements explains how the library at St Andrews is managing research data and demonstrating the benefits of open data to its researchers. Peter Shepherd provides us with a medley of updates in the development of altmetrics, PIRUS and the Usage Factor project.

Three of our authors this month have asked us questions. David Walsh wants to know, “Digitization: surely it can't be that difficult?” Colin Steele asks, “Open access in Australia: an odyssey of sorts?” The third question is posed by the indomitable Regina Reynolds, who in our Key issue asks, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But would you be able to find any information about that rose if it were labelled, ‘Rorschach’?” Your Eds are not giving away the answers – you'll have to read the articles to find out!

Finally, we bring two very exciting pieces of Insights news! From our March issue next year, Insights will be fully open access – so you will be able to read all the features and articles as soon as they are published. We have also persuaded Caren Milloy and Ellen Collins to guest edit an Insights special edition on ‘Open access monographs’, to be published in the spring!!! Your regular Eds are quite enjoying sitting back and watching them work … we've even found time for a holiday!

Lorraine & Steve

Get mobile access to Insights by registering here:

http://uksg.metapress.com/identities/get-mobile-access

Insights: the UKSG journal is e-only. It is published three times a year and is included as one of the benefits of UKSG membership. It is also available on subscription. Some of the content in each new issue is open access: articles by the authors picked out in turquoise above are already OA and may be accessed by clicking on their name. All other articles will also be OA for non-members and non-subscribers in 12 months' time.

Click through to the relevant pages on the UKSG website for a list of the members of our international editorial board and for information on how to submit articles to Insights.

Back issues of Serials (the former name of the UKSG journal, comprising Volumes 1–24) can still be accessed (http://www.uksg.org/serials) and all the content is now open access. Volumes 25 and 26, Insights, can be accessed at http://uksg.metapress.com/content/122388.

Articles herein do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the journal, its editors or UKSG.