After two unsuccessful attempts to postpone the third of our RSE-funded RIVAL network events, Dr Bruce Ryan and I have admitted defeat. With the support of the RIVAL project board members, we have decided to keep Thursday 19th November 2020 as the date for RIVAL event 3 and run it as a virtual meeting that afternoon.

One advantage of this decision is that some of the RIVAL network resources that would not normally have been made publicly available until after the event will now be posted online beforehand. These include three recorded presentations:

1. A keynote entitled ‘Public library services and citizenship: a longitudinal analysis of roles, impact, and value’ by Dr Leo Appleton of the University of Sheffield
2. A Research into Practice case study entitled ‘Digital library futures: the impact of e-legal deposit in the academic sector’ by Dr Paul Gooding of the University of Glasgow with Dr Frankie Wilson of Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
3. A Research into Practice case study entitled ‘Syrian new Scots’ information literacy way-finding practices’ Dr Konstantina Martzoukou and Professor Simon Burnett of Robert Gordon University

Abstracts for these presentations and further resources related to each one are available on the RIVAL event 3 web page.

In place of the planned visit to the ‘Scottish LIS research market’, we have asked representatives of each of the five Scottish universities which engage in LIS research to provide a poster (or equivalent) to be made accessible from the RIVAL web site prior to the event. Colleagues at Edinburgh Napier University, Robert Gordon University, University of Edinburgh; University of Glasgow, and University of Strathclyde will use this opportunity to showcase their ‘wares’ and invite RIVAL network members (and others) to contact them should they wish to learn more about the LIS research at these universities and possible future collaborations.

Although we are sorry that the RIVAL network members will not meet in person at Event 3 as initially planned, we are pleased that the virtual format will widen the reach of some of the resources created for the RIVAL project. In the meantime, we keep our fingers crossed that RIVAL event 4 on 28th January 2021 might go ahead on site and in person.