In Memoriam: Dr Paul Ayris (1957-2025)
In Memoriam for Dr Paul Ayris (1957-2025), Member of the Executive Board of LIBER 2005-2014, Vice-President of LIBER 2008-2010, and President of LIBER 2010-2014
It is with great sadness that LIBER shares the news of the recent passing of Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost at UCL Library Services, University College London. Paul served as LIBER President from 2010 – 2014 and as Chair and member of the Citizen Science Working Group, amongst various other roles. Since a long time, we know Paul as a friend, colleague and mentor for many in the European Research Library community.
Paul brought his profound experience, dedication, and wide expertise of libraries to the Board and as an active member of LIBER. Paul was instrumental for UCL Library’s leadership in the field of open science and more broadly a visionary for libraries in Europe. His presence at many LIBER events – the last one during the LIBER conference in Lausanne 2025 where he, together with colleagues, presented on Research Security and Open Science – characterised his everlasting support and passion for developing libraries towards the future as well as being deeply anchored in the community.
Jeannette Frey, Director of the Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire de Lausanne, and past President of LIBER, remembers Paul fondly:
Paul was the architect of a decisive turning point in LIBER’s direction. He pushed through a complete reform of its structures, focusing almost exclusively on digital collections, to the detriment of heritage and traditional working groups around printed collections. Since then, LIBER’s strategies have focused not only on digital, but in particular on Open – Open Access, Open Science, Citizen Science. In this respect, the future proved him right. I was delighted to see him again at the 2025 conference in Lausanne, and now mourn the loss of a friend and mentor.
LIBER Secretary-General Anja Smit, also remembers Paul as a role model for her and many colleagues:
He demonstrated to us how to successfuly pursue our open access mission by connecting to the broader academic and political level in our countries and within Europe. It was Paul who introduced LIBER libraries to European funding for innovative projects, became our ambassador who advocated for LIBER libraries with what seemed endless energy and passion.
An absolute highlight for LIBER members was the LIBER 2015 Annual Conference which Paul successfully brought to London as Chair of the Local Organising Committee, a collaboration between several academic libraries with a long tradition of working side-by-side.
We are very honoured to have known Paul Ayris as our colleague and friend in the LIBER community and remember him with the utmost respect.
Julien Roche
President of LIBER
Paul Ayris was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1957. He studied Theological and Religious Studies at the University of Cambridge, winning several prizes as an undergraduate. He went on to obtain a PhD, also at Cambridge, on the subject of Thomas Cranmer, the 16th-century Archbishop of Canterbury. His thesis was entitled Thomas Cranmer’s Register: A Record of Archiepiscopal Administration in Diocese and Province. Throughout his career he maintained his interest in historical research, writing extensively on English Reformation studies, and in 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 1989 he co-ordinated the exhibition Cranmer: Primate of All England, which was organised at the British Library by Cambridge University Library. In more recent years he prepared his doctoral thesis for publication as Thomas Cranmer’s Register; tragically, Paul never lived to see its publication by UCL Press in January 2026.
His career as a librarian began in 1978, when he was appointed as a graduate trainee at Cambridge University Library. He obtained an MA in Information Studies at the University of Sheffield and returned to Cambridge to work in the Scientific Periodicals Library. He then joined the Automation Division at the University Library and embraced the world of information technology, which at the time was still a relatively new aspect of librarianship and one which was to mould the rest of Paul’s career. He became the founding head of the IT Services Department in the University Library, where his main responsibility was to co-ordinate the installation of a library management system across the hundred or so libraries in the Cambridge University library system. Paul was very conscious of the need to encourage staff and help them to adjust to new systems. He instigated an IT training programme of staff development and established training events for the several hundred librarians within the university and the colleges. With the coming of the World-Wide Web, Paul ensured that the University’s libraries were well prepared for all the changes that this new technology would bring. Shortly before he left Cambridge in 1997, he was instrumental in pressing for a review of the library management system which had been developed in-house over a period of two decades and which was reaching the point where its development path was proving limited and its functionality was lagging beyond that provided by commercial systems. The result of the review led to the purchase of a new library management system in 2000.
In 1997 Paul left Cambridge to become Deputy Librarian at University College London (UCL) and within a few months he was appointed Director of Library Services following the retirement of the Librarian. He immediately began to display the energy and vision that was to typify the rest of his career. He led a change management programme for the seventeen institutions that formed the UCL family of libraries and was responsible for major building refurbishments across UCL Library Services, including the creation of a new 1,000-seat Student Centre run by the Library and for the creation of an 600-seat Learning Hub on UCL’s new campus in East London.
His portfolio of responsibilities gradually increased. He became UCL’s Copyright Officer, having developed a copyright policy for student work, which became a model of good practice for the UK, and led the international working group which published The Hague Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age.
His major legacy to the world of scholarship is undoubtedly his championing of Open Access publishing. Like many academic librarians around the turn of the Millennium, Paul was concerned at the restrictions on access to research articles imposed by commercial publishers and was pressing for a new approach. In 2006 Paul served on the Wellcome Trust’s Library Advisory Committee; Dr Mark Walport, the Director of the Trust, arrived at a Committee meeting frustrated because he had been unable to consult an article based on Wellcome-funded research because it had been published in a journal not taken by the Trust’s library. He realised the strength of the arguments that Paul and others had been making and appreciated the need for a new approach; Wellcome’s establishment of UK PubMed Central and its funding of Open Access followed shortly afterwards.
At UCL Paul became Pro-Vice-Provost in 2018 with an expanded portfolio that included the University’s libraries, museums and collections, public engagement, Open Access and Open Science activities. He developed the UCL Press, which is now recognised as a pioneer of Open Access publishing, and his championing of UCL’s Open Science activities led to its inclusion as a core requirement in the University’s academic promotions framework.
Paul relished his expanded portfolio at UCL but his influence extended far beyond the confines of his university. He pursued his public engagement and Open Access activities with great energy and enthusiasm, speaking at conferences and meetings around the world. As President of LIBER and through his work with LERU (League of European Research Universities) he was a decisive influence on the development of both organisations.
Paul Ayris’s first contact with LIBER was through attending its Annual General Conferences. In 2005 he was elected to the LIBER Executive Board and on joining the Board he was appointed Chair of the Access Division, one of the four Professional Divisions LIBER members were entitled to join. Under Paul’s leadership, the Division actively participated in numerous projects including the DART-Europe portal for access to research theses in European universities and the DRIVER initiative for a worldwide network of content repositories. Keen to disseminate the Division’s activities to LIBER members and more widely, Paul introduced a series of newsletters.
The years 2007 to 2009 saw many progressive changes in LIBER with a new Strategy ‘Making the Case for European Research Libraries’, the recruitment of its first Executive Director, Wouter Schallier, the transition to a Foundation (Stichting) under Dutch law and the transfer of its Secretariat from Copenhagen to The Hague. In 2008 Paul was elected LIBER Vice-President and then became LIBER President from 2010 to 2014.
As LIBER President, Paul drove himself hard, always willing to produce ideas, to initiate and to take on manifold responsibilities. His passion was Open Access. From the 1990s, the LIBER Board had taken a strong interest in exploring the options for self-publishing in libraries and universities to counter exorbitant periodical prices. Open Access became a central theme of LIBER’s activities. Paul utilised his Presidency to advocate tirelessly for Open Access and disseminate the cause across Europe. In practice, this meant a taxing programme of workshops, presentations, articles (often in LIBER Quarterly) and significant travel to different parts of Europe. Nevertheless, Paul set about the task with gusto and enthusiasm since he believed so fundamentally in the importance of open access for open societies. He was Chair of the Organizing Committee for the OAI4-OAI11 (2005-2025) meetings on Innovations in Scholarly Communication in Geneva, which began in 2000 with 50 participants and is now a global initiative with 1,300 participants. Paul’s last meeting was that held online on 10-14 November 2025, where he gave a paper on ‘The Future for Open Access beyond Transitional Arrangements’, in which he raised the question of whether the current leadership gap on the future for Open Access could be filled by China acting as a bridge between the global north and the global south.
While Vice-President, Paul took the initiative on promoting positive links with the European Commission, an aim of the new LIBER Strategy. Along with the Executive Director, he visited the Commission to explain LIBER’s priorities and to build understanding of LIBER’s role. This led to a much greater involvement by LIBER in European projects, assisted by the appointment of an able European Projects Manager, Susan Reilly. This was a high point of LIBER’s participation and co-operation with other European research libraries in advancing EU projects of benefit to European research libraries and their societies.
After stepping down as LIBER President in 2014, Paul continued as an Adviser to the LIBER Board on EU matters and Horizon 2020. For its part LIBER had given Paul access to the strong network of European research libraries that had grown up in the aftermath of the political change in Europe in the late 1980s, and a very effective platform for continuing to advocate energetically for open access and open science after his formal connection with LIBER ended. He acted as Co-Chair for the LERU [League of European Research Universities] INFO Community, chaired the Working Groups on the LERU Roadmaps for Open Access, Research Data and Open Science from 2009 to 2025, and was appointed Chair of the LERU Open Science Ambassadors in 2025.
Throughout his years in LIBER Paul maintained his scholarly interests in English Reformation studies alongside his professional library career. These also influenced one of his favourite recreational hobbies, visiting and photographing church exteriors and interiors in the UK and in other countries where he travelled. He was devoted to his garden in Cambridge and frequently posted images of his flowers and shrubs in full bloom; and his enjoyment of different cuisines was reflected in the many images on Facebook of restaurant dishes from varying traditions and dinner tables at home.
No-one who knew Paul will ever forget his characteristically hearty laugh when something amused him. Gregarious but also reflective, he loved discussing ideas which were always future-oriented. He was decisive but he would readily bow to alternative ideas if he was convinced. He was a courteous, collegiate and pleasant colleague; he was extremely hard working in whatever role he held and somehow he always seemed to be rushing from here to there.
Paul was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the library world of the 21st century and his untimely death came when he was at the height of his career. He was a gifted communicator, able to combine intellectual clarity with warmth, humour and generosity; he inspired many in the profession and beyond, both though his public engagements and his private conversations. He was also a great friend, a witty conversationalist, a bon viveur and a skilled cook, serving superb dinners accompanied by well-chosen wines from the specially-built store in his garden. He will be enormously missed by his many colleagues and friends worldwide.
Peter Fox
Former Vice-President of LIBER
University Librarian Emeritus, University of Cambridge
Ann Matheson
Former Secretary-General of LIBER