The Person Library is a dedicated library type within ShowOff that allows you to store, manage and display people who are not necessarily part of your current event programme.

The most common use for a Person Library is to retain past speakers when preparing your website for a new event cycle. Rather than deleting previous speakers or leaving them within the active Speakers module, you can move their public profiles into a separate Person Library.

This allows you to keep a useful archive of previous speakers while keeping your current Speakers module focused on people participating in the upcoming event.

Person Libraries aren't limited to past speakers. They can also be used for:

• Authors
• Artists
• Advisory board members
• Committee members
• Judges
• Event staff
• Contributors
• Caterers
• Show organisers
• Sponsor representatives
• Other people who need to appear on your website without being part of the current event programme

A simple way to decide which area to use is:

Current programme participant = Speakers module

Person displayed independently of the current programme = Person Library

This is important because Person Library entries cannot be associated with sessions. If somebody is speaking at your upcoming event and needs to appear against sessions or seminars, they should remain within the Speakers module.

Why retain past speakers?

When relaunching your website or preparing for the next event cycle, we strongly recommend retaining useful past-speaker content rather than simply deleting it.

Previous speaker profiles can continue to provide useful information for visitors and search engines. They demonstrate the history and calibre of your event and provide your website with a larger body of relevant industry content.

From an SEO perspective, existing speaker pages may also have already been discovered and indexed by search engines. They may have accumulated value through previous search activity, internal links and links from other websites.

Simply deleting these pages can result in previously valid URLs returning a 404 Not Found response.

The Person Library provides a way of retaining this content while clearly separating previous speakers from those appearing at your upcoming event.

What are we going to do?

The complete migration can be broken down into four main stages:

1. Export and prepare your existing speaker data
2. Create your new Person Library and import your past speakers
3. Configure and optimise your new Person Library
4. Redirect your old Speaker URLs to the new Person URLs

Stage 1: Export and prepare your existing speakers

The first stage is to identify which speakers belong to your previous event and remove them from the active Speakers module without deleting their records.

1. Export your Speakers

1. In ShowOff, go to Modules > Speakers.

2. Select More > Export Speakers.

3. Select Edit Layout.

4. Select the fields you want to export. For ease, you can toggle all fields on.

5. Select Apply Layout.

6. Select More > Export as CSV/XLS.

You now have a spreadsheet containing your existing speaker information, including previous speakers, returning speakers and any other people you've managed through the Speakers module.

2. Identify your past speakers

You'll now need to separate your previous speakers from anybody returning for your next event.

1. Open your exported spreadsheet.

2. Identify any speakers who WILL be returning for your next event.

3. Remove these returning speakers from your working migration file.

4. Check that the remaining records only contain people you want to move into your historical Person Library.

If you've previously used categories or another field to identify different groups of speakers, you can use these to make this process easier.

3. Mark your past speakers as inactive

Once your file contains only your past speakers:

1. Find the Is Active? column.

2. Change the value for every remaining speaker to No / Inactive.

3. Save your updated file as a CSV.

Don't delete any other speaker information from this file, as we'll use the same data to populate your new Person Library shortly.

4. Update your Speakers module

You'll now import this file back into the Speakers module to make your previous speakers inactive.

1. Go to Modules > Speakers.

2. Select More > Import.

3. Upload your updated CSV.

4. Select Submit.

5. Set the Import Method to Update existing.

6. Map the following fields to their corresponding columns:

• Entry Code
• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Active/Inactive

7. Make sure Active/Inactive is mapped to the Is Active? column in your spreadsheet.

8. Select Submit.

9. On the following screen, map the value No from your spreadsheet to Inactive within ShowOff.

10. Submit and complete the import.

Your previous speakers will now be inactive and will no longer appear publicly through the Speakers module.

Importantly, these records haven't been deleted. They remain within ShowOff and can still be referenced or reactivated in future.

Stage 2: Create your Person Library

Now that the previous speakers have been separated from your current programme, you can create their new home.

5. Create the Library

1. Go to Libraries > Add New Library.

2. Enter a title for your library.

For example:

• Past Speakers
• Previous Speakers
• Speaker Alumni
• 2026 Speakers

3. Open the Type dropdown.

4. Select Person.

5. Create the Library.

Selecting Person is important because this gives your Library the structured fields specifically designed for storing information about people.

6. Understand the available Person fields

Your Person Library includes structured fields for:

• Entry Code
• Title
• First Name
• Last Name
• Profile Picture
• Description
• Email
• Job Title
• Phone Number
• Country
• Exhibitor
• Company
• Company Logo
• Social profiles

You can also create Custom Fields if you need to store additional information.

Three fields are particularly important when importing:

Entry Code, First Name and Last Name are required.

Your Entry Code must also be unique within the Library.

7. Import your past speakers

Now we'll use the CSV created during Stage 1 to populate the new Library.

1. Open your newly created Person Library.

2. Select More > Import Entries.

3. Upload the CSV you created earlier.

4. Select Submit.

5. Set the Import Method to Add New.

For your first import into an empty Library, you should use Add New. Future imports can use Update existing or Add + Update where appropriate.

6. Map each relevant column from your spreadsheet to its corresponding Person field.

For example:

• Entry Code → Entry Code
• First Name → First Name
• Last Name → Last Name
• Job Title → Job Title
• Company → Company
• Description → Description
• Profile Picture → Profile Picture

7. Double-check that Entry Code, First Name and Last Name have been mapped.

8. Select Submit.

9. Review the data on the confirmation screen.

10. Finalise the import.

Your past speakers should now appear as individual entries within your new Person Library.

Stage 3: Configure your Person Library

Now that the people have been imported, we'll configure how the Library appears and behaves on your website.

8. Open your Library settings

1. Open your Person Library.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.

3. Select Library Options.

You'll find several areas that allow you to control the URL, layout, display behaviour and SEO settings.

9. Configure the General settings

Open the General tab.

Set your URL

1. Find the Library URL setting.

2. Enter a descriptive URL such as:

past-speakers

or:

2026-speakers

For an ongoing archive that you'll add to each year, something like past-speakers will usually make more sense than tying the entire Library to a particular year.

Choose your list layout

3. Select the appropriate list template.

A Grid works particularly well for a standalone Past Speakers page.

A Carousel can work well when placing the Library within a larger page because visitors can browse the people without creating a very long page.

Set your pagination

4. Choose how many entries you want to display per page.

For example, if you have 50 past speakers and set this to 40, the first 40 will appear on page one and the remaining 10 on page two.

Pagination doesn't hide or remove any speakers.

Set the click behaviour

5. Set the entry click behaviour to Direct.

We strongly recommend Direct for past-speaker libraries.

This means every person receives their own page and URL, for example:

/past-speakers/alexander-harrington

Individual URLs allow search engines to discover each profile independently and, importantly, give us somewhere relevant to redirect the person's previous Speaker URL.

10. Configure your Display settings

Open the Display tab.

1. Choose how your entries should be ordered.

For people, we'd generally recommend:

• First Name
• Last Name

2. Decide whether you want visitors to be able to search the Library.

3. Add Free Text if you'd like a search bar above the listing.

4. Add any additional supported filters that are useful for your Library.

Search and filtering can be particularly useful if you have a large archive containing hundreds of people.

11. Configure your SEO settings

Open the SEO tab.

Add your Meta Title

1. Add a clear Meta Title describing the page.

For example:

Past Speakers | Example Event

Add your Meta Description

2. Add a concise description explaining what visitors will find.

For example:

Explore previous speakers from Example Event and discover the industry experts, thought leaders and innovators who have taken part in past events.

Check your indexing settings

3. Find Set up 'Index & Follow' meta tags.

4. Make sure this is set to Index, Follow.

5. Find Force NoIndex, Follow on Entries.

6. Make sure this is set to No.

These should be the default settings, but they're worth checking.

They allow search engines to discover both the main Person Library and the individual Person pages within it.

12. Style your Person Library

Open the Layout Settings tab.

From here you can adjust elements such as:

• Colours
• Sizing
• Image sizes
• Image shapes
• Alignment
• General presentation

If you're familiar with the Speaker settings in Composer 2, many of these options will look familiar.

This means you can make your Past Speakers Library visually match your current Speakers listing while keeping the underlying records completely separate.

You can see examples on our Showcase site:

Grid:
https://showcase.asp.events/community/speakers-1/grid

Carousel:
https://showcase.asp.events/community/speakers-1/carousel

Past Speakers example:
https://showcase.asp.events/community/past-speakers

Stage 4: Redirect your old Speaker URLs

Your past speakers now exist in their new Library, but there's one final and very important stage.

We need to redirect their old Speaker URLs to their new Person URLs.

For example:

/speakers/alexander-harrington

should redirect to:

/past-speakers/alexander-harrington

This prevents visitors and search engines reaching a missing page after the migration.

We'll use a 301 redirect, which tells browsers and search engines that the content has permanently moved to a new URL.

13. Export your website URLs

1. Go to Reports > Scheduled Reports.

2. Select URL Export from the dropdown.

3. Select Edit Layout.

4. Add the following fields:

• Title
• Content Type
• Slug

The Slug is the essential field you'll need for the redirect.

5. Apply your layout.

6. Select More > Export.

7. Export the report in your preferred spreadsheet format.

14. Match the old and new URLs

Open your exported URL file.

1. Find the old URLs belonging to the Speakers you made inactive.

They'll generally look something like:

/speakers/joe-bloggs

2. Use the Is Active? column, where available, to help identify the inactive records.

3. Create a new column called:

Destination URL

4. Find the corresponding new Person Library URL for each Speaker.

For example:

/past-speakers/joe-bloggs

5. Add this URL to the Destination URL column alongside the old URL.

6. Repeat this process for every past speaker you're migrating.

Top tip: If you're migrating hundreds of speakers, spreadsheet or AI-assisted data matching tools can help match the old and new URLs. Always manually review the resulting matches before uploading them.

15. Prepare your redirect file

Once you've matched all your URLs:

1. Remove any records that don't require a redirect.

2. Remove the top row containing your column headings.

3. Add a new column.

4. Enter the value 301 against every redirect.

Your finished data should therefore contain the information required to identify:

Old URL → New URL → 301

The 301 tells browsers and search engines that the page has permanently moved.

5. Save the file as a TXT file.

6. Name it exactly:

redirect.txt

7. Change the file extension from .txt to .config.

Your final filename must be:

redirect.config

The file must be named exactly redirect.config for the redirects to work.

16. Upload and test your redirects

You're nearly there!

1. Open Media Manager.

2. Navigate to the root folder. This is the main Media Manager area before opening any individual folders.

3. Upload your redirect.config file.

4. Once uploaded, go to:

Settings > SEO Settings > Redirects

5. Check that your redirects are showing.

6. Open your website in a browser.

7. Test a selection of the old Speaker URLs.

For example, enter:

/speakers/joe-bloggs

8. Confirm that you're automatically taken to:

/past-speakers/joe-bloggs

We'd recommend testing several different people rather than checking only one.

Migration complete!

Once all four stages have been completed, you should now have:

1. Your current Speakers module

This contains the active speakers participating in your upcoming event and retains the functionality required for programme and session relationships.

2. Your Past Speakers Person Library

This contains speakers from previous events, allowing visitors and search engines to continue accessing their profiles without suggesting they're appearing at your upcoming event.

3. Your 301 redirects

These connect the old Speaker URLs with the new Person URLs, helping visitors and search engines find the new location of the content.

This gives you a clean current speaker programme while retaining useful content from previous event cycles.

Other ways to use Person Libraries

Although past speakers are the primary use case, you can use exactly the same functionality for other collections of people, including:

• Advisory Boards
• Judges
• Authors
• Artists
• Committee Members
• Event Teams
• Contributors
• Organisers
• Sponsor Representatives

You can create multiple Person Libraries on the same website, allowing each collection to have its own URL, presentation and purpose.

Person Libraries also support standard Library functionality including creating, editing, activating and deactivating entries, CSV imports and exports, Custom Fields, Library widgets and individual entry pages.

Person Libraries are also supported by the Site Copier.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I move my current speakers into a Person Library?

Generally, no.

If somebody is participating in the current event programme and needs to be associated with sessions, they should remain within the Speakers module.

Will a speaker's sessions move into the Person Library?

No.

Person Library entries don't retain session relationships. The Person Library represents the individual independently of the current event programme.

Can I create more than one Person Library?

Yes. There is no limit to the number of Person Libraries you can create.

Can I import people using a CSV?

Yes.

Person Libraries support CSV imports and exports. Remember that Entry Code, First Name and Last Name are required, and Entry Codes must be unique within the Library.

Can I add additional fields?

Yes.

Person Libraries support Custom Fields for information that isn't covered by the standard Person fields.

Can I link a Person to an Exhibitor?

Yes.

Person entries include an Exhibitor field that can associate the person with an exhibitor from your site's Exhibitors module.

Can I link a Person to a session?

No.

If somebody needs to participate in a current session, they should normally be managed through the Speakers module.

Can I use this on a custom website?

Person Library data can exist within ShowOff, but custom websites may require additional frontend development to display it.

Composer 2 is the supported out-of-the-box implementation.

If you're using a custom website, speak to ASP before beginning your migration so compatibility can be confirmed.

I've created a Person Library but it isn't appearing

Check that:

1. The Library is active.
2. The individual entries are active.
3. The relevant Library list or widget has been added to the website.
4. Your website has been published where required.

If you're using a custom website, please contact ASP Support so we can confirm whether the frontend supports Person Libraries.

I can't see 'Person' when creating a Library

The Person Library type needs to be available within your site's configuration.

If Person doesn't appear within the Library Type dropdown, please contact ASP Support.