Good morning everyone, it’s really great to see you all here.
Thank you to Helen, Chad and the team of Library volunteers for bringing us all together today. And thank you all for taking the time to be part of this Innovation Gathering
Today’s Gathering is very much a physical incarnation of the Libraries Connected online ‘Library Innovator’s Community’, which aims to;
· Share ideas
· Connect library staff across the UK
· Join up thinking
· Reduce duplication
· Collectively grow together
Many of you may already be members of the online Innovator’s Community, if not please do let Helen know if you’d like to join.
Today is an extension of that network and aims to showcase the innovative work taking place in libraries across the British Isles, giving you the opportunity to create new connections and think collectively about how to improve your library services.
Speaking personally, the Innovation Day is one of the most important days in my diary.
To my mind this is where our profession demonstrates its energy, vitality and relevance across all areas of life.
Libraries have been doing a lot of thinking about the future recently. Since the start of the year we’ve seen both Baroness Sanderson’s Independent Review of English Public Libraries and CILIP’s Come Rain or Shine trend report published. Both give us a lot to consider, as we look to develop and grow our services.
The Sanderson review picks up and amplifies a number of the themes and projects that we’ve been discussing for some time. A national data hub to better evidence the role libraries play in our society; a national branding campaign to raise awareness of our libraries; universal child membership, to name but a few of the recommendations.
These may sound a bit mundane on paper, but they have the potential to be revolutionary for our profession. Imagine a world where every child is automatically a member of their local library and their family engaged with the benefits that library membership can bring. A world where everyone knows that their library is a place where they are going to be warmly welcomed and can freely use its myriad resources and be part of a broader community. And a world where we can clearly evidence to our politicians the vital role libraries play across education, heath & wellbeing, culture and social cohesion.
None of this is easy to achieve or straight forward to implement and CILIP’s Come Rain or Shine report highlights some of the challenges ahead. There’s been a mixed recovery across library services following Covid; severe financial constraints; rapidly changing technology; varying service offers across the country and an ever-aging workforce with 40% aged over 55 (though the room today suggests more than a little hope on that particular issue)
Both the Sanderson review and the Come Rain or Shine report are essential reading. One point that caused my ears to prick up, though, was Come Rain or Shine’s subtitle, Preparing Public Libraries for the Future in an Age of Uncertainty. Can anyone really tell me when the ‘age of certainty’ was for libraries? Yes, there was a brief period of stability in the late 90s and early 2000’s, before the Internet and austerity took a hold, but I do question the notion of certainty.
This idea of ‘certainty’ chimed with something I read recently in the excellent, The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur Der Weduwen. It’s a fascinating overview of how libraries have developed in the West since antiquity, through the dark ages into the flowering of public libraries in the 19th century and onwards to today.
It’s also a book about how libraries have always been defined by changing ‘tech’ and the communities who use them. Whether it was Roman aristocrats collecting papyrus scrolls, chained books in monastery libraries or ‘pulp’ twentieth century romance fiction, there’s been a constant dialogue in play as to what libraries should hold, what libraries are ‘about’ and who should have access to them.
In their prologue Pettegree and Weduwen take a long view over the ebbing and flowing fortunes of libraries, concluding that;
“What we frequently see…is not so much the apparently wanton destruction (of libraries)…. It is neglect and redundancy, as books and collections that represented the values and interests of one generation fail to speak to the one that follows.”
And that is it, that is the nubbin of it;
“The books and collections that represented the values and interests of one generation fail to speak to the one that follows.”
There’s absolutely no doubt, we have been turned inside out as a profession over the last quarter a century with technological and political changes, but we must guard against expending too much energy trying to get back to the mythical stability of a long status quo, instead of identifying, addressing and rising to the challenges ahead of us. Instead of productively innovating.
We must learn to live in a volatile, uncertain and changeable world and adapt our work according. If we become wedded to form over function, if we become bogged down defending a past status quo, that is when we become irrelevant. When we step back and ask what our true purpose is, we give ourselves space to rethink how we can achieve that purpose.
For me that purpose is about helping people realise their potential in every sense of the word. Libraries as places where everyone can freely access resources and support to develop their education, underpin their wellbeing, fire-up their creativity and define themselves as citizens within their communities.
When I was thinking ahead for today my mind kept being drawn back to an initiative we ran several years ago in Jersey for World Book Day. We asked a local photographer to set up shop in our Central Library and invited islanders to come and be photographed holding a copy of their favourite book. A really simple idea, that proved fantastically popular, with hundreds of readers being photographed over the course of the day.
As we got close to closing time a woman came in with her young grandson. He was photographed happily clutching a copy of the Gruffalo and I naively assumed we’d done. But the woman stopped me as I led them out and dipped into her bag, pulling out a small book called; Living with It: A Survivor’s Guide to Overcoming Panic and Anxiety. ‘This is my favourite and most important book’, she said to me, ‘Without this I couldn’t leave the house’. And she held the book proudly and had her photo taken.
And in that short exchange I could see clearly not only the power and potential of libraries to change lives, but how innovation and partnerships could leverage and amplify that potential. Because this woman didn’t just happenupon the book on a dusty shelf. She found it through our local Books on Prescription Scheme, that had been developed in partnership with mental health professionals and then delivered through GPs, linking their patients into the Library offer. That small act of innovation on our part had a profound impacted on that woman’s life and that is why events like today, when we can share and discuss ideas, are so important.
There’s three months to go before I become President of Libraries Connected, but I’m already putting together a shopping list of what I’d like to see us achieve over the next two years. Top of the list is to build a Future Hub.
I’d like to see us establish a Future Hub for the library sector, to coordinate and commission a programme of collaborative research on the challenges and opportunities of the next decade, including inequality, climate change, technology and skills. Alongside that we must double down on Libraries Connected’s work to ensure the sector has the skills, knowledge and resilience to meet the coming needs of our communities
Above all, I want to see our libraries properly recognised as the essential public services that they are. For that we need crystal clear clarity as to how we can best align our work with the goals Government sets out to achieve and we need engaged, talented staff bringing a diversity of skills and lived experiences to our libraries. It is only from that position of vital relevance that we can start make the strong case for libraries that they need and deserve.
That is why I’m so pleased to see the agenda we have before us today. We have a packed programme with speed talks from ten libraries and time afterwards to network and discuss projects and ideas at informal breakout sessions. The range of topics up for discussion is tremendous and indicative of the rich seam of inventiveness that runs throughout our libraries.
Where else in the world today could you hear talks about Dragons in Libraries alongside Thermal Imaging Cameras – though, I accept there is a slight connection? Or dementia friendly programmes alongside lego robotics? Despite their variety, the common denominator across all these activities is that they are deeply relevant to and valued by those who have access to them.
I’m also delighted to say we’ll have Hosefina Carrillo Arenas joining us virtually from Spain to tell us about a project helping people tackle the challenges of the modern world and
Lavinya Stennett writer, activist, Founder and CEO of The Black Curriculum joining us virtually and her colleague Ilhan Awed and Janique Berryman, who are with us today, to tell us about the work of The Black Curriculum and their award-winning pod cast Sounds of Black Britain.
To make the most of the day please share your own ideas and experiences and talk to as many people as you can. Please do join the Innovator’s Community if you’ve not already signed up and keep the conversations going after we leave here today. Let’s kindle a fire we can take back to our services and spread across the country.
Thank you very much, thank you Helen. Let’s have a great day.
