Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2004 Volume 2 (5)

Profile

Creating a success story

Anne Louise McGough says that opening up the creative side of young people is her top priority. She has plenty in her background to achieve this.

"The more elements of creativity you can give to a child, the better. Its all about bringing museums, libraries and schools together – the fun elements – after all, we're not teachers, we're librarians, information facilitators."

Anne Louise McGough is talking about her priorities for her new job as Senior Officer, Young People's Library Service at West Dunbartonshire. Having worked in most areas of the arts herself, she knows enough about the value of creativity.

She is probably best known for her time at Yoker Youth Library, 1993-97, the innovative teenage service that sadly was closed down despite a high profile campaign with the backing of then MP Donald Dewar and Glasgow Council leader Frank McAveety. But she may also be known for running the company Theatre Seanachaidh ('storyteller' in Gaelic) 1986-90, which got up to all sorts including performances on flights to New York, a permanent slot at the Glasgow Garden Festival, community work in schools and businesses, and book and tape publishing. She has also had a stint at marketing Glasgow's world-famous Citizen's Theatre to schools...

Her past achievements provide good evidence of the power of co-operative working, and attracting as much external funding as possible. They also show a remarkable ability to take things out into the community as well as bringing the best of the creative arts into the libraries she has worked in. One good example is from her previous post at Renfrewshire – the innovative ArtsGame scheme involving projects held over three summers at Ferguslie Park Library. Each of the performances involved a plethora of art forms – drama, dance, music, literature – alongside IT in the form of computer generated backdrops, which attracted £50,000 funding from the Lottery, BAA and Paisley Partnership. The programmes each year managed to engross 35-50 10-14 year olds in an area where it was said no one would be interested. "But they came three years running, all day and every day, and they loved it," said Anne Louise, "The spin-off has been a library 'overrun' with kids and teenagers."

At Ferguslie Park, Dave Anderson was just one figure from the acting world to be enticed into the project, along with musician, Carol Laula. Another project working across departments was I-mag (www.i-mag.co.uk), the web-based magazine which involved teenage boys at six libraries in Renfrewshire. For this, journalists from the Daily Record and from M8 magazine contributed their time, and stars from the music world such as Jill Jackson from Speedway and the group Blazin' Squad were brought in for interviews.

Although she has worked in general community librarianship in Edinburgh and in East Ayrshire, Anne Louise says that it is her time at Yoker, the first independent youth library in the UK, that has been the basis of a lot of what she does now. Her five years there coincided with the rise of the teenage novel – Trainspotting was published during this period. She brought authors such as A.L.Kennedy, Janice Galloway and Alan Warner into the library, there was a fast turnover of stock – especially of magazines and graphic novels – music, discos and other events. Funded independently by Urban Aid, the fight against closure won a Council-backed reprieve for one year, but then lost out to the local sports centre. During its heyday, visitors came from as far as Sri Lanka, and its innovative ways were discussed at conferences all over the world.

She thinks that the closure probably would not have happened today, as government – local and national – realise more the importance of devoting money to young people's services, and the essential role libraries play in community learning and development, family literacy and early years intervention. She is optimistic for other reasons, too: "I also think we have to harness the power of the book right now – it is becoming very sexy to read books. The political sphere still needs working at, of course."

As well as creativity, another priority for youth services is long-term thinking and joined-up working, such as the Dialogue Youth scheme. West Dunbartonshire has cultural co-ordinators – artists, dramatists and writers – who work closely with schools.

Projects coming up include 'Asda Book Crew'. At the Dumbarton branch of Asda, staff are actually paying for books for new reading groups for young people. Then there is the 'Big Draw': two artists will hold workshops in 11 libraries in which 8-14 years olds will create works of art based on 'Icons of Time'. These will be displayed like stained glass at the libraries' windows.

Another important project which adds the discipline of animation to the huge list of multi-creativity is for a writer, an animator and an illustrator to work alongside children in libraries. Children will consider various pictures, then build up narratives to create an animated website of stories – three types of art working together. "Visual literacy is now acknowledged as incredibly important," says Anne Louise. "Babies and young children learn a lot more visually than was previously realised."

A third priority for Anne Louise is training, for front-line staff in particular. She is a member of CILIPS Education Review Group, currently looking at CPD in Scotland. "Libraries may be firmly on the book-loving bandwagon, but open and friendly staff with good people skills are essential for our services," says Anne Louise.

If they can't attract the children in the first place, how can libraries help to open up their creative sides?

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (5) October 2004

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Last updated: 9 November 2004