Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal February 2005 Volume 3 (1)

President's perspective

Commenting on culture

Alastair Johnston introduces himself as the new CILIPS President, and discusses the Cultural Commission and Freedom of Information.

It is, I am told, the first duty of each incoming President to craft, in a few, carefully chosen words, a pen picture which will convey to the general reader a portrait of the President complete with background, education, experience and any strongly held views. My thoughts immediately turned to Disclosure Scotland, Special Branch and Freedom of Information. Is one entitled to view one's own record? Would this help the task in hand? On the off-chance that what was thus disclosed might not be in my best interests, and on the near certainty that Brian Osborne would then recycle the material in Endpiece, I have chosen to resist the temptation - sorry Brian!

Past president Alistair Campbell is not known for getting things wrong. In December 2003 he wrote: "My year as President ends in the sure and certain knowledge that in 2004 Moira Methven... will be an absolutely excellent leader of, and advocate for, Scotland's library and information professionals." And, once again, he was absolutely right! Moira, you were an inspirational President and I thank you for it.

The start of my official library career and working unpaid for the Scottish Library Association both happened on the same day: place - Galashiels; year - 1966. Neil McCorkindale was Burgh Librarian of Galashiels, County Librarian of Selkirkshire and Hon Secretary of the Scottish Library Association. I was a fresh-faced schoolboy starting a summer job. The task was to gather in all the circulating book collections from local primary schools, check them, replace their book cards, fix them up, stir them with a porridge stick, add a few new titles, remove their book cards and get them back to the schools before the start of the new school year. Neil's Triumph Herald was the transport and most of the time I was left alone to get on with it! However, day one was different. The SLA election was due shortly and there were ballot papers to be stuffed into envelopes, small envelopes to be stuffed into larger envelopes and even bigger envelopes to be stuffed with the larger envelopes. Confused? I was. I often wonder whether that year's election ran as smoothly as Neil had intended. It couldn't have gone too badly because I was welcomed back the next summer and then taken on for a year's pre-university and library school work experience, a requirement in those days which is well overdue for return!

Three years at Strathclyde and the offer of a traineeship with Dumfries County Library took me from South East Scotland to South West Scotland via Glasgow and ever since the South West has been my professional home. The traineeship led to a first professional post which turned into a Branch Librarian's post which was reorganised into a Senior Librarian's post which eventually gave way to a deputy's post which, in turn was reorganised into a ‘Head of' post and finally restructured into my current post - Operations Manager Cultural Services. Cultural Services encompass: Libraries, Information and Archives; Arts, including the South West Scotland Screen Commission; Museums; and Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages. An interesting mix of services which includes the UK's busiest registration office for weddings - Gretna - with an incredible 5,400 ceremonies each year.

Turning to things cultural - the Cultural Commission's phase two consultation is now complete. The Commission had promised a further document by late February containing the ideas garnered from the four corners of Scotland and beyond. The results of this third consultation will then inform the final report which is due to be published around Conference time. The Library Thinking Group has worked hard to keep ahead of the consultation deadlines and our directorate has burnt midnight oil (or so they tell me) turning the Group's thoughts into coherent sentences. The results are available on Slainte for all to see and I would encourage everyone to contribute to the work of the Cultural Commission - this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! (see feature)

The beginning of January saw the implementation of Scotland's Freedom of Information [FoI] legislation. I am my Council's Freedom of Information Officer, and my feeling is that things will start reasonably quietly but will build up to a peak over the first six months and then decline to a steady, if irregular, flow. An informed guess would tell me that journalists are going to be our number one customers closely followed, I suspect, by those who have patiently awaited their opportunity to seek answers to questions which have drawn blanks in the past. For those of you still unclear of the implications of FOI for libraries I would commend the recent SLIC publication Freedom of Information [Scotland] Act 2002, a Guide for Information Professionals which gives a very useful overview of the legislation. FoI should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a challenge. It represents an opportunity for us, as information professionals, to continue to build our reputation as most trusted providers of information to the public.

The full scale of the impact of the Asian tsunami disaster is unlikely to be known for many months. What is abundantly clear however is that this is a natural disaster on a scale which is beyond the capacity and capability of any individual country to deal with on a standalone basis. The impact on libraries is unclear but it goes without saying that many will have been destroyed and many severely damaged. I know that as individuals you will have already contributed to the appeals but it strikes me that as a profession we should come together to ensure that at least one community has a replacement library. This might serve as a catalyst for the global family of librarians around the world and so many more libraries could be replaced - just a thought!

Alastair Johnston

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (1) February 2005

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