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 June 2009 Volume 7(3)

Aiming Higher

SCURL, in common with other organisations and institutions, has felt the effects of the current recession on supporting staff development opportunities, travel budgets, and expenditure on content to build and extend their library’s collections. The phrase ‘tight economic times’ has rapidly become part of everyday phrases in conversation and reported in business meetings and is often conveyed as the reason for reduced attendance at training events or conferences.

A number of events with which I have been involved through SCURL, the FE college sector, Scotland’s Colleges, University and College Research group, Scottish Working Group on Official Publications, and also observing CILIPS, have been cancelled or postponed as the number of interested attendees have been so few. The reasons offered for the low take-up of places is that the staff development and travel budgets have been used for other purposes and also that we are moving towards the end of the financial year in the academic sector. 

In a recession or downturn in the economy it is apparent that an opportunity always emerges for more resourceful thinking to address the challenges. Training and staff development now requires a more imaginative focus at an appropriate cost, or we will lose the momentum we have gained with equipping Scotland’s librarians and information resource managers in areas of activity core to our business.

A recent meeting of Scottish regional representatives from the above group shared their knowledge of best practice with the expected outcome of learning who does what, who is the expert on a particular area of activity, where would one locate the knowledge on this activity, etc.

One regional group, north of the Firth of Forth, provided a part-time post of training co-ordinator with the result that their training courses were very well attended and by representatives from all library sectors.

Another regional group, north of the River Tay, had approached their archives and museum sector colleagues with an invitation to join the group with the benefits of welcoming new members, receiving more income in subscription fees, and also sharing innovative ideas from another sector.

The annual Branch and Group day at the CILIPS conference provides such an opportunity to catch up with new initiatives and services, to meet the experts, to consider exploring new business partners in an informal environment, and to renew acquaintances – all in the arena in which we, as librarians, are best known: as trusted colleagues and friends.

I listened with interest to Richard Boulderstone, of the British Library. He spoke most persuasively and imaginatively of the project to construct a Digital Research Centre on the land which the BL owns adjacent to their premises near the rail stations. I was caught up immediately in the scope of the project, the partnerships envisaged, and the vision which he articulated.
However, he said that funding had not been confirmed although various strands had been identified with potential partners. I will follow the progress of this project as he spoke with conviction about delivering virtual content and that it did, indeed, require a physical presence.

The keynote address at the CILIPS conference was given by Jay Jordon, CEO of OCLC – a powerfully imaginative speaker. OCLC is owned by the libraries who built Worldcat and so the National Library of Scotland and four Scottish Higher Education Institutions share in this privilege. Jay spoke of managing the collective collection and, here in Scotland, through the auspices of SCURL, through a study with OCLC, we are hoping to initiate an investigation into unique Scottish items in Worldcat.

The most moving part of the day’s programme came from Karen Cunningham, Head of Culture and Sport Glasgow. She spoke about the Getting Glasgow Reading project and how, through this project, children who had never owned a book before now had the opportunity to do so. Karen explored the reactions of children who visited the library, perhaps for the first time.

The massive scale of the work with which OCLC is involved and propelling forward on a global scale, the continued training of our librarians here in Scotland, are both equally important. However we must ensure the current generation of children have the opportunities to explore libraries, to own books, and to acknowledge Scotland’s wealth of treasures – which will hopefully be exposed through the unique items study. 

View CILIPS Annual Conference 2009 presentations on Slideshare

Jill Evans is Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) Service Development Manager. j.evans@nls.uk

Information Scotland Vol. 7(3) June 2009

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.