It is difficult to believe that my Presidential year has come and gone. It passed so quickly but it is full of the most wonderful memories of visits made and people met.
A year ago, when we met in the Scottish Parliament building, I was slightly daunted at the prospect of taking on the presidency particularly as I had a very hard act to follow. Alan Reid was, quite simply, a superb president in 2011 and it was a great honour for me to succeed him.
I chose Enriching Society as the theme for 2012 and this was because I felt it summed up what libraries do. They are catalysts for change and enhancement in a way that is perhaps quite unlike any else. I also chose that theme because I felt it was important, when the economic situation is so gloomy, that we celebrate the contribution which our services and our people make to wider society.
I have to confess that I felt I was living up to my reputation as a late-developer in that I didn’t seem to manage to do very much in the first couple of months of the year. This was primarily because of the day job; February and March are my busiest teaching months.
Once that was over and done with, however, I had much more time to devote to Presidential duties. I must acknowledge my sincere thanks to my colleagues at RGU and, in particular, to Professor Rita Marcella, my Dean, for their support over the course of the year. I was extremely lucky to be able to spend so much time away from the office. And, speaking of offices, I want to thank everyone in the CILIPS office, Elaine, Rhona, Cathy, Gillian and Morag for everything they have done for me over the year. I couldn’t have done it without them.
I would like to outline some of the things which I have done over the course of the year. In April, I was delighted to be asked to open the dinner at the LILAC conference which was being held in Glasgow for the first time. This was a wonderful occasion and the Presidential chain provoked many admiring glances and covetous looks I can tell you. I think I was lucky to get out there with it intact. Or, unlucky depending on your point of view.
Rhona and I went over to Belfast later in April to attend the joint conference of the Library Association of Ireland and CILIP Ireland which was held in the luxurious Merchant Hotel (I can thoroughly recommend it). I spoke at the conference on the challenges for professional education in our sector and was, sort of, wearing two hats that day. One of the things which struck me particularly about this conference was the very positive atmosphere and upbeat view of many people, despite very bad economic times. I must thank our colleagues in Ireland for the kindness and their hospitality.
I was delighted to be asked by LocScot to lead their Study School Day in Perth at the end of April. In May I had a lovely evening with Central Branch at Bridge of Allan Library (to which I returned in July for its official opening).
Also in May, I made a presidential progress around North Ayrshire Libraries and I am very grateful to Audrey and particularly to Paul Cowan for devising a wonderful programme for me. I blogged extensively about this and saw many things that impressed me, not least the wonderful Macmillan volunteers in Saltcoats and the wonderful kids at Irvine Royal Academy.
I had the great pleasure of also doing Meet the President events with East Branch in the National Library of Scotland and the North East Branch at Aberdeen Central Library and these were really good and lively events.
Our annual conference had an excellent programme and I think the decision to move it to Dundee more than paid off with lots of really positive feedback about the venue. I thought the conference was excellent and want to thank the team in the office for all their work. I think most Presidents only fully enjoy the conference after it is over because you are so busy during it. It was, however, an excellent event.
Immediately after conference I had to go to Newcastle to do external examining at the University of Northumbria but I managed, on my way back North, to make a visit to East Lothian where I visited the new library in Dunbar, helped launch the ebook lending scheme and then visiting the John Gray Centre in Haddington.....and you all know how much I loved that.
Over the summer I re-engaged with real life in my garden, located just north of the village of Ambridge and over that period you were subjected to ever more surreal blog postings about, amongst other things, German spies and Land Girls. I must say that I have enjoyed doing the blog immensely and will be transferring to a new platform shortly so please keep reading.
After the holidays I had the great pleasure of attending the official opening by Her Majesty the Queen of the new Sir Duncan Rice Library at Aberdeen University and that was a very special day.
The Autumn Gathering in October, which was an unqualified success and for which I would like to pay tribute to Cathy. After it, I had one of the high points of the year and that was my trip to Orkney. I was particularly grateful to Gary Amos and his team for the time they spent with me. The highlight was undoubtedly opening Orcime, the Orkney Crime Fiction Festival and I had the great pleasure of introducing Ann Cleeves, the author of the Vera Stanhope and Shetland Quartet novels. Ann is a great fan of libraries and librarians and would be only too pleased to speak at out events in the future and I hope we take her up on that.
I spent a very pleasurable time in the Borders with Margaret Menzies and her team and I much enjoyed my trip down there as it is part of Scotland I am very fond of and know particularly well. Later in November, I undertook a meet the President for the staff of my own local library service in Moray and that was a real pleasure for me. I have spoken before about the debt I owe to Jessie Leslie, who ran the library in my village when I was a child so it was particularly good to be back in the service that has given me so much. My final visit, in mid December, was to the University of West of Scotland, Ayr Campus, courtesy of Gordon Hunt.
I’d like to end with something that I mentioned on the blog after I’d made the trip to the Borders. Ruth Fry, the librarian at Peebles High School said something that has really stayed with me. She told me of her own daily protest against apartheid when she worked in Cape Town: that she dealt with people in the order that they queued and didn’t give preferential treatment to the whites. There is metaphor for our profession there – it is all the little things that we each do in library services that make such a difference to so many people’s lives. Over the course of the last year, I saw countless examples of these little things – and indeed lots of examples of big things too – happening right across Scotland and each one of them demonstrated the endless capacity of our profession to enrich society.
The last year has been the most enormous privilege for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the engagements that I undertook as President and I will look back with tremendous fondness and gratitude on 2012. I want to end by thanking all our CILIP Scotland members for giving me the opportunity to be president for the year and for their unfailing kindness to me over the last year.
I would like to end by congratulating Cathy Kearney on her appointment as Director of CILIP Scotland and am sure you will all join me in wishing Cathy well in her new role.
As I mentioned above, I am going to continue to blog here. Please keep looking at it and chipping in with comments. I have moved all of the content of this blog across to it.
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