i3 - information, interactions and impact

Every two years, we host the i3 conference which focuses on information, interactions and impact.  The fourth i3 conference took place here at RGU between 25th and 28th June.  Dorothy is the conference director and is ably assisted by the incomparable Katie Morrison who ensures that everything runs like clock-work.  We had delegates from around the world with particularly strong representation from North America and Australia.

Our first keynote was Dr Annemaree Lloyd from Charles Sturt University in New South Wales.  We were delighted that Annemaree was able to join us the week prior to the conference as a visiting scholar, undertaking a seminar for staff as well as participating iDocQ our Information Science doctoral colloquium which was held on the Monday before i3 started.  Annemaree is one of the world's leading information literacy researchers and is particularly well-known for her research involving workplace information literacy, most notably with fire-fighters and para-medics.  Annemaree is held in very high esteem by the information science community around the world and is a particularly dear and valued friend of the Department here at RGU and so we were thrilled that she could come and join us for a week and to be a keynote at the conference. 

At i3, we endeavour to have one keynote (out of four) who comes from outside the information science discipline and can, therefore, offer a very different take on information.  This year we were delighted to have Dr Adam Rutherford, the geneticist, journalist and television presenter who offered a very entertaining and enlightening presentation.  He offers some thought-provoking insights into information flow through genetics from a start point that ancestry is the way we communicate information through the generations.  Something, this genealogist, confesses he hadn't thought of previously.  Adam earned my undying admiration by beginning his paper by speaking about the Spanish Habsburgs and how their inbreeding eventually brought the line to an end in 1700 with the death of hopelessly deranged Carlos II.  I never thought that the Erzhaus would make it into i3 but, as you will imagine dear readers, I was very pleased that it did.

Our other keynotes were Professor Jane McKenzie from Henley Business School who is a knowledge management specialist and spoke on various aspects of organisational learning.  The final one was Dr Christine Urquhart, formerly of Aberystwyth University who brought together many of the themes which had emerged from the previous days' sessions.  She also highlighted just how important it for us to learning from marketing as a discipline.  The papers from i3 will be appearing in Information Research in due course.

We had a range of social events associated with the conference too including a Civic Reception at Aberdeen Art Gallery which was attended by the Lord Provost; we had another reception at the Sir Duncan Rice Library at University of Aberdeen courtesy of Chris Banks and her team.  The delegates were very much taken with the new library.

The conference dinner was held at the Marcliffe Hotel on the Thursday.  Dr Simon Burnett and yours truly welcomed the delegate with a Doric sketch, entitled Morecambe and Nae Wise which reflected on the culture (with a capital K) of Aiberdeen and North East Scotland.

i3 has become an important fixture in the information science calendar and is much-valued by delegates.  And, believe it or not, we will start our preliminary planning for i3 2015 in about five months time!

Lennart Limberg

Today, I learned of the recent passing of Dr Lennart Limberg from Gothenburg and I am very sad to hear this news.  Lennart's wife, Professor Louise Limberg, is a very weel-kent scholar in the information literacy world and her work helped make Borås one of the centres of IL research.  It was through Louise that I got to know Lennart who was a very learned scholar too and was a man of great charm and humour.  Lennart worked at Riksföreningen Sverigekontact (roughly translated as the Royal Society for Swedish Culture Abroad) and one of his great specialisms was utvandringen till Amerika or Swedish emigration to the USA and on piecing together the family connections of the émigrés.  So, as you can imagine, he and I found much to talk about.  But he was such a great scholar of Sweden and all its culture as well as being a lovely human being. 

I want Bamburgh Castle

I've been down in Newcastle for the last two days at Northumbria University doing my external examining for the Information and Communication Management masters programme.  Now, as you know dear readers, I love my sojourns in Newcastle and this was no exception.  A very agreeable time was had and I was very satisfied with all the courseworks I saw. 

My chums, Ali Pickard and Julie McLeod were away; Ali in the Ukraine (please make your own jokes) and Julie at a conference.  Never mind, Ali is up here for the i3 conference next week and so we'll put the world to rights then.  Three of her Northumbria colleagues are coming to iDocQ next week as well which is excellent.  iDocQ is our Information Science Doctoral Colloquium and is run jointly by the four partners in the ESRC Information Science Doctoral Pathway, Robert Gordon, Edinburgh Napier, Strathclyde and Glasgow universities.  We are very proud of this pathway at RGU as it is the only information science doctoral pathway in the United Kingdom and RGU and Edinburgh Napier are the only two post 1992 universities in any ESRC pathway (and both of them in Information Science).  We're excited about iDocQ and even more excited about i3. 

Trips to Newcastle are always a great pleasure for me, as many of you know.  Not least because it is often a bit of a RGU reunion as Professor Norman Irons, formerly head of our school of Engineering is an external examiner for one of the departments in the same faculty.

On my way back up on Friday I stopped off at Bamburgh Castle as it is a while since I was last there.  I think I want it.  Do you suppose the Watson Armstrongs will sell it to me?? ;o)

My Tower of Babel

I think some of you know about the long and convoluted saga (no pun intended) of the Danish side of my family.  I've been corresponding on Facebook with my cousin Susanne (Danish but works for the Norwegian government in Oslo).  She writes to me in Danish (from Norway) which I can read but not reply in (and certainly couldn't utter a word in) so I reply in Swedish which she can read but not write in.......what a Tower of Babel, but we get by.  Of course, my friends on Facebook who are reading this know the Nordic miscellanies that appear on there.  Tack så mycket.

Making a difference in city of discovery

Well, our annual CILIP Scotland conference has come and gone.  And what a good event it was.  There was a fantastic buzz about the Apex Hotel.  The decision to move the conference to Dundee has more than paid off and I think everyone has felt really positively about the venue and the atmosphere. 

Annie Mauger and I had a difficult call in the opening keynote; we had to explain some of the major structural and governance changes that have taken place with CILIP and CILIPS over the last two years.  This was never going to be an audience with Sir Peter Ustinov but I hope that I managed to convey just how important these changes were without coming across as too dull.

I was delighted that Cathy had invited my chum Jens Thorhauge from Denmark to speak to our annual gathering.  Jens is one the foremost thinkers of his generation in the library sector and he always offers a cerebral sophistication in his presentations which is coupled with practical examples from the situation in Denmark and elsewhere.  I much enjoyed his presentation and chatting to him og Fru Thorhauge at dinner. 

He did, however, bring some sad news, namely that Niels Ole Pors, formerly head of the Royal Library School in Copenhagen, had died suddenly at Easter.  The old School of Librarianship and then later School of Information at Media at RGU had very strong links with the Royal School and Niels Ole Pors was a great friend of Douglas Anderson, whom many of you know. 

I thought Miranda McKearney of the Reading Agency was also absolutely brilliant, displaying her passion, commitment, drive and energy.  I know that the Scottish Library and Information Council are keen to follow up on a good number of the issues that she raised her in presentation.  I tweeted at the end of her talk that she should be made a Dame.....and I stand by this.

Gavin Oattes was, well, Gavin Oattes.  Irrepressible, enthusiastic and thoroughly uplifting.  And what a good sport to do a stand-in slot at the last moment.  Which sort of brings me to the people behind the conference.  Cathy and Sean did a magnificent job in organizing it and bringing together such an entertaining and varied programme with something of relevance for everyone.  And, of course, President Audrey was wonderful.  'Making a difference' was an excellent choice of theme for the year and the conference presentations explored and developed this splendidly.  Audrey was her usual warm, affectionate and utterly inspiring self.  And, yes, she looks better in the chain that I did.

There was, of course, lots of galant socializing, all done in the name of libraries you understand.  And, every Gin and Tonic I forced myself to have was purely in the cause of advancing our profession. 

Looking forward to CILIPS conference

Well, it is almost time for our annual CILIPS conference and I am sure many of you are looking forward to it as much as I am.  It will be good to be back at the Apex Hotel in Dundee following the enormous success of last year's event there.  It is also fantastic that the conference sold-out a couple of weeks in advance and that's down in no small part to Cathy and her all her work.

Our annual conference really is one of the most important dates in the library calendar in Scotland and it never fails to inform and entertain.  I will speaking on the opening day with Annie Mauger about the relationship between CILIP and CILIPS after our lengthy period of change and reconstruction.  There are a range of excellent sessions throughout the two days including Marc Lambert from the Scottish Book Trust who will speak about the work of the trust and its partnerships with libraries to enhance literacy and reading.  I'm particularly pleased to be chairing the keynote by Jens Thorhauge on Monday afternoon.  Jens was formerly Director of the Danish Agency for Libraries and Media and has enormous experience in the sector.  He is also a very engaging speaker.  It will be good to catch up with him.  But, dear readers, please don't ask him to give away what happens in series three of Borgen.

Our conference dinner, on Monday evening, will be an excellent opportunity for networking and will, no doubt, finish up in the bar afterwards.  Meeting up with friends and colleagues from across the sector is certainly one of the best and important bits of the conference.  And, of course, every year we all make some new friends too.

On Tuesday we will have Branch and Group Day which is always a special event and I look forward to the antics of Central Branch and seeing how they have interpreted Audrey's theme for the year.  We have keynotes from Miranda McKearney, OBE, of the Reading Agency at the start of the day and a closing one from Nick Davies, author of How to be great at the stuff you hate.  The parallel sessions are designed to appeal to Branches and Groups and include a reader development strand throughout the day.

So, come and say hello next week.  I'm delighted that the Department of Information Management is exhibiting again.  This is an important event for us and it is always a real pleasure to sponsor CILIPS conference.  Caroline Whitehead and Hayley Rowlands will be staffing our stand so be sure to go and see them.  As usual, we will be forcing bookmarks on you for a prize draw.

See you in Dundee.

Library Association of Ireland / CILIP Ireland conference Dublin

Last week I had the great pleasure of being in Dublin for the joint annual conference of the Library Association of Ireland and CILIP Ireland.  It was held at Croke Park on the north side of Dublin and it proved to be an excellent venue.  I was very pleased to be asked to accompany the CILIP Scotland President Audrey Sutton to the conference.  I really enjoyed last year's one in Belfast and so it was excellent to be given the opportunity to return this year.

There were a number of really good and thought-provoking presentations including one from Annie Mauger, the CEO of CILIP on the future of the information professionals and I particularly enjoyed Kathy Roddy's keynote on how to be an effective fundraiser.  Kathy gave may incredibly useful insights and was a really lively and enjoyable speaker.  I hope we can get her to present at an event in Scotland before too much longer. 

It was really good to be able to catch up with colleagues from Ireland such as Brendan Teeling, Nigel Macartney, Adrienne Adair and Jane Cantwell who is serving currently as President of the Library Association of Ireland and who is the City Librarian in Waterford.  Jane will be coming over to Dundee for the CILIP Scotland Conference in June.

On the first evening of the conference, we were treated to a civic reception at Dublin City Hall, hosted by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin.  Also present was Bryan Murray, the well-known actor who will, to me, be forever Flurry Knox from the Irish RM.  He read from James Plunkett's Strumpet City.  Afterwards, we went to Morrison's Hotel for the Conference Dinner which was excellent.  Immediately prior to dinner starting we were addressed by Fergus O'Dowd TD, the Minister for the New Era Project, who is always very engaging and supportive of libraries, librarians and their work.

The Presidential Year in Pictures

In no particular order....

CILIPS Annual Conference



Autumn Gathering



UWS Ayr

UWS Ayr

Irvine Royal Academy

North Ayrshire Libraries

Conference

Dunbar Library

Heritage Hub in Hawick

Heritage Hub in Hawick

Heritage Hub in Hawick

Hawick Public Library



Presenting Honorary Membership to Ian Rankin



North Ayrshire

Aberdeen Central Library's 120th birthday

Launching e-book lending at East Lothian

LILAC Conference with Anne Kail

Presenting Ian MacDougall with Honorary Membership

Peebles High School

Macmillan volunteers at Saltcoats



Belfast City Hall



Dr Audrey Sutton, CILIP Scotland President 2013

The last duty of the outgoing president is to introduce his successor and for me this is a very real privilege.

I have known Dr Audrey Sutton for many years since we were both undertaking doctoral research at RGU and we completed our PhDs within a year of one another. Subsequently, I have had many professional links with Audrey and I always look forward to my visits to North Ayrshire when we spend a not inconsiderable amount of time, usually over dinner, putting the world to rights.

Audrey is quite simply a remarkable person and I count her as one of my dearest friends. She is someone who is held in the highest respect by her peers in the library and information sector in Scotland and, indeed, beyond, for her commitment to the provision of high-quality customer-focussed services and for her creative and imaginative approaches to delivering services.

From my regular visits to North Ayrshire, I have had a number of opportunities to observe how Audrey managed the library service and how she has innovated in service delivery. She has successfully combined the ability to provide the practical management of services with wider strategic thinking. It is this combination of talents that has taken her on to her new role with its wider remit for community and cultural services.

Audrey has provided consistently clear and effective leadership of her team. The respect in which she is held by peers elsewhere is mirrored by those who work with her in her own organisation. It has always been clear to me – and no doubt to most of you here – that she has earned respect and loyalty from all levels of staff in a quite extraordinary way.

This is done, in my opinion, in two ways; firstly, Audrey provides an unambiguous and lucid sense of direction; secondly, she is one of the most effective communicators I know and her ability to get on with everyone ensure that commitment and enthusiasm are maintained by those around her.

Many of us, myself including, have often benefitted from Audrey’s advice and wise counsel. Audrey is one of the most incisive and insightful people that I know.

CILIP Scotland is very lucky to have Dr Audrey Sutton as its president for 2013 and I know that she will inspire us with her vision, her dedication, her enthusiasm and her sense of fun over the coming year. She will also have, walking two steps behind her, an inestimable consort in the shape of Harry and I look forward to some references to Mr Sutton on the blog.

It is my pleasure to welcome Dr Audrey Sutton as President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland.

Reflections on the president's year

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.