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.