Orkneyinga Saga

It will come as no surprise to any of you that I had a wonderful time in Orkney and was made to feel extraordinarily welcome. It is just over two years since I was last in Orkney and it was a great pleasure for me to go back up during my presidential year. The flight arrived bang on time at Kirkwall and I was met at the airport by Gary Amos.

I think the library and archive in Kirkwall is one of the best facilities of its kind and it is staffed by a really dedicated and enthusiastic team who have a great sense of purpose and a shared commitment to driving the service forward.

My first meeting, over coffee, was with Gary's line manager, Karen Greaves and we had a good chat about the pressures which local authorities face and how they impact on library services. We also spoke a good bit about PLQIM and its value as a quality enhancement mechanism. For Orkney, there is a very real example of this in the new reference room in the library which is a really good space mixing IT and a very good range of traditional reference materials. As you know, I have an affection for reference books so I liked this very much indeed.

At lunchtime, Orcrime 2012 was kicked off by Broth and Breid and the 'Toxic Tomato' soup was very good indeed. This was packed and indeed Orcrime events are all but sold out. Afterwards, Ann Cleeves announced the winners of the Orkney Crime Fiction short stories and it was lovely to see the looks of delight on the faces of the winners. One of the things that was apparent from this event and, indeed, from everything I saw in Orkney, is the extent to which the community values the library and is right behind all that it does.

Gary took me on a tour of the whole building and everytime I see the Search Room and, particularly, the Orkney Room I am in awe. I think the Orkney Room must be one of the finest library spaces in Scotland and what a super atmosphere it has. It is, to use that great German word, so gemütlich. Then it was off to Stromness to see the library there. This building is soon to be replaced by a really exciting new library and I am definitely going back up to see it when it is opened in 2014.

When I returned to Kirkwall, I was interviewed by the one-and-only master of Twitter, Stewart Bain who recorded the interview for YouTube. Your President duly rambled on about libraries and their place in society as is his wont. Stewart is, in my opinion, a legend for the way in which he has really made social media work for the library and I think what he has done is quite simply phenomenal.

In the evening, it was my great privilege to be introducing Ann Cleeves who was the first speaker at Orcrime. Ann and I had been on Radio Scotland together earlier in the year but this was the first time we had met face-to-face. She gave a really wonderful talk about the development of her Vera Stanhope novels, how she approaches writing and the whole process of turning novels into television programmes. She was just superb; entertaining, informative and really enthusiastic. The whole audience enjoyed it every bit as much as I did.

I really hope that Orcrime becomes an annual event and it really demonstrates the imaginative approach of Orkney Library that we have all come to appreciate and value. I think it is just so encouraging for our whole sector that the smallest library authority in Scotland can demonstrate such dedicated staff, such engaged users and such a strong commitment to doing new things.

So, dear readers, I had a lovely time in Orkney and enjoyed every minute of it. I cannot thank Gary, Karen, Stewart and all the fabulous team in Kirkwall and Stromness enough for going out of their way to make me feel welcome and for the time they gave up showing me around. Oh yes, and if you haven't visited Orkney......why not? It's a really special and magical place and its library service and staff are pretty special and magical too.

Looking northwards to Orkney

The last few weeks have been hectic as they always are with the start of semester and the new intake of students. Fortunately for me my team is very well-organised and things more or less went according to plan. So I am now three weeks in to my module, Managing Library Services, which is delivered to the distance learners. In this module we look at all aspects of the management of services from planning through implementation to evaluation and impact and, of course, there is a good deal about service development planning, financial management and human resources too. I enjoy this module because I get the students to work on a case-study where they have to plan the delivery of various services, look at rationalisation and restructuring. I deliver the same module on-campus to the full-time students next semester and find that I have always learned so much for our distance learners and their experiences out in the workplace.

This week I am heading up to Orkney which is a great treat for me and I am very much looking forward to it. I am very grateful to Gary Amos for the invitation to Orkney and for organising my programme. My visit will coincide with the opening of Orkney's first crime fiction festival, Orcrime. I'm looking forward to my Broth and Breid at 12 noon on Thursday which will see the kick-off of the festival. In the afternoon, I'm going to Stromness to see the present library and the site of the new one. Then in the evening I will going to hear Ann Cleeves talk about her work, including the soon-to-be-televised Shetland series. Ann and I have been on radio together but were in different studios so I'm looking forward to meeting her in person.

A busy week arranging a busy month

It has been a busy week. We had an Assessment Board on Tuesday and Jon Purcell, the University Librarian at Durham and one of our external examiners, was up here for it. It is always good to catch up with Jon. The rest of the week has been devoted to getting some articles amended for publication. One is in the final proofs stage and so it was just minor typographical corrections but the other one needed some more extensive changes and, as ever with amending journal articles, once you start making changes you inevitably make more major ones that you had intended.

This morning I'm working at home as I have to go to a family funeral this afternoon unfortunately. Next week I am taking my final bit of leave for the year (our holiday year follows the academic session so runs from October to September). That said, I will be going into work on Tuesday as we are hosting a CREDO/Edina/Scran training event and it will be lovely to see the ever-wonderful Anne Kail up in Aberdeen for it.

The following week I'm off to Newcastle for CILIP's Big Day and it will be really nice to be able to attend that and, I believe, that I am to present ACLIP certificates to some Scottish candidates which will be excellent. When I get back I'm speaking to Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society about the uses of the census for social and community history (i.e. not for genealogy).

This week I've also been making arrangements for my trip up to Orkney in October. I am thrilled to be going back to a place that I really love and I am so grateful to Gary Amos for inviting me up. I am really excited to be returning to Orkney. Gary has prepared a really great programme for me and my visit will coincide with the Orcrime Festival and I'll manage to attend some of that including, I'm delighted to say, the session with Ann Cleeves. I really like her books and was on Radio Scotland with her earlier this year but we were in separate studios so didn't meet.

I wonder how many of you spotted our own Audrey Walker on the BBC 10 o'clock news last night? It was a report from the Paralympics - where Audrey is volunteering - and there she was, ringing the bell in the velodrome! Well done Madam Treasurer!