What a Ride!

One day in and what a ride, there have been talks about the future of Cilips and cilip, discussion of profession and addressing the elephant in the room. The potential of referendum coming to scotland, the changes in the economy, the changes in how we see ourselves and what we should be doing. The whole day has been wonderful to me, so much adding value, addressing issues and adapting to change or go under. My fave was an image form Annie Mauger of a librarian lieing asleep on her library floor, letting it all happen around her and not being part of it! I wanted to shout 'get up and do something' :-) I know some change will be fought and some will upset many but it is easy to do nothing new, safe to sit and keep comfortable. We have just been telling the children that they have to be the change they want in the world, I have no right to not do the same.

I have learnt so much about public policy, profession, statistics and what we can see in them, esp. for reading patterns and how we must help spread Literacy! that without literacy the long term costs are so much more. How 70% of prisoners can't read from 18% who leave school that way! they cost £40k per year to house and keep, we need to know if better literacy would stop this and how we can make sure more children get the chance to learn, and then go on to enjoy reading, just being able to read is not enough, being able to read for enjoyment allows us as society a chance to improve our lot, to aspire.

The Nordic route for Libraries was an interesting snapshot of the situation, some aspects are so much clearer than ours, but others come from the same routes, have the same issues and backgrounds to try and cope with. It shows that what we deal with isn't UK wide but wider still. Though I did like the Nepal outlook of no economy, so no money worries as they didn't have money! they put a value on libraries that shames our own.

Too much wine and wonderful food is making me too sleepy, I shall blog again on either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. If you ever get the chance to go to a conference please take it, the atmosphere is amazing, the conversation will keep me going for ages! And best of all for me, I will be at the Umbrella conference in Manchester in a month!