Changing the profession
Jinfo Blog

21st July 2009

By Diana Nutting

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I was in Hatfield last week for the bi-annual CILIP Umbrella conference, (http://www.umbrella2009.org.uk), designed to cover all aspects of library and information work. (We also took the opportunity to hold a CILIP Council meeting at the venue.) It was a well attended conference with more delegates than last time, but for me there was disappointingly little of direct relevance to the business information professional. That said, there was still much of interest, and a key theme of 'change' seemed to run through both the conference and the Council meeting. Charles M Brown, Director of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in the USA, the keynote speaker, summed up the programme of transformational change he has instituted in his public library service with a quote from Woodrow Wilson: 'If you want to make enemies, change something.' But if there is one thing that this recession is teaching us, it is that we do have to change things. According to the Twitter postings, Meeting the Aims and Objectives of our Organisation was one of the most popular sessions of the conference, which is understandable in these straitened times. Discussions around both the conference and the council meeting reflected on what the future holds for the library and information services and how we develop a profession fit for that future. Professor John Feather, in a session called The Information Society: does it need the information professions?, has kicked off the debate in a lively way. Both as a CILIP councillor and as a member of this profession I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about the changes that are needed, and I’d welcome views from anyone with an interest. And the final aspect of change was the Libraries Change Lives Award, which is always uplifting. Everyone who enters deserves recognition, and the worthy winners this year were Leeds Library and Information Service for their work with autistic children.

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