'Beyond the Horizon' CILIP NE Conference - event review

CILIP North East recently held our annual conference 'Beyond the Horizon' online (for the first time). One of our attendees Julia Oliver from Durham University Library and Collections has shared her write up of the event.

*

On 17th May, CILIP members gathered online for a half-day conference to discuss innovative work they are doing that is ‘Beyond the Horizon’. This thought-provoking afternoon provided attendees with an opportunity to reflect on a range of themes, emerging from a variety of short papers and lightning talks. 

Liz Jolly, Chief Librarian from The British Library, gave the keynote presentation on ‘Changing times – changing Libraries: Partnerships in Practice’. Liz gave a snapshot of the wide variety of activities that the British Library are involved in at present, ranging from partnerships, business support, networking and increasingly since Covid-19 -pivoting services to ‘digital’. Takeaways from her talk were the need for openness, knowledge sharing, collaboration within the sector and particularly the importance of community. 

In today’s changing landscape, Liz highlighted the importance of library professionals becoming ‘reflective practitioners’, to consider some of the important questions arising from the recent pandemic, such as ‘How do we ensure digital inclusivity?’, ‘how do we deliver ‘Open’ while still adhering to Copyright and IP requirements?’ Going forward, Liz proposes that a collaborative approach and partnership working, learning from communities (rather than users) where services are co-created, will help to promote inclusion and equality of service.

Partnership working was a theme running through several of the talks, including that of Anne Archer and Louise Cowan of Newcastle University, who have been working with academic staff and students to develop students’ literacy skills, developing a web page hub as a single point of access to resources and information.   

Another theme that emerged during the afternoon was inclusivity. In her role, Cheryl Francis, Academic Liaison Librarian, is working to encourage a level playing field for applicants to the new University of Sunderland Medical School. She found that making connections has helped her to carry out this role effectively. Vasanthi Elder, Knowledge Manager for NHS England and Improvement/Northumbria, has been helping to create consistent messaging around vaccines, running workshops to find out how to nuance messaging to target various groups of people and encourage inclusivity.

Suzie Williams and Hilary Oakley from the University of Sunderland described an initiative to improve the user experience and measure impact, as they shared a new toolkit that is tailored to different year groups, with a view to appealing to their particular community of students doing creative and social science courses. For ease of access, this has been embedded it in the space where students would find it most easily online. This is another example of information professionals striving to provide excellent service and support for their communities, either physically or online.

Thanks to CILIP for organizing this conference, for Dr Biddy Casselden from Northumbria University for chairing and for the committee who worked behind the scenes to make this event happen.  

Julia Oliver, Durham University Library and Collections