In print

The latest issue of the CILIP Gazette was on my doormat when I arrived home this evening. My (quite short) article has been printed. I didn't dare read it at first, once I had seen it was in there, but I've just read it now. The whole issue has quite a few articles on the same sort of theme - the need to promote libraries in light of the current climate (i.e. closure of public libraries etc). Some of the questions I asked in my piece are answered in other articles - hopefully I don't come across as being too ignorant. I mentioned that CILIP didn't seem to be talking about the closures or responding to them in the press but then in another article someone else made a good point about the importance of not dwelling on the closures and trying to talk about more positive things to do with libraries, so maybe this was CILIP's tactic. In the lead article Tim Buckley Owen says that people trying to promote libraries have been met with people from the press saying that they only want to write about closures! I guess good news stories about libraries just don't sell newspapers - or at least people in the press assume they won't.

Andrew Cockburn, Secretary of the Library Campaign (also quoted in the lead article) does agree with what I wrote about the library profession, and CILIP in particular, not appearing to be doing a lot about the closures, and compares the work done (or not done) here, with that in the US. [Sorry, that was a bit of a long sentence!] Someone from CILIP's Publicity and Public Relations Group talks about the need for training library and information professionals in marketing skills, a point I also made. It's quite nice to have people agree with you in print, although it's also quite scary to see your own opinions published for anyone to respond to. More scary [should that be scarier?] than writing a blog somehow - probably because it's actually there in hard copy and in a professional publication...and librarians can be really frightening if they want to have a disagreement with you. Eep.