Saturday's conference on the blogs

We're picking up a lot of blog posts from delegates. The prize for comprehensiveness must go to Ian Anstice on his Public Libraries News site, who has shared twelve  pages of verbatim notes, as well as a summary post. It's also well worth reading Lauren Smith, who blogs at Walk You Home, Voices for the Library's post, Information Overload, whose subtitle, From Local to National, sums up the spirit of the conference very well and the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries blog

If you know of other blog or media coverage of the conference, please let us know by e-mail, Twitter or in the comments.

 

 

 

March on the DCMS! Open planning meeting

One of the chief actions to come out of last Saturday's conference was that we should organise, in February, a national demonstration for public libraries in London, route to include Downing Street and/or the DCMS. One suggestion is that at DCMS, or in Trafalgar Square, we might have a read-in. This is not in opposition to 4 February, 2012, which is National Libraries Day. It could take place later in the month, so that the local activities on 4 February are an opportunity to build for the march.

This will take a lot of organisation, so the next Executive Committee of the Library Campaign will be a planning meeting, open to all who want to play a part. It's at 2pm on Saturday 19 November, at a central London venue: place to be announced as soon as we have it.

Note (31 October): we may have to move the time forward too; more news when we have it

Conference coverage

The most comprehensive account of Saturday's conference was on Public Libraries News: http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2011/10/library-campaign-conference-latest.html

Other press accounts:

Guardian: Philip Pullman declares war against 'stupidity' of library closures

Bookseller: Pullman calls library fight "war against stupidity"

Alan Gibbons addresses the Library Campaign conference

Privatisation workshop resources

Here are the resources Alan Wylie of  Stop the privatisation of UK Public Libraries prepared for the privatisation workshop at today's conference.


Privatisation and public library services

Privatisation

Croydon and Wandsworth

Travel to ULU

There's engineering work on the underground this weekend. Details are at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/realtime/track.aspx?offset=weekend. Chief closures are the Circle and Victoria lines. For delegates arriving at Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston, ULU is a short walk. How to get to ULU

Workshop details

We can now announce details of workshop leaders for the workshops on Saturday.

Social media: Gary Green (Voices for the Library) and Stephanie Taylor (Critical Eye Communications)

Privatisation: Alan Wylie (dontprivatiselibraries.blogspot.com) (Update: Alan is prevented by family illness from leading this workshop. His place will be taken by Tom Roper of Voices for the Library)

Volunteers: Ian Anstice (Public Libraries News)

Constructing arguments against council decisions - and putting them forward: Abby Barker (Rosehill Readers)

Press liaison: Jo Anderson (Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries) and Lauren Smith (Save Doncaster Libraries)

Legal challenges: Jo Anderson and Demelza Jones (Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries)

Local government finance: Pete Challis, Unison

Leaders to be announced on the day:

Getting groups together and coming up with strategies

Putting on events and protests

Promotion of campaigns

Registration is still open at  http://andrewtlc.blogspot.com/2011/09/online-registration-form.html or by email