Information for All

The CILIPS Annual Conference 2024

Please note that all full conference places and Day One slots are now SOLD OUT and waiting list only – book your place now for Day Two of CILIPS24 (limited spaces left)

‘It was a fabulous conference – a wonderful, collaborative atmosphere and a willingness to tackle the big and difficult subjects without ever losing a hopeful outlook.’

The largest conference in Scotland for library and information professionals, CILIPS24 will bring together colleagues from across the nation and beyond to share knowledge, network and engage in professional development as we collectively champion our profession’s commitment to ‘Information for All’.

Hosted by CILIPS President Professor Diane Rasmussen McAdie and taking place on Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th June 2024 at the Dundee Apex Hotel, our Annual Conference will feature inspiring keynote speeches, impactful parallel sessions, a range of networking opportunities and much more.

Timing each day will be approx 10.30am-4.30pm with registration opening at 9.30am.

‘It was marvellous. It really energised me and made me want to improve my practice. I loved networking with other librarians and sharing our experiences, and I gained some good professional contacts whilst there. I was inspired and renewed and really needed a face to face event after such a long time without them. Thank you.’

‘It’s anely when ye’re in a room full o ither fowk sharin their ain experiences o the profession that ye realise these wee details – unseen, unkent – are aften whit adds up tae somethin mair than a career. A callin, likesay… Thanks tae awbody at the CILIPS conference for helpin me tae remember.’

(Feedback from delegates at last year’s conference, CILIPS23).

CILIPS24 Keynote Speakers

James LaRue

James LaRue is the director of the Garfield County (Colorado) Public Library District. Author of “The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges,” (2007) and “On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US,” (2023) he has been a public library director for many years, as well as a weekly newspaper columnist and cable TV host. From January of 2016 to November of 2018, James was director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. He has written, spoken, and consulted extensively on intellectual freedom issues, leadership and organizational development, community engagement, and the future of libraries.

James will be speaking on Day One of the conference.

Dr Althea Greenan

Dr Althea Greenan works in Special Collections and Archives at Goldsmiths, University of London, curating the Women’s Art Library collection. Her work with the collection began in 1989 as a volunteer and she now works with artists, students, and academic researchers to help realise new art and curatorial projects that develop alongside the collection. This includes the Women’s Art Library/Feminist Review Art in the Archive Bursary. She has written on the work of women artists since the 1980s, publishing reviews, interviews, and creative pieces. Her recent doctoral research focused on the WAL slide collection and aspects of digitization to ask: What can an artists’ slide collection do besides represent artwork? Her findings recover the text produced by slide-making and the feminist network that the slide collection continues to reproduce today. Current projects include the Animating Archives research project and the 2023 Exhibitions Hub Alumni Commission Award, partnering with Goldsmiths Art Department. She is on the Advisory Board of Feminist Art Making Histories (FAMH), an oral history, digital humanities project, funded (2021-2024) by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Althea will be speaking on Day One of the conference.

Sara Sheridan

Sara Sheridan is a writer and activist who is interested particularly in female history. She has written more than 20 books. Truth or Dare, Sara’s first novel, received a Scottish Library Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire. Her novel On Starlit Seas, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Prize in 2017. An occasional journalist, Sara has reported for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and on ‘being a lady’ for Women’s Hour. In 2019 Sara re-mapped Scotland according to women’s history for Historic Environment Scotland – the resulting book Where are the Women was listed as one of the David Hume Institute’s Books of the Year 2019. In 2022, Sara’s novel The Fair Botanists was chosen as Waterstones’ Scottish Book of the Year. Sara mentors fledgling writers – including CILIPS Membership Officer, Kirsten MacQuarrie – and she has sat on the board of several writers’ organisations. In 2015, Sophie McKay Knight’s portrait of Sara garnered media and critical attention at the National Gallery of Scotland.

Sara and Eleanor will be speaking on Day One of the conference.

Eleanor Thom

Eleanor Thom is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction based in Edinburgh, whose work often focuses on migration, social history and remembrance. Her first novel The Tin-Kin (Duckworth, 2009), a fictionalised family story about three generations of Scottish Travellers, won the 2007 New Writing Ventures Award for Fiction and the Saltire First Book of the Year Award 2010, with Eleanor also being featured on BBC TV’S The Culture Show as one of the year’s best new novelists. Eleanor’s second novel, Connective Tissue, which is based on the life of her grandmother, a Holocaust refugee from Berlin, was published by Taproot Press in 2023. For five years Eleanor has been the Community Writer in Residence for The Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Citizen Project working with local people and organisations to record and present the stories of people who live and work in the city. In 2023/2024, she is one of the Genesis Jewish Book Week’s Emerging Writers for non-fiction.

Eleanor and Sara will be speaking on Day One of the conference.

Mia Ridge

Dr Mia Ridge is the British Library’s Digital Curator for Western Heritage Collections. Part of the Digital Research team, she provides advice and training on computational research, AI / machine learning and crowdsourcing. A Co-Investigator on Living with Machines (2018-23), she co-curated the Living with Machines exhibition with Leeds Museums and Galleries (2022-23).

Mia will be speaking on Day Two of the conference.

Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen Jamie is a poet, essayist and editor. In August 2021, she was appointed the Makar or National Poet for Scotland for a three year term. In this role, Kathleen has curated collective poems from lines submitted by the people of Scotland.

Raised in Currie, near Edinburgh, she studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, publishing her first poems as an undergraduate. Her writing is rooted in Scottish landscape and culture, and ranges through travel, women’s issues, archaeology and visual art. She writes in English and occasionally in Scots. Jamie’s collections include Black Spiders (1982) and The Queen of Sheba (1995). Her 2004 collection The Tree House revealed an increasing interest in the natural world, and won the Forward Poetry Prize and the Scottish Book of the Year Award. The Overhaul, won the 2012 Costa poetry award. In 2014, Jamie set herself the task of writing one poem per week. The resulting poems were collected in The Bonniest Companie, winning 2016 Saltire Society Book of the Year award. Her Selected Poems were published in 2018.

Kathleen will be speaking on Day Two of the conference.

Sue Williamson MBE

Sue Williamson MBE is the current CILIP president and has worked in public libraries in a variety of roles for 25 years, finishing her operational career as Head of Library Services for St Helens Borough Council. She then took on the strategic role of Director, Libraries for Arts Council England. In that role she chaired the English Public Libraries a Strategic Working Group, supporting the growth of strategic sectoral partnership and work on major projects such as Accreditation, the work on the Single Digital Presence (LibraryOn) and the CILIP led projects on Working Internationally and Green Libraries. She also commissioned reports on public libraries impact on employability and the impact of the Summer Reading Challenge and supported the Big Jubilee Read. For her services to Public Libraries she was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Honours. She believes passionately in the role that public libraries can play in driving the agendas of education, recreation, information and culture and in the ability of libraries across all sectors to work together to show the value that they add to society. In her spare time, she is a passionate reader and enjoys music, theatre and film.

Sue will be speaking on Day Two of the conference.

Kevin P. Gilday

Our conference dinner on the evening of Day One will be followed by entertainment from poet, writer and performer Kevin P. Gilday. Kevin is the founder of poetry performance collective The Scribbler’s Union, co-founder of spoken word cabaret night Sonnet Youth, a National Theatre of Scotland Breakthrough Writer and a BBC Writersroom Scottish Voice. He was recently included in the Saltire Society’s 40 under 40 list celebrating outstanding Scottish creative talent. Kevin has published five books of poetry with his latest, Anxiety Music (Verve Press 2022), promoted as part of a 22-date tour of the UK and Europe, and he has released two albums via Iffy Folk Records as Kevin P. Gilday & The Glasgow Cross.

Kevin will be speaking after dinner on Day One of the conference.

Parallel Sessions Day One:

• Building AI Ready Collections
• See Differently: How to make your libraries accessible to blind and partially sighted users with RNIB
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About CILIP Professional Registration, including a Q&A with our CILIPS PRSOs
• Bridging the Gap: The Role of the Research Library in Participatory Research, Citizen Science, and Involvement
• Murder We Wrote: Plotting criminally good scavenger hunts for your library users
• Reflecting Creative Practice Through Archiving: The Story of The Alasdair Gray Archive
• Supporting Vulnerable Users in Public Libraries
• REVEAL: Reinforcing Ethics and Values for Effective Advocacy for Libraries, supported by the CILIPS Research Fund
• Taking PRIDE in inclusive archives – sharing learning from Historic Environment Scotland, Scotland’s first heritage organisation to achieve the LGBT Charter Mark

Parallel Sessions Day Two:

• Managing Safe and Inclusive Public Library Services: A practical guide from CILIP
• Combating Misinformation in Libraries
• Realising the Value of Knowledge in Health Library Services
• Growing Decolonisation at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) Library and Archives
• Nurturing Scotland’s Next Generation of Readers – Sharing ideas for inspirational, research-informed school librarianship with SLG Scotland and Education Scotland
• Joining #TheJanuaryChallenge (all year round!)
• Government and Civic Literacy
• Press Play on Moving Image and Sound Archives: Replay (The British Film Institute and libraries) and Moving Image and Sound Collections (National Library of Scotland)
• Green Dreams: Applying to the Green Libraries Scotland Grant Fund and the CILIPS Research Fund
• Seeds to Success at St Ninian’s High School
• Libraries as Agents of Sustainability Thinking in Scotland (LASTS) at the University of Strathclyde

The conference will also include the presentation of our 2024 CILIPS Student Medals and Scotland’s Library and Information Professional of the Year.

Meet last year’s winner, Jennifer Findlay!

Prices

Book your place now for CILIPS24 or browse our current funding opportunities to support your attendance.

Day place on Tuesday 4th June (limited number available):

• CILIP Member or staff member at Employer Partner – £120 incl VAT
• Non Member – £170 incl VAT

SOLD OUT Day place on Monday 3rd June (waiting list only)

SOLD OUT Full package including two day conference, hotel on Monday 3rd June and conference dinner (waiting list only)

Book your place now for CILIPS24

Sponsors and Exhibitors

Meet the inspiring sponsors and exhibitors who will be sharing their expertise with our delegates at CILIPS24.

Listen, Think, Draw – Visual Facilitation

In a CILIPS conference first, we are delighted to be joined by Clare Mills, a visual facilitator with over twenty years of experience in learning and development.

Following along closely throughout the two days of our conference, Clare will create a unique graphic recording to serve as a lasting legacy of CILIPS24: visually representing the key ideas shared, professional knowledge exchanged and new networks generated as a result of Information for All.

Sustainability – Green Libraries Scotland

‘I love the efforts to lessen the environmental impact. I think that this conference could even be used as an example to other conferences. Everything ran smoothly and was enjoyable even with changes that lessen the impact.’

‘There were a number of great visible efforts made to lessen the environmental impact.’

‘I think the lengths to which CILIPS went this year were commendable and truly in line with their sustainability values. Big kudos to the team for all their work in this area.’

Building on the framework provided by the CILIPS Carbon Neutrality Plan and the success of our steps in making CILIPS22 and CILIPS23 as environmentally friendly as possible, we are committed to ensuring that our 2024 Annual Conference is as sustainable as it is inspirational, embedding library-led environmental action into our programme. Plans include:

• NEW: A dedicated parallel session supporting future applications to the Green Libraries Scotland Grant Fund
• NEW: An innovative ‘Green Team’ exhibitor challenge, enhancing sustainability across the sector
• NEW: Eco-incentives for delegates to bring their own reusable water bottles/coffee cups
• The return of our exclusively digital programme (with alternative formats available for accessibility)
• A reduced food/water waste strategy and a locally-produced vegetarian lunch menu, in conjunction with the hotel
• A car sharing scheme for delegates, including signposting to electric car charging points
• Recycled lanyards, carbon captured name badges (including a tree-planting donation to the Woodland Trust) and other sustainably sourced items – including the now iconic CILIPS library garden seeds! – in our optional delegate gift bags.

Newbie Networking

Sign up now for free – 6-7pm, Wednesday 29th May, online and open to all

‘It was my first time attending, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to return next year!’

‘I had a great time, and everyone was very friendly, especially the conference volunteers. Thank you!’

‘Great programme, great networking opportunities and a very warm welcome from all involved.’

Welcoming new delegates is such a special part of the conference for the whole CILIPS team, but we understand that preparing to attend your first major professional event can be a daunting prospect. Approximately one week before the conference, our Digital Assistant Leah will lead a friendly and informal ‘Newbie Networking’ online event, offering first-time attendees the opportunity to find out how a CILIPS Conference is run and meet their fellow delegates before arriving.

This session will share what to expect when you arrive in Dundee, highlight some of the sessions and activities tailored to new professionals, and above all bring new delegates together to chat about how to make their first (hopefully of many) experience at the CILIPS Annual Conference as memorable and enjoyable as possible.

Sign up here and be sure to also check out our recording from last year’s Newbie Networking!

All delegates are also welcome to make use of our designated Quiet Space throughout the conference, offering an opportunity to rest, reflect and recharge.

Please note that the conference programme may be subject to change – for further information, please email admin@cilips.org.uk.