Out Of This World Science Fiction Exhibition

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the “Out of this world” exhibition in The British Library. It’s a collection of mainly printed material covering a wide variety of science fiction. It spans the earliest writings from 2AD to the twenty first century. The exhibition was broken up into different themes eg. Future [...]

Sheriff Vaizey

I remember when Sheriff Vaizey galloped in to town on his grey dappled mare – the sun shone through a dust cloud that trailed him all the way from the northern territories. He’d been up that way on the hunt for Andy “Red Gun” Burnham. Vaizey didn’t like Burnham’s ways – in cahoots with a [...]

Community Knowledge Hub and Libraries

Whilst following “The Future of Library Services in the Big Society” conference via Twitter today (#libraries11) I came across a link to “Community Knowledge Hub“. This hub will “support the exchange of ideas, knowledge and expertise between organisations with a common interest in realising the benefits of community enterprise.” To be launched in July 2011, [...]

Save Surrey Libraries Meeting

A UNISON meeting was held yesterday in Guildford, to discuss concerns about proposals for changes to Surrey Libraries. The proposals included the handing over of 11 libraries to volunteers and the removal of the mobile library service (more details can be found here). This was the second meeting that had taken place – the first [...]

Library Tribe photographs

Library Tribe, a set by Hotpix UK Tony Smith [LRPS] on Flickr. I really like the idea behind Tony Smith’s “Library Tribe” photo set on Flickr. They’re of library users and their book selection as they walk out of the library. Each photo includes an insightful comment about their choice of book loan. Really like [...]

Future Libraries Programme – Final Report to Governance Board

At the end of March 2011 the MLA (Museums, Libraries & Archives Council) & LGA (Local Government Association) produced a final report for the “Future Libraries Programme.” Its remit was to review pilot projects that had been running throughout the U.K. as part of the programme to develop public library services. Following on from this best [...]