Relying on the kindness of librarians
Putting together a conference programme is hard work - but the people make it magic.
The conference is over! Delegates from thirty countries came together to hear and share stories of innovation and imagination in libraries.
I always tell people that Internet Librarian International is my favourite three days of the year. They probably think “well, you WOULD say that wouldn’t you!” But a conference is so much more than the programme. Here’s just a few things that happened at the conference this year:
- When a speaker fell ill less than 12 hours before he was scheduled to speak, his colleague emailed me to say he had booked himself on an early-morning train to fill the speaking slot
- Experienced speakers and moderators being so supportive of nervous and first-time speakers
- One or two speakers happily running between tracks to present back-to-back sessions because of my scheduling challenges.
- 20 new young professionals buzzing around the conference courtesy of NLPN and FLIP
- A speaker encountered a visa problem over the weekend. The moderator of the session prepared and presented a whole new case study to fill the slot
- I walked into the speakers lounge and told them I’d just received a text from a moderator saying she was on a broken-down train. A speaker looked up and said, I’ll go moderate that session for you
- A speaker bought me a face-pack for dark circles under the eyes and a bottle of gin knowing it would make me roar with laughter.
- Delegates and speakers telling me: I've met this great person/ heard this fabulous case study/just had the best conversation/learnt something amazing
This year we had a keynote speaker who spoke about how and why she chose to leave her TV role to lead a library. The library journey is one of the greatest transformation stories of the last decade, she said. She wanted to be part of that. She wanted to be one of those people.
I had a coffee conversation with a delegate who said, well, we librarians are problem solvers aren’t we? Yes, and so much more than that!
To get a flavour of what happened at ILI - delegates were tweeting at #ILI2017. Jan Holmquist collected his tweets here - another kindness!
Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash