It doesn’t seem very long ago that Jennifer Smith and I were chatting at a CILIP in London meeting in the Sekforde Arms about our new ventures: she and her partner were setting up ONEIS and I had begun work as a visiting lecturer at UCL alongside my job at Moorfields.
A couple of months later, Jennifer and two friends set up the London Information Knowledge Exchange (LIKE), “a community of Library, Information, Knowledge and Communication professionals. We meet monthly to share stories, learn and exchange knowledge in an informal and relaxed setting” (LIKE webpage). Building on the format of the old CILIP in London meetings, LIKE offers a speaker, an opportunity for debate and knowledge sharing and, most importantly for the success of the events, a nice dinner. As it says on their website, “The best thing about LIKE meetings is that they attract interesting and friendly people. It’s rather like a very good dinner party.”
I’m delighted to be the speaker at the next LIKE event, on 26 April:
Books: Why Bother? Booking essential via http://www.likenews.org.uk
After years speaking about social media, tonight Anne returns to her first love, the book, asking why it still matters in our brave new digital world. Do people really prefer e-readers, and will new authors really want to write a full-length monograph if they can only hold it in their hands inside a Kindle or Kobo? How does it feel to spend three years writing and then stand in the lobby of Cilip HQ hugging your new book? Is this something you might like to consider doing yourself? These days, even the Research Excellence Framework (REF) against which academics are measured seems to be pushing us towards peer-reviewed articles in preference to the book, and, quite simply, text-books don’t count as research. For librarians, is the book still our bread and butter, and, in these economically austere days, is Ranganathan’s assertion still true, that “Books are weapons?” This talk will raise these issues while offering an honest account of the publishing process, hopefully triggering your own response to the question “Books: why bother?”
Facet Publishing have provided a copy of Practical Cataloguing by Anne Welsh and Sue Batley as a raffle prize, and attendees will receive a discount on copies of the book.
Booking required. Full details on http://www.likenews.org.uk
I’m really pleased that this will be the first event promoting Practical Cataloguing, and look forward to seeing familiar and new faces at the Crown Tavern, Clerkenwell.
- Upcoming event listing on Amazon author page.
