SXSW: A librarian’s professional highlight

Attending SXSW has been on my professional bucket list for as long as I can remember, so finally making it to Austin, Texas this year as a speaker was a genuine professional high. 

Sharing a stage with the brilliant Luke Burton, Director, Libraries Arts Council England, Oonagh Murphy, Senior Lecturer Goldsmiths University and Jennifer Cleary, Director, Combined Arts and North Arts Council England for our session “Tech Happens Here: Libraries as Innovation Partners” was a timely reminder of the essential role public libraries play in the digital ecosystem.
 

Public libraries: A new home for digital culture?

Libraries are hubs of digital innovation—but they also support people who face the greatest instability in their access to technology. Visit any public library in England and you’ll see every computer in use. People are applying for jobs, accessing vital health information or simply staying in contact with their loved ones. For many, libraries aren’t a luxury or a community extra. They are a vital public infrastructure.

Much of my contribution drew on the work of Coventry Libraries and Information Service, particularly our Digital Spaces Project—an Arts Council England–funded initiative delivered with The Space. The project explores a simple but powerful question: could libraries be a new home for digital culture? What we’ve learned so far suggests the answer is a resounding yes.

My key points were as follows.

1. Libraries provide open digital access where it matters most. Public libraries offer something few other civic institutions can: free, open access to digital tools and creative technologies in a trusted, non-commercial setting. By operating at a hyper-local level, libraries can tackle digital inequality in ways that national programmes often struggle to reach. Whether it’s a VR headset, a 3D printer or simply a reliable public PC, these resources become transformative when placed within walking distance of people who need them most.

2. Library staff bring empathy, trust and human-centred expertise. A theme that resonated strongly with the SXSW audience was the uniquely human support library teams provide. Libraries blend technical skills with empathy, patience and personalised guidance—qualities often missing from commercial digital spaces. This combination positions libraries as ideal partners for organisations developing new technologies who want them to be genuinely accessible, inclusive and useful.

3. Libraries teach not just technology, but digital responsibility. In an age of AI-generated content, misinformation, manipulated media and deep fakes, libraries have a crucial role in nurturing critical thinking. We’re not just showing people how to use emerging technologies; we’re helping them understand how to question, interpret and challenge the digital world around them. This is vital civic infrastructure.

Libraries: Bringing empathy to tech culture

What struck me throughout the week was how warmly people - attendees and contributors alike - responded whenever public libraries were mentioned. There is growing recognition, internationally, that libraries offer something tech culture urgently needs: access over exclusion, care over extraction. I left Austin with a stack of contacts, a head full of ideas, and a renewed conviction that libraries must be central to digital policy and innovation. As Oonagh Murphy commented, imagine the impact if even 1% of public sector AI budgets went to supporting digital access in libraries. Imagine if new digital services were user-tested with real library users. The transformation would be profound.

SXSW was unforgettable. But more importantly, it reaffirmed something our sector already knows. Tech really does happen here and libraries are leading the way. And oh yes - I did visit the Public Library to buy a t-shirt!