We are very sorry to announce that due to the ongoing pandemic we have been forced to cancel our 2020 annual seminar. 

We aren't planning to reschedule the seminar, but we are looking at holding a one day event alongside our AGM in December instead. We shall share more information about this later in the year.

Creating our story

Over the last decade, libraries have evolved enormously to deliver an ever-wider range of services and take their place at the heart of their communities.

We know that libraries bring multiple benefits to local communities in areas such as early years, education, health and social care. However, we also recognise that local authorities are working in times of unprecedented challenge and are struggling to manage huge financial reductions across all service areas.

This inevitably places pressure on service leaders who need to demonstrate the value they bring to local communities and promote all the ways that they can help local authorities to meet their priorities. That’s why this year’s seminar, in response to feedback from our members, is focusing on making the case for library services.

Our President Mark Freeman, President Elect Carol Stump, and our CEO, Isobel Hunter will open the event with an overview of all that we’ve achieved together during the last 12 months. They will also focus on the major projects that Libraries Connected are currently managing including Leading Libraries, BBC Novels that Shaped the World Festival and our library accreditation work.

You will also have the chance to meet colleagues from beyond the sector and from library services outside of the UK, giving you a valuable opportunity to reflect, consider and engage with ideas and activities that we hope will inspire and encourage you. Last year, 100% of people completing our survey said that the seminar had been a useful event and that they would recommend it to a colleague.

We will keep our panel session and flash talks on the agenda. However, this year we’re rejigging some of the workshops to allow delegates more of an opportunity to share and discuss ideas with colleagues. These discussions would be facilitated with the main points recorded and shared with the sector after the event.

Joseph Coelho will be our guest of honour for the seminar dinner, which will give us the chance to thank him for his amazing work promoting libraries though his tour. He will give a post dinner reflection on his tour. We’ve also already confirmed some key speakers for June as follows:

• Christian Lauersen, Director of Libraries and Citizen Services in Roskilde Municipality, Denmark will be our International Speaker. He believes that libraries are crucial institution in every community, public as academic to create and open, more diverse, inclusive and equal world. One of Christian’s main professional interests is how shared public places like libraries foster stronger communities. He is proud founder of Library Planet - a crowdsourced travel guide to libraries of the world.
• David Streatfield is Principal of Information Management Associates, a research, training and consultancy team focused mainly on evaluating the impact of libraries. From 2007 until 2018 he was an independent impact consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he advised the team managing the Global Libraries Initiative and worked with the impact specialists and country teams supporting public libraries impact development in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, South Africa and Turkey, as well various countries in Eastern Europe and South Asia.
• Wendy Lowder - Executive Director, Communities at Barnsley Council.

For more information about our seminar, please email: events@librariesconnected.org.uk