Cilip Conference logo 2013
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the annual CILIP Wales conference held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Cardiff.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this organisation CILIP stands for The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals – so the conference was geared up to everyone who works or is associated with libraries throughout Wales, but also attracted delegates beyond Offa’s Dyke.
In last year’s conference, Huw Lewis, the former Welsh Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage gave a Keynote Address about library projects that demonstrated a partnership in delivering services in innovative, efficient and effective ways, to improve the lives of communities in Wales – and this theme was continued this year.
We had several presentations on this theme over the two day conference, and on Friday, John Griffiths, Minister for Culture and Sport gave us an address, before putting his words into action when he later visited Pontycymer, where he opened the new library which shares its site with the local sports centre.
The Library was represented at the conference with a trade stand promoting ‘the Library from afar’ featuring our online electronic resources. One of the most popular is our Welsh Newspapers On-line, which has been recently launched, as is already proving a hit with local historians, family historians, and researchers in general.
One of the most popular presentations was by Siân Thomas from the Library when she gave a talk about The ITV Digital Archive which is held at the Library – another resource to add to our priceless collections.
The 2013 conference proved to be another success, attracting 200 delegates and thank you to all the organisers involved. It gave a great opportunity to share ideas and experiences with colleagues, and of course to socialise!