NEWS
Recycle your wrapper
THE plastic wrapper that your Informa- tion Professional arrives in can be recycled at most large supermarkets – even if road- side recycling does not offer the service. Simply take the wrapper to any super- market that has a plastic bag recycling point and deposit it in the same way as you would a carrier bag. CILIP is actively looking at more sustainable options, but in the meantime, please recycle your wrapper where you can. l
www.recyclenow.com/cy/node/3284
Digital crowdsource
appeal for Unesco UNESCO has issued an appeal for help as part of work to make a collection of 5,000 digital images searchable.
Unesco Archives launched a crowd- sourcing campaign to help transcribe information from photos in its historic collection, which covers its work since its inception in 1945.
“It’s difficult to find all the interesting treasures they contain”, according to the appeal. “To solve this, we want to improve the collection by inviting you, the pub- lic, to help us transcribe and enrich the information about each photo. This will allow us to dramatically expand the ways in which the collection can be researched and accessed, opening doors to new kinds of discoveries.” To take part visit
https://bit.ly/2Dgfdr3.
Correction
IN last month’s interview with William Sieghart we mistakenly referred to his work with CiviQ.
We are happy to clarify that he is work- ing as part of the social enterprise Civic (
www.civic.co.uk) – an organisation that is dedicated to accelerating place-based social change in communities as diverse as Birmingham, East London, Kabul and Syrian refugee camps in Jordan. We would like to apologise for any confusion.
6 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Can libraries merge social and financial value?
A PROJECT helping libraries to connect social and financial value without undermining their repu- tation has developed tools to help them in this complex task. The findings from the two-year project, which cost £316,000, exposed a high level of complexity due to difficulties in pinning down the meaning of social value and how libraries measure it. The research, which focused on Libraries Unlimited, said: “No single, generalis- able method is identified as a template for understanding social value. Instead, evidence suggests that libraries are adopt- ing what, in social enterprise research, is known as a ‘bricolage’ approach to captur- ing their impact.” A systematic literature review found
that “an ad-hoc approach to measuring, evaluating and monetising ‘social value’ is emerging in the libraries sector.” It said: “The diversity of approaches
is underpinned by a similar diversity of definitions of ‘value’ itself and the fact that libraries themselves create many diverse forms of social value.” This complexity was labelled as the “tricky aspect” because “it means that a library service is a highly complex organisation to run, manage and be part of, particularly once it becomes a mutual or social enterprise. This carries both costs and opportunities once you move beyond a simple ‘tax pays for it’ public sector framing.” The literature search found three significant gaps in the sector’s under-
standing, which it simplified as organi- sational values, data analytics, and staff development – adding that these areas were important for the “implementation of mechanisms that capture, amplify and monetise social value.” These three now form the basis of the research’s key outcome – a tool organ- isations can use to understand social value and how this value might fit into a different form of business, service or operating model in the organisation. Ciara Eastell, Chief Executive of Libraries Unlimited, said “At the heart of this research has been the question ‘what is a library for?’” She identified two opposing perspectives: those who see libraries supporting the information needs of local communities and those who feel that libraries need to develop a new purpose and approach. She said: “Through the research, I believe
we’ve begun to uncover an approach that recognises that these apparently polarised perspectives are not mutually exclusive.” The report added that both library
staff and leaders need to become good at “library bricolage”, which it defines as using the resources at hand; and that leading library services “is character- ised by a ‘DIY’ process involving finding new ways, and learning about new tools, to blend social and financial value together, rather than relying on a standardised template.”
Find the full report at
https://bit.ly/2UYYh2l Laureate’s 20-year celebration
BOOKTRUST has celebrated 20 years of the Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate scheme. First launched by BookTrust in 1999
the Laureateship is a celebration of the best authors, illustrators and poets working in children’s publishing. This year sees the honour celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of events and the release of special book, Flights of Fancy, with contributions by each
of the 10 Laureates – from inaugural Laureate Quentin Blake to the current incumbent Lauren Child. Lauren said: “Some of the reasons for having a Children’s Laureate are to spark ideas and debate, to have the platform to consider how things might change, to explore what might be important for the audience we write and illustrate for, and to bring forward those voices from which we need to hear.”
April-May 2019
News
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