in-person events and human contact as people look to make serendipitous con- nections. There is a balance between those in-person experiences and ensuring that the digital proposition adds value. One area where there are clear benefits is the intersection between digital engage- ment and EDI aspirations. While Covid may have made the impact of the digital divide more obvious, it also highlighted how effective digital-reach can be. There is an increasing realisation that none of these things sit in isolation, and again the solution lies in how institutions talk to people – and perhaps more impor- tantly, how they listen to people. Amina says: “It’s about listening to audiences and hearing what they have to say – it’s less about pushing content out, and more about listening to what is relevant to our audience and giving them those things.
“It’s about leading in different ways – enabling and empowering other people’s voices. You have to build relationships, and one way is to invite people to talk to you – but do it in a really meaningful way and building relationships for the long term. We are constantly learning, and we are open to the idea that we don’t have all the answers right now.”
city. An actual community space that belongs to the people.”
And while buildings can be difficult and expensive to adapt, the welcome that you receive in them is easier. Amina says: “We need to take a look at what we are doing and making sure we are fully welcoming and reaching out. It should be a core part of what we do, not an add on or extra kudos for the service. “If we are not actually welcoming and being meaningful, important and relevant in people’s lives then we might as well pack up and go home.”
Digital is increasingly important in opening new routes for people to engage with collections, and the National Library of Scotland has set ambitious targets around this. Previous National Librarian, John Scally wanted to see a third of collec- tions digitised by 2025 – that has already been achieved and now Amina is keen for that work to be capitalised upon. While many people did switch to digital engagement through necessity during Cov- id, many were unable to make the leap and lockdowns only made the digital divide wider. The trend is moving back towards
Those conversations will inform how an institution should look if it really wants to represent its audience. And it is not just in national libraries, or public library set- tings. Any service needs to understand its audience – and that can’t happen through intuition or guesswork, because “if you go to an audience and tell them what you can do for them without listening, you are going to miss something”. For the National Library of Scotland that means that “thinking about co-curation and how we can work with communities to tell stories together and collect together. As a legal deposit library, we have built-in
22 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
March 2023
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