that will interact autonomously with the world around us.
Here, too, the role of librarians, informa- tion and knowledge professionals is not to be passive in the face of technology. It is our role both proactively to facilitate the good of an open Web, AI and automation while ensuring that we minimise the harms. In my view, there are four ‘core com- petencies’ that will equip our children to navigate the ongoing challenges of digital disruption – empathy, critical thinking, creativity and curiosity. As information pro- fessionals providing services to the public focused on access to information, we have a central role to play in promoting all four.
Building the ‘ideas economy’ Marked by its absence from recent procla- mations by UK political parties is the idea of an ‘Industrial Strategy’ that will define how our national economy will be sus- tained over the next 20-30 years. Instead, we have heard much about the Govern- ment’s concerns over our historically (and comparatively) low rates of productivity. Looking ahead, it is highly unlikely that the UK will be able to compete with ‘brute force’ industrial economies based on man- ufacturing and primary industry. Instead, we need to find ways to work smarter and to harness what is uniquely powerful in our industrial identity - our ability to create, harness and export ideas.
Solving the UK’s productivity conundrum is not, therefore, simply a question of ‘more infrastructure’ or ‘more bandwidth’. It is much more likely to come from improving our ability to bring together diverse bodies of knowledge, to take a tangential and crea- tive view on them and to extract new forms of value and meaning from them. Here again, it is the work of librarians and information professionals that will create the future generations of information-liter- ate workers with the advanced digital and data skills needed to forge a new digital industrial economy.
The greatest battle of them all All of our internecine conflicts pale, however, in the face of the impending realisation of the impact of more than a century of uncontrolled industrialisation on our global ecosystem. Simply put, our current way of life is not sustainable, and the worst impacts of this are being felt first and most severely – as they always are – by those least able to protect themselves.
The recent failure of COP28 has high- lighted a central truth – which is that indus- trial capitalism may not have within itself the ability to course-correct to maintain a liveable planet for the global population. Here again, it will most likely be an informed, literate and critical population which demands policy, regulation and commitments to a more sustainable planet.
30 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Our job as librarians, information profes- sionals and knowledge practitioners is to help future generations amass the data, the evidence and the eloquence to demand better of their Governments and industry.
Where we go from here?
So where do we go from here? How should our professional community respond to the challenges that confront our societies both in the UK and around the world? I think there are four responses that should guide us in the months ahead: First and foremost, we must be absolutely clear in our values, expressed in the form of our professional ethics (
www.cilip.org. uk/ethics). Our role in supporting society, communities and individuals must always be guided by our values, which themselves derive from a fundamental commitment to Human Rights and civil liberties. Secondly, we must build a new capability to think creatively and productively about the future – we must learn to strategise. This year, thanks to the support of the Arts Council England, CILIP will launch a landmark new set of tools and resources called ‘Future Libraries’ (see page 32). We have worked with our partners at Shared Intelligence to develop a new approach that libraries can use to think about and respond to times of change and disruption. Centred on the idea of ‘Futures Liter-
acy’, developed by the United Nations, our toolkit invites librarians, information
professionals and knowledge managers to explore a range of possible future scenarios and to decide how best to position their services for the benefit of their users.
Third, we must go forward into 2024 with a strong sense of solidarity and com- mon purpose. CILIP stands for the idea that we are one professional community, united by our values and competencies. As librarians, information and knowledge professionals become increasingly embed- ded into the businesses and communities they serve, there is a real risk of profes- sional dissociation and fragmentation. If we are truly to drive positive change, we must harness the network effect across our professional community. And finally, it is my strong belief that we should come together as a community to embrace the positive global ambition set out in the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The goals have served as a rallying-call to commu- nities and industries around the world to come together an innovate for a better, fairer, more just and inclusive world. I believe that as bastions of democracy, inclusivity, learning and understanding, libraries have a uniquely powerful role to play in achieving these global ambitions in the face of conflict and disruption. So that is both my prediction and my aspiration for 2024. At every level, from industry to parish councils, local authorities, city regions and even nations, we must come together as a profession not just to advocate for the centrality of our role in the UK’s social, economic and industrial future, but to secure it. The world is changing, and information, knowledge and data sit right at the heart of many of these changes. How well we support the populations we serve through this time of disruptive change will come to define the relevance and perceived value of our services for decades to come. Our users, our communities and our societies need us. Will we rise to the challenge? IP
January-February 2024
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