IN DEPTH
CILIP Conference 2024 – my experience
Attending a conference is a fantastic way to broaden your professional horizons. Here Amy Austin looks back at her time at this year’s CILIP Conference, thanks to bursary support from CILIP North East. There are a number of conferences coming up over the next few months including Rewired, Green Libraries Conference and CILIP RPG’s Unconference. Visit
www.cilip.org.uk/events to find out more.
THE annual CILIP Conference is aimed at anyone working in the library and information sector who is passionate about leadership, innovation and driving the profession forward to reach its full potential.
My participation wouldn’t have been possible without receiving a generous bursary from CILIP North East, to whom I’m incredibly grateful. I really enjoyed the opportunity to step beyond my role as a Reading List Library Assistant at Northumbria University and engage in the big conversations happening in my profession.
Day One
The 2024 CILIP Conference kicked off with a powerful keynote address by Daniel Gorman, Director of English PEN, part of an international writer’s association advocating for human rights. Gorman underscored the importance of freedom of expression, a cornerstone of the PEN Charter, but also emphasised the need to exercise this freedom responsibly in order to safeguard the rights of all. Against the backdrop of ongoing conflict in the world, Gorman drew a powerful link between books, libraries, and the defence of human rights, highlighting the ability of infor- mation professionals to take single actions that collectively create significant impact. One such example was the collaborative effort of librarians in London, facilitated by BookAid, to send books to war-torn Ukrainian libraries. This was a som- bre but powerful reminder that, over 100 years
18 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
on from the inauguration of PEN, libraries remain a vital tool to safeguard intellectual freedoms across the world.
Next up was an informative session on AI and its potential impact on the digital humanities. This session showcased the ability AI has to open up collections by uniting data from disparate sources (such as research outputs, transcriptions and images), and to engage more users through the development of interactive AI tools that enliven historical collec- tions. I found this session truly eye-opening, as it showed just how transformative AI can be for our sector if harnessed correctly, but also explored the ramifications of this powerful tool and the need for its considered application.
The next session discussed the sustainability of transformative agreements, involving perspec- tives from academic publishing and a HE library.
September 2024
Amy Austin, Reading List Library Assistant, Content Delivery and Copyright, Northumbria University.
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