INSIGHT ‘‘
Beth Montague-Hellen is Head of Library & Information Service at The Francis Crick Institute.
LGBTQ+
Building a community in challenging times
CILIP’s LGBTQ+ Network will welcome a new Chair in 2026, with Eilish Purton taking over from Dr Beth Montague-Hellen. Here we hear from both Beth and Eilish, looking back on Beth’s time as chair and looking forward to the next steps with Eilish.
T
HIS is my last column for Information Professional as the chair of the LGBTQ+ network. After just over two years it’s time to pass the baton.
Chairing the network has been wonderful, full of opportunities, but also full of challenges. The world has become an even harsher place for the LGBTQ+ community during this time and challenges in libraries have continued apace. It can be difficult to realise just how little you can actually do from a role like this one. But, when you can only do a little, doing a little is enough.
A challenging environment can be a great place to build leaders, and I’m not just talking senior librarians and knowledge workers here. We can all lead from wherever we are in an organisation, within a group like CILIP, or within the wider librarian community. All that is needed for leadership is to set your eyes on a goal, to start towards it, and to bring others with you. That is something we can all do. The goal I set myself when taking the role of Chair of the LGBTQ+ network was to build a community of queer and ally librarians, to provide a space within CILIP to support those who found they weren’t supported in their working lives and to battle back a bit of the political darkness we’re all facing. We haven’t got their yet, but both I and the network will continue to work on it in our own ways. Building community can be tough, but the CILIP network structure can support this. I’ve really enjoyed the collaboration events we’ve taken part in over the last two years, particularly with the Schools and Information Literacy groups. I’m looking forward to seeing lots more of this under the network’s new leadership. I hope you’ll all reach out to Eilish in the way you’ve reached out to me, and I’m sure that the network’s role in CILIP will only continue to grow. Many thanks to everyone who has supported me in this role, and with no further ado, I’d like to hand over to Eilish.
Eilish Purton
Lovely to meet you! (through the pages of Information Professional…)
30 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL Winter 2025
I’m Eilish Purton and I’m so delighted to be acting as chair for the CILIP LGBTQ+ community.
It’s so lovely to take over from Dr Beth Montague who’s left such a lasting legacy! Big shoes to fill indeed! It’s a privilege to be handed over from someone who is so dedicated and intelligent. I can’t wait to see what Dr Beth does next!
In the meantime, they’ve handed-over nicely and I’m excited to see what lies ahead for CILIP LGBTQ+. In my day job, I’m an open research and scholarship librarian that has an interest in EDI and widening access and participation. I’ve enjoyed working on the CILIP Ireland Committee previously and I am so happy to chair a committee that speaks to my dedicated interests in the library sector. This is largely off the back of meeting such a lovely and enthusiastic team.
I’m excited to see what we can work on together and how we can advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in the library sector. IP
Building community can be tough, but the CILIP network structure can support this. I’ve really enjoyed the collaboration events we’ve taken part in over the last two years, particularly with the Schools and Information Literacy groups.
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