Library Review which reports on best practice and innovation.
Undoubtedly one of the group’s most popular offers is judging the Carnegie Medals. Jenny Hawke, chair of YLG describes the benefits arising from being a judge: “It gave me a greater awareness and knowledge of literature for children and young people and helped me with my Shadowing groups too. Shadowing the Carnegies is a brilliant way to find out about new books for children and particularly books which are often more thought provoking, diverse and promote discussion.”
One of the best ways to make a stand- out application to be a judge is through engaging with one of the 12 regional branches that the group operates. Branch- es provide local training and networking opportunities. Jenny first joined the Youth Libraries Group in 2011 after suc- cessfully applying for a bursary to attend one of the YLG’s conferences. The confer- ences offer an opportunity to engage with a mix of authors, academics and librarians and Jenny found the experience incred- ibly inspiring: “Being an active member of YLG enables you to network with other librarians, authors, illustrators and publishers which will inspire you and fuel your passion to foster a love of reading amongst the younger library users who you come into contact with.” Alongside the branches there are thematic groups including the Carnegies Organisational Group which gives oppor- tunities for past judges to stay involved with the awards and to help inform future decision making and direction or them. There’s also an annual shadow-
ing resource group where members get to devise innovative social and creative activities tied to the shortlist of books. Key current areas of interest for the group are the promotion of reading for pleasure, and also the impact of artifi- cial intelligence. The group works with a range of partners including BookTrust, The Reading Agency and National Lit- eracy Trust to help equip members with nuanced knowledge and understanding and to devise strategies for this. The group is gearing up for the National Year of Reading in 2026 and has a work- ing group in place to plan for this. Jenny says: “Collaboration is key and YLG needs to join forces and forge links with other sector organisations and charities. We all want the same thing, to champion diverse and inclusive texts. By working together on programmes, projects and special events we can best achieve this.” In 2027 we’ll be celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the Carnegie Medals and are planning a large-scale celebratory conference which will explore the rich and vibrant history of the awards and the impact they have had on libraries, publishing and the landscape of children’s books. With so much to look forward to, it looks set to be a busy few years for the group. There’s never been a better time to engage with us and we guarantee the warmest of welcomes. As Jenny rightly says: “We need to take a long-term view about reading. Next year is the start of something which could be huge and have a major effect on the way in which young people and children navigate the world in which we live.”
TheLibraryandInformation Research Group (LIRG) –
https://tinyurl.com/CILIPLIRG)
The Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) was formed in 1977 to bring together professionals interested in integrating library and information research into practice. We became a special interest group of CILIP in 2003. LIRG promotes the value of library, infor- mation, and knowledge research, as well as the application of research to our practice. The aim of the group is to raise the profile of library, information and knowledge research within the sector and also beyond. To support those undertaking or inter- ested in undertaking research, we offer a range of training sessions and webinars on various research-related topics. These sessions are tailored to be relevant to the library, information and knowledge sector, delivered by experienced professionals. In addition to our training, we maintain an active blog, newsletter, and web pres- ence, sharing relevant news from across the sector. We also run a Research Award, which provides a bursary to fund a small research project and we are currently putting together our next award. This will delve deeper into one of the topics identified in our 2023 Award conducted by Libby Tilley. Libby’s research aimed to
The judges for The Carnegies Medals 2025. 32 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL Winter 2025
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