Presentation from Nick Poole, CEO of CILIP, to the Festival of Libraries in Manchester, looking life beyond the pandemic for our profession.

1. Only connect
Nick Poole, Chief Executive, CILIP
Festival of Libraries, 10th June 2021

2. “When you're facing new challenges, re-state your core purpose. Re-state the role of
libraries as a place of reading, of knowledge, of learning. As a place for a community of
readers. A place to be safe or simply to be.”
Dr John Scally, National Library of Scotland

3. “The library was never finished, because it was never meant to be finished”
Rolf Halpel, Professor of Library Practice, University of Washington iSchool

4. Re-connecting
I believe ‘connection’ should be our guiding principle as we help our users recover and renew….
Connect with ourselves
and our own
experiences this year
Connect with partners
around us that share our
values and ambitions
Connect with our
purpose and identity as
libraries and the unique
role we play in peoples
lives
Connect with our
professional
community, share ideas
and offer solidarity
Connect with
colleagues, share
stories and empathise
with their experience
Connect with our users,
who they are and what
they need from us in
future
Connect with our users
in new ways as digital
takes its place alongside
the physical
Connect with decision-
makers to help the
understand the role we
have played and can
play in future

5. What did we learn?

6. Being human
COVID-19 has been a fundamentally shared human
experience, in the UK and worldwide. It has exposed
us to the basic fact – we’re all human, we’re all
vulnerable, we all need each other.
Libraries have always been fundamentally human
places – designed for universal access and
empowering people through information and reading.
Our humanity, kindness and empathy have shone
through during the past 15 months.
Making a difference – Public libraries during lockdown Carnegie UK Trust (2021)

7. Wellbeing is a library service
Dr Andrew Cox at the University of Sheffield has
undertaken research into the roles that University libraries
played during the pandemic.
He found that their work shifted from supporting students
with ‘library-specific’ issues to a much broader role in
supporting student wellbeing and mental health as part of a
‘whole University’ approach.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102256
Sign-
posting
Hosting
Detection
Wellbeing as a library service
Broader impact of library services
Library staff wellbeing

8. Exposing the fault lines
COVID-19 exposed the existing inequality in our society.
• COVID-19 mortality rates in the 20 most deprived Local Authorities
are more than twice those in the wealthiest areas1
• Universal Credit claimant numbers have increased by more than 8%
in more deprived areas, compared with 5% in wealthier ones2
• Deaths from COVID-19 among people from ethnic minority groups
were two to four times higher than those for the White population in
England
• One in three young people (18-24) were furloughed or sacked during
the pandemic, twice the rate for the overall adult population4
1, 2,4 https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/10/20/covid-19-why-we-must-redraw-the-uks-map-of-inequality/
3 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00949-1/fulltext

9. Health inequality
What are health inequalities? Health Scotland (2019)

10. Not gonna lie…
Antonia Guterres, Secretary General of the UN,
said “COVID-19 is as much an infodemic of
misinformation as it is a public health crisis.”
From Health to HE, business to schools, librarians
and information professionals stepped up during
the pandemic as sources of trustworthy
information.
We are not neutral, but we can be credible,
accountable and transparent in the information
we share. Looking ahead we have a critical role to
play in promoting Media and Information Literacy.

11. Places and spaces matter
The pandemic has heightened our awareness of physical
spaces, proximity, even ventilation!
We have an opportunity to use our trusted spaces and
places to help people come back together, feel safe and
continue with the new habits and working practices
acquired during the last 15 months.
• Places of meaning and connection
• Social workspaces
• The new office between home and work
• Spaces for creativity and imagination
Brooklands, Longsight and Beswick Libraries. Copyright © DCMS Libraries (2019)

12. Not everyone is online
The pandemic saw digital take is place on equal terms
with the physical, providing opportunities to reach out to
and engage with users, content and services from the
comfort of your own home.
But we also learned that connectivity is not universal and
often tracks to other forms of inequality and exclusion.
We have to make sure that our digital future doesn’t
contribute to ‘information poverty’ or digital exclusion.
51% of households earning between £6000-10,000 had
home internet access compared with 99% of households
with an income of over £40,0011
1 Exploring the UK’s Digital Divide, ONS (2018)

13. Library staff are awesome
Every sector has a story to tell of how library, LRC
or information services staff went above and
beyond to support our users during COVID-19.
Whether it was making the ‘digital pivot’, helping
users find e-resources, providing evidence to inform
life-changing decisions in healthcare, reaching out
to users or creating imaginative programming to
keep people engaged and occupied – when our
users needed us, we were there.

14. We are a Nation of Readers
During COVID-19, the populations of all
Four Nations turned to reading for
information, ideas and entertainment.
As we look to an urgent need for ‘literacy
recovery’ to avoid a lost generation, how
can we do more to foster the love of
reading?

15. As we come to terms with the global pandemic, our professional community, our
libraries, LRC and information services are more vital, more vibrant, more needed than
ever before.

16. It’s too early to call what the ‘new normal’ will be all about. We’re still in crisis response
and the recovery hasn’t fully started yet. It’s likely there’ll be a period of ‘back to the old
ways’ before really new practices emerge…
However, there are some landmarks we can see on the road ahead…

17. What do we know?
British society was already changing pre-pandemic. Some of the main
themes and trends are likely to define the post-crisis landscape:
• There will be more people – UK population is set to grow by 3m (4.5%)
in the next 10 years, and to pass 70m by 20311
• We will be older – the proportion of the population aged 85 years and
older will more than double in the next 25 years2
• We will be more diverse - by 2031, people from minority ethnic groups
will make up 15 per cent of the population3
• We will live in cities – by 2036, it is predicted that up to 64% of the UK
population will live in larger cities, an increase of 17.7%4
Source: ONS population forecasts (revised 2018 figures)
1 & 2 ONS population forecasts (revised 2018 figures)
3 Kings Fund demographic data
4 Government Office for Science Foresight report (2015)

18. Infrastructure for learning
With more people across all demographics, people living,
working and learning for longer, increased urban
population density and significant economic pressure on
public services, we need to be building now to keep pace
with future demand.
Libraries and information services in all sectors are the best
physical and digital infrastructure we have for broad and
universal access to knowledge, skills and learning outside
the classroom.
We’re going to need more libraries.
Manchester Central Library under construction. Copyright © Historic England

19. Information skills for life
Early years
intervention
Primary, Secondary
& FE provision
Higher Education
Post-16 & adult
education
Information in the
workplace
Information skills for
life & citizenship
Lifelong learning &
active ageing
Rather than thinking about, and advocating for, our profession in terms of
sector silos, we need to take pride in the fact that we support users in
developing information skills at every stage of their lives.
There is no better or more effective platform for lifelong learning, self-
discovery and development than our network of library and information
services.
• Reading literacy
• Digital skills
• Media and information literacy
• Critical thinking
• Intercultural dialogue and understanding
• Social mobility

20. Information skills for a stronger economy
The UK has three huge economic, industrial and social challenges to address as we look ahead to the next
100 years. Our profession is right at the heart of all three.
• The UK ranks 15th out of 20 G7 nations for productivity. The solution lies in working
smarter by developing the skills to unlock information, knowledge and data
Productivity
• Our industrial and economic future depend on the kind of innovation that comes from
being able to access & share ideas across disciplines (which depends on access to
knowledge, ideas and content)
Innovation
• Our ability to compete globally will depend on harnessing all of our human capital, which
means everyone everywhere needs access to education & opportunity, wherever they
live and whatever their means
Social mobility

21. The past 15 months have been incredibly tough for our profession and the communities
we serve. At the same time, it has proven time and again the value of a strong and united
library and information profession in all sectors.
We should be immensely proud of what we have been able to do for society during the
pandemic.

22. Re-connecting
I believe ‘connection’ should be our guiding principle as we help our users recover and renew….
Connect with ourselves
and our own
experiences this year
Connect with partners
around us that share our
values and ambitions
Connect with our
purpose and identity as
libraries and the unique
role we play in peoples
lives
Connect with our
professional
community, share ideas
and offer solidarity
Connect with
colleagues, share
stories and empathise
with their experience
Connect with our users,
who they are and what
they need from us in
future
Connect with our users
in new ways as digital
takes its place alongside
the physical
Connect with decision-
makers to help the
understand the role we
have played and can
play in future

23. Thankyou!
It has been great to be involved in the Festival of Libraries.
Manchester has an incredible and inspiring community of
library workers across all sectors, with MMU as a foundry of
new thinking for our profession.
If you’d like to follow up on any of the themes from today’s talk,
contact me at:
Nick.poole@cilip.org.uk
@NickPoole1
Join our professional community:
http://www.cilip.org.uk/joinasamember