Umbrella 2005

Citation

Turner, R. (2005), "Umbrella 2005", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 11/12. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2005.072106kac.001

Umbrella 2005

The 2005 Umbrella Conference organised by CILIP took place at the University of Manchester over three days from 30th June until 2nd July. I was fortunate enough to be sponsored by the North West Branch of CILIP as a delegate for the three days.

Umbrella is a chance for individuals from all sectors of the library and information profession to come together for an annual conference. The theme of the conference this year was based around a number of key issues, which were divided into nine key strands: keeping, managing, marketing collections; evidence based practice and policy; your ethical and legal responsibilities (KEY); information literacy; staff and workforce development; society and workforce development; society and information; user needs; exteriors and interiors (ISSUE), plus specialisms and enthusiasms.

As first time delegate I was slightly nervous and felt a little out of place amongst many obviously seasoned event attendees, but the opening day did have a first timers' lunch designed to break the ice.

Apart from the main key issue related strands there was also an exhibition of library suppliers, some excellent poster sessions, several annual general meetings for various groups and a full social programme for the evenings.

On the first morning of the conference I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a NW Branch of CILIP visit to the North West Film Archive where Marion Hewitt gave an interesting overview of the development of the archive. We also had the opportunity to see some fascinating rare film, including Yuri Gagarin's visit to Manchester, 1 1963 film of the Beatles at The Manchester Apollo, pre World War 1 footage of Stalybridge Wakes Week and holidays in Blackpool and a wonderful early promotional film by the Co-operative Society.

After lunch the opening plenary session was well attended and was presented by Deborah Shorley, CILIP President, Bob Usherwood, Programme Director for Umbrella, and Margaret Watson, Chair of the Umbrella Steering Committee on the theme of The future of our profession, chaired by Bob McKee, CILIP Chief Executive. Each panellist gave their interesting views on what lies ahead for the library and information profession, before several questions were fielded. Sadly there was not time for many questions or time for themes to be developed, the strict time keeping was evident throughout the whole conference and did somewhat stunt discussions.

Following the plenary session I was able to attend the session in the Information literacy strand. Jonathan Douglas of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council gave a good overview of the 2005 year of literacy, followed by a report on the 2005 Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) from Debbi Boden, Jane Secker and Ruth Stubbings. It was obvious from those attending that information literacy is a hot topic at the moment. Although there were again strictly enforced time limits there was a chance to meet the session leaders informally elsewhere in the conference.

The evening of the first day saw an exhibition opening party, the ISG (CILIP)/Nielsen Bookdata Reference Awards and the Umbrella Awards Dinner featuring a talk from the author Lesley Glaister.

For the first session on Friday I switched strands to evidence based practice and policy for an overview of evidence-based practice in education and the work of the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-centre) by Josephine Kavanagh of the EPPI-Centre. This was followed by Margaret Haines of King's College London presenting a case study of evidence-based practice in higher education.

After a hurried coffee it was back up the stairs for a very entertaining session on information handling skills by Jean Henderson in which she demonstrated the online information skills package she had developed primarily for adult learners, but there were good ideas there for information literacy educators in any sector.

The breaks also gave the opportunity to attend some of the exhibitors showcase presentations and to view the poster sessions with the chance to speak to the authors. It did seem rather crowded each time I went to look at these and the authors were constantly engaged by delegates.

The afternoon was taken up with attending another evidence based practice and policy strand in which Christine Urquhart of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth looked at assessing impact. This was followed by a very interesting talk by Lorna Banks of HM Customs and Excise and Chris Watts, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University, in which they discussed their collaboration in creating an annual survey for the Committee of Departmental Librarians' Quality Management Working Group. Chris Watts also dealt with a technical hitch both professionally and light-heartedly!

Despite the hectic social events of the Friday evening Saturday morning sessions started at 9.30 am with noticeably less delegates around – either because of the excesses of the night before or because they had started to head home early!

The first session of the day was by Alan Bradwell of Anglia Polytechnic University good-humouredly explaining the operations of the Research Evidence in Education Library (REEL) project as part of the wider EPPI-Centre. The explanation of systematic reviewing was very useful, despite its attendant problems. Following on from this, Caroline Wavell, a Research Assistant at Robert Gordon University, gave an excellent overview of turning research into practice and turning practice into research. As a full time PhD student this was a particularly valuable session.

The final session of the conference was the one that I had particularly looked forward to as it was being delivered by a fellow independent school librarian and was supposed to be about school librarians working in partnership with teachers. Unfortunately, Anne-Marie Tartar was ill but the session was efficiently rescued by the Chair, Jan Hepworth from North Yorkshire County Council. Delegates were encouraged to explain their background and discuss the ways they worked with teachers.

Friday early evening also saw a further well attended plenary session in which Michael Gorman, President of the ALA, discussed “Changing times, enduring values”.

By 12.30 pm on Saturday I was all Umbrella-d out! The only criticisms I would have are that, despite the first timers lunch, there were a lot of people looking somewhat isolated and lonely between the sessions while others were obviously networking and catching up with colleagues. It might be a good idea for Umbrella to perhaps buddy up newcomers with experienced delegates. Despite the strict time controls, which were perhaps too stifling of debate and discussion, the tardiness of some delegates arriving for sessions was not ideal for sustaining the concentration of either delivery or listener.

And when will people realise that the Please switch off mobile phones messages apply to everyone?!

However, the conference was very useful for my research and professional development, but just as importantly was a wonderful opportunity to meet people I had only seen or read about in the library and information press. The University of Manchester was a very accessible location for any conference and the Umbrella 2005 organisers had obviously put in a lot of work, which paid off with a smoothly run event attended by over 800 delegates from a number of different countries.

Richard TurnerSchool of Business Information, Liverpool John Moores University, UK