January 2012 sees the launch of the LIHG's new website and communications hub.
Go to www.lihg.org
For:
* All up-to-date information about the Group's organisation, activities, publications, awards, and projects
* A calendar of all LIHG talks, visits, and meetings, plus other events of interest to library and information historians
* News and features via the blog
* The current issue of the newsletter and an archive of past issues as downloadable PDFs
The site is designed to improve communication between committee and membership and amongst the membership as a whole, facilitating the exchange of information and sharing of knowledge between all those engaged in library and information history.
Registered users on the site can:
* Participate in discussion forums
* View and comment upon committee discussions
* Receive immediate notification of new issues of the newsletter as soon as they appear, with simple link to click to download the PDF directly
Please visit the site, register, and join in.
(Information on this page will no longer be updated.)
The Library and Information History Group 2011
We aim to emphasise that although library and information history is about historic libraries and collections, it also covers:
How information and knowledge were used and thought of in the past.
How information is preserved and collected in contemporary society.
How new technologies may be changing the way in which we interact with the past and how we safeguard the modern record.
UPDATE: All Members are invited to attend the LIHG 2011 AGM on Tuesday 8th November at CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE.
The AGM 
Agenda will commence at 2pm including the Chairman's Report and the Treasurer's Report. Following the AGM at 2:30pm the LIHG is delighted to welcome Markman Ellis, Professor of Eighteeth-Century Studies at Queen Mary University of London as our guest speaker.
Markman Ellis is the winner of the 2010 Library History Essay Prize, awarded for the best article published in library and information history in 2009. His prize winning essay was:
"Coffee-house Libraries in Mid Eighteenth-Century London", The Library: Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 10:1 (March 2009), pp. 3-40.
His research interests are in eighteenth century literature and culture. He has published on the gothic novel, slavery and abolition, and tea, as well as coffee-house culture in the eighteenth century. His work on coffee-house libraries, on which he will be speaking, illustrates the value of studying library history in the wider context of intellectual and socio-political history and promises a fascinating afternoon. There will be opportunity for questions and discussion following the talk.
All are welcome to attend the event, which is free to both members and non-members. Tea will be served afterwards.
If you would like to attend the AGM and/or the talk afterwards please contact Shauna Barrett, Events Secretary (s.barrett@ucl.ac.uk) so that we have numbers for refreshments.
The Winter 2011 Newsletter is now available in both A4 colour format and A5 black and white booklet format.
The Summer 2011 Newsletter is now available in both A4 colour format and A5 black and white booklet format! Enjoy!!
THE LIBRARY & INFORMATION HISTORY GROUP
One-day conference on the theme:
Libraries under threat
to be held at University College London
on 24 May 2011
Speakers to include:
Professor Andrew Stauffer of the University of Virginia on the preservation of the printed book in libraries.
Professor Laurel Brake, Professor Emerita of Literature and Print Culture at Birkbeck, on historical newspapers and periodicals in British research libraries.
John Crawford on what the Edzell library tells us about contemporary
ideologies of public library provision and the library's potential as a museum of
librarianship.
Christine Penney on the threatened Hurd Library at Hartlebury Castle.
Dr Sue Reynolds of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on how the
rules of an Antipodean library’s foundation in 1851 threaten its existence today.
Simon Barron on Paul Otlet’s ill-fated Mundaneum.
Zdeněk Uhlíř of the National Library of the Czech Republic on how digitisation may allow the reconstruction of historic collections.
Karen Attar of Senate House Library on the University of London Library during the Second World War.
John Powles of the Giving Voice Workshops on library campaign songs.
The conference will commence at 9.45 (registration from 9.20)
A fee of £40 (inc. VAT) will be charged for members of the Library & Information History Group, and £52 (inc. VAT) for non-members: fee includes annual membership of the Group.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
A student bursary is available for attendance at this event - for details see the
booking form.
For bookings contact:
Shauna Barrett,
Subject Librarian for Anthropology & Celtic,
UCL Library Services,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
s.barrett@ucl.ac.uk
Happy New Year everyone!
The Spring 2011 Newsletter now available online in both A4 and A5 booklet format!
(Also available in A5 booklet format)
The LIHG AGM will be held at CILIP Headquarters 7 Ridgmount Street, London. WC1E 7AE on 9th November. The AGM will start at 2pm and this will be followed by a member event at 2.30pm. All LIHG members are welcome to attend both the AGM and Members event. Please contact Shauna Barrett s.barrett@ucl.ac.uk to reserve your place.
In preparation the AGM Agenda, LIHG Treasurer's Report 2009 and the Annual Report 2009-2010 are now available.
UPDATE:
Change of speaker....
Re: meeting of the Aberystwyth Bibliographical Group on 26th October, to be held at 6.30 in the Drwm, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
The speaker will now be Nichola Court who will talk on "The History of the Royal Society and its Library".
Visitors from LIHG are welcome to attend the meeting free of charge, and to dine with the speaker afterwards if they wish - usual cost is around £14 per person. Those wishing to stay for dinner should contact Timothy Cutts on 01970 632980 or tjc@llgc.org.uk
January 2010 update
A happy new year to all our members!
We have a diverse and interesting programme of events planned for the coming year. All members should by now have received their annual mailing and yearcard for 2010.
Watch the website for updates, or register via the CILIP website if you have not already done so to receive monthly electronic mailings from the Group with news and events in the library and information history world. (Once logged in to the CILIP website, just tick the ‘news from CILIP’ option in the ebulletins section to receive Group and Branch emails.)
Conference on Parochial Libraries: Past, Present and Future
The Parochial Libraries Act of 1708, still in force today, was introduced to protect parish libraries from misuse or disposal, and this issue is as relevant as ever 300 years later. This conference features the sometimes extraordinary history of parish libraries, their current care and use, and how these collections may best be preserved for future generations. We are thrilled to be meeting in the inspiring setting of the Great Hall at Lambeth Palace, and have a superb line-up of speakers arranged. BOOKING IS NOW OPEN. Click here for further details and a booking form. [Note: a student bursary is available to cover the conference fee and modest travel expenses - see booking form for details.]
Copies of the softback edition of Lambeth Palace’s beautiful new book to accompany its upcoming ‘Treasures’ exhibition will be available for delegates to purchase priced £15.
Let us know what you think.
Along with your yearcard and annual update from the Group, you should also have received a short survey to find out what you, the members, want from the Group, and we urge you all to complete and return this, as members’ views will feed directly into the committee’s planned review of strategy, ensuring that Group activities over coming years reflect our members’ priorities.
OCTOBER 2009 UPDATE
Now available - Winter 2009 newsletter.
The Annual General Meeting of the Library and Information History Group will be held at 2.30 pm on Wednesday 11 November at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. All members are welcome.
The AGM will be followed by a 90 minute tour of the Library and its special collections. Please let Dorothy Clayton
(dorothy.clayton@manchester.ac.uk) know if you intend to attend the AGM and/or tour.
Papers for the AGM are available online - Annual Report 2008/9 and Treasurer's Report.
The AGM will be preceded at 12.30 pm by a Group Committee meeting at which members are welcome to observe. Please let us know in advance if you wish to attend as an observer.
JULY 2009 UPDATE
Appointment of new Treasurer
Votes have now been counted and independently verified, and we are delighted to announce that Kathleen Ladizesky has been elected to the post of Honorary Treasurer. We welcome her to the committee. It is a positive sign of the health of the Group that two such very able candidates came forward for this vital (but often considered unglamorous) role and we would like formally to register our thanks to both for standing for the position. We would also like to thank all those members who voted in the election.
Conferences and Events
We are an active Group, and encourage participation from the membership as a whole. Events in 2009 have attracted good audiences. Our Group conference in March brought together delegates from around the world, giving a fascinating collection of papers reflecting the range of interests encompassed in library and information history. The conference also resulted in the recruitment of a dozen new members for the Group. Talks arranged directly by the LIHG have been well-attended, prompting lively discussion. We have also been delighted to sponsor a successful series of seminars on library history held at UCL, and will be supporting a further series for the 2009-10 academic year. The next LIHG event will be a private tour of Bromley House in Nottingham, followed by a talk by Paul Sturges on 4 September (see events listing for further details). The committee is now hard at work drawing up the programme for 2010. We have received a number of suggestions for speakers and venues for Group events, but would be delighted to hear further ideas from members. If you have a particularly interesting library near you who might be able to offer a tour, a venue for a talk or informal meeting, if you have heard an inspiring speaker on some aspect of library and information history, or indeed would like to share the results of your own researches with a wider audience, please let us know. Discussions are well underway on the possibility of a joint international conference in 2010 with colleagues in Germany and Scandinavia, as well as a UK one day conference. More details will follow once dates and venues are confirmed.
Website
You will see some changes to the website in coming months, as CILIP prepares to implement a new content management system. Older material on the site will disappear from our webpages during this period. If you need to access information that used to be here, please get in touch with our web manager using the contact form. Although pages have had to be removed to facilitate the transfer of files, everything has been archived, and we should be able to provide copies for you. Please bear with us during the transition.