Each year the Youth Libraries Group has the opportunity to recognise somebody from the industry and somebody from the profession with honorary membership. This year Charlie Sheppard, publishing director at Andersen Press was honoured with this at the Youth Libraries Group conference. Charlie has been an enormous champion of libraries and throughout her career has shown exceptional commitment towards high standards in publishing, towards exemplary author care and supporting creativity in the pursuit of excellent and often innovative writing. Honorary members from the industry help to elevate and improve the whole book world for all and we certainly feel this is true for Charlie Sheppard. Charlie has written a response to the honour and we reproduce this below to showcase the importance of the honour and what it means to people receiving this accolade.
My dear friends,
I just wanted to thank you all for my YLG honorary membership. Being given that was truly the most surprising, humbling and gratifying moment in my career. I feel I need to put into print what I wish I could have put into words that night. It was such a shock and I honestly didn't know Jake was talking about me until the penny dropped right at the end of his citation and I realised everyone was staring at me. So what came out of my mouth was incoherent and needed a jolly good edit.
My first YLG conference was in the late 1990s. Ripon? Or Edinburgh? I can't remember which. As has often happened to me in this job, I couldn't believe my luck. Here I was being sent away to stay in a nice hotel, to hear incredible authors and illustrators speak, to dance at a disco (yes there was dancing in the good old days) and then spend the rest of my time talking about books with people who shared my own passion and wanted recommendations. Here were the caring people who were going to get the books I'd been working on into the hands of their intended audience. And they were so lovely and welcoming on top!
As the years have rolled by, I have seen the most incredible people talking about their life work at YLG conferences. Shirley Hughes, Philippa Pearce, Joan Aiken, John Birmingham and Wendy Cooling to name but a few. People we've now lost but I had the privilege of learning from and hearing speak. And I have also made special friendships over dinners and late nights in the bar with some of the most thoughtful, kind and well read people I have ever met.
When I started my relationship with YLG I didn't appreciate we were in a golden age of libraries. When library closures began I saw time after time at conferences and events the people I'd come to care about and admire fear for their budgets and then lose them, fear for their jobs and then lose them, fear for their libraries and then lose them. I felt helpless and impotent, standing on the sidelines and watching the country I love throw away one of its greatest unsung assets.
And yet, and yet. Back so many of you have come. Time after time, conference after conference, using your knowledge and skills and resilience to find new ways to reach children and encourage their reading, and always helping and supporting each other along the way.
Am I a frustrated librarian? Possibly. Although once you did away with stamping books the job lost a bit of its appeal for me. But now as an honorary member of YLG I feel as though I'm one step closer to being one of you.
I thank you for considering me worthy of this honour. It really means so much. And I promise you I will never take it for granted or lightly. I will keep coming back for as long as you'll have me, I'll keep talking about books for as long as you'll let me, and I'll bridge that gap between publisher and librarian for as long as you want me.
And that is what I wish I'd said that night rather than bursting into tears and babbling like a fool.
Charlie.
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