CILIP President Kate Robinson gives her overview of the highlights from the Conference:

THE CILIP Conference 2022 began with a poem. It told the story of a day in a public library, of an interaction between a user and a librarian, and we listened together as the poet Vanessa Kisuule reminded us of the value of our libraries to our communities.

Chris Whitty, an Honorary Fellow of CILIP, spoke of the story of the pandemic and the work of librarians and information professionals through challenging times: “… where I really see your work close up is the extraordinary impact that well-curated, really well laid out information has on public policy and practice amongst the professions including medicine, my own profession”.

Our opening keynote, Sayf Al Ashquar, told us the story of his library in Mosul. He spoke of its destruction by Isis as a deliberate act as “to control the people they destroy the knowledge so new generations will follow them without thinking”, but this was also a story of his astonishing determination and renewal as he set about rebuilding what had been devastated. Sayf told us “I don’t have weapons, my weapons are knowledge” and he showed us images of the people who supported his work through the pandemic, saying that “with all the pain you can see the smile on the face of the volunteer” as they set about the reconstruction of the Library with funds he had battled to secure. In 2022 he reopened the Library: “it came back to life as a place of knowledge, a place of awareness, and when the students came back the soul of the Library came back”.

Professor Jaqueline McGlade welcomed us on our second day with a keynote around a new philosophy of natural prosperity, telling tales of our interdependence on nature for our prosperity and for our wellbeing. Stories and storytelling were at the heart of her practice as she spoke about how the most powerful thing she could do to influence policymakers was to tell the story of what was happening “on the ground” with climate change, as “their heart needs to be in it to promote policy and stories can be a powerful way to touch their hearts”. In doing this, she found that “people started to join the dots of their own stories” and make connections that could lead to actions to make positive change; that the storytelling “brought people to life”.

We saw IFLA’s Storytelling Map where stories of libraries from around the world are shared with reflections on the ‘why, where what’ of these initiatives. Krystal Vittles from Suffolk Libraries shared the story of her career with us, speaking of the “generosity of spirit” she had found from others and how it is “other people who have made me”. New professionals, apprentices, mentors and others shared their thoughts and experiences and their sense of belonging in their chosen profession.

Storytelling felt like a ‘golden thread’ that wove its way throughout the conference and this felt so very apt for the profession that curates and shares the stories and the knowledge of our communities. We listened to these and a host of other stories and topics together. It was so good to be back in the same space and back with ‘our people,’ as so many of the attendees said at different points throughout the two days. There was a real sense of belonging and purpose and we had so much to share and discuss.

I had the privilege of closing the conference and of introducing our final six speakers, drawn from right across our community, bringing together some of those who make our community what it is and who shared their vision and ambitions for the future of our profession. In doing this they told us their stories and spoke about what makes CILIP a truly united, democratic and representative association for all of us. We ended by returning to the title We Are CILIP. Reflecting that we are all CILIP and that CILIP belongs to all of us, and, as one of our inspiring new professionals Hannah Mohammed said at the end of her talk at her first CILIP conference “librarians rule”!