Kirsten Elliot

Being a CILIP 125 recipient has given me a boost of confidence to expand my reach and try new things in my library career these past 18 months.

I’ve taken on a range of new roles: Assessor on CILIP’s Professional Registration Panel, Equality and Diversity Champion for the North East Regional Member Network, and End-Point Assessor with CILIP Pathways. For the latter, I work as an independent contractor to assess learners doing their end-point assessments for the Level 3 Library, Information and Archives Services Assistant apprenticeship standard. I’m proud to be part of this work, which supports diversity in the library, information and archives sector.

All CILIP 125ers were offered a free day pass to the RPG Unconference in Glasgow (4-7 October 2024). As this pass lowered the cost of the weekend event overall it enabled me to attend my first library conference. In my capacity as a writer, I was involved in the Saturday evening ‘Words and Music’ event with a poetry reading, and on the Sunday morning I spoke as part of the writing workshop panel discussion. This ‘weekend school’ was an amazing opportunity to explore other libraries and collections, and to learn from and speak with a wide range of people across the sector. I’m already looking forward to the 2025 iteration.

I’ve also begun writing a book proposal for Facet Publishing about disability in the library sector. I hope to produce an edited book of personal essays – by disabled folx, for disabled folx – exploring their working lives in LKIM spaces. As a chronically ill/disabled person myself, when first looking into librarianship, this is the book I would have wanted to help guide me at different stages in my LIS education and career. It’s a work in progress, but please get in touch via bookfuelled@gmail.com to show early interest in the project. I hope to speak about it further at an LIS event sometime this year. Watch this space!

Dr Beth Montague-Hellen

For me the CILIP 125 award was a signpost that I’m going in the right direction and making a difference. Primarily, I was given the award for my work in academic research support and EDI activism and those are still the areas I’m working hard to make positive changes in.

In the last year, I’ve cemented my place as the Head of Library and Information Services at the Francis Crick Institute, a position which helps to give me a platform from which to speak on these issues, something which the 125 award has also helped with. Like many of us, although I have confidence in the work that I’m doing, an external reminder always helps. A colleague just before Christmas sent me a message saying that my work on showcasing what can be done in this area in a specialist institution was paying off, and it’s those sorts of boosts that keep you going. We can all commit more to telling our colleagues when we think they’re doing good work.

On the EDI front, I was just taking up this position as Chair of the LGBTQ+ network when I received the award, and now I’m nearly at the end of my tenure. We’ve successfully put on a lot of events, and had great partnerships with other CILIP groups, and the events we’ve hosted on allyship have gone down particularly well. A further highlight has been the publication of my first book “Practical Tips on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries”. It’s difficult to put your philosophy out there in print and encourage people to read it, but my position that we’re all always learning and need to keep listening seems to have gone down well.

The CILIP 125 award, and the opportunities I’ve had since have helped to remind me what a varied and exciting profession we have. I’ve been incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve recieved and one of my goals for 2025 is to continue to try and give back, providing opportunities for others in the sector.

Find out more about CILIP's LGBTQ+ Network here.