A NEW poem celebrating the Information, knowledge management and library professions was premiered at this year’s CILIP Conference.

Created exclusively for CILIP by poet Rishi Dastidar, The Way, The Deep is a nuanced yet deep dive into what it means to be an information professional – in all of the term’s many forms. Commissioned by CILIP’s outgoing Chief Development Officer, Jo Cornish the poem took on a collaborative approach from the start. There was a clear desire to capture the nature of a multi-faceted profession in a way that would resonate with all those connected to it.

Jo says: “Rishi was clear from the outset that to really capture us, he would like to conduct some interviews with the people who live and breathe our work.

“I am lucky enough to know literally thousands of talented and committed information professionals, so the challenge was how to be as representative as possible. I came up with a dream shortlist who I felt covered as many different career stages, disciplines and sectors as possible.”

Rishi says that hearing from Masud Khokhar, Natasha Howard, Rebecca Dorsett, and Imogen Negomi, alongside Jo’s initial input helped shape The Way, the deep. A clear brief, to create “a love letter to the profession”, set the tone and the conversations gave Rishi “a sense of the public service – public spirited – facet to the profession. Sounds silly to say it, as someone who has been a regular user of libraries throughout my life, but I hadn’t quite realised how much they mattered, to so much more than just reading.

“And I hadn’t cottoned on at all to the way in which information and knowledge management is crucial for helping to make sense of not just domains, but the world. I wanted to make sure I got that across in some way.”

Officially launched this week at CILIP Conference in Birmingham, Jo says that she hopes The way, the deep will become a beacon for the profession, saying: “I would love to have it shared with every new starter in the workforce and every student or apprentice learning their craft. I would love to see it grow out in the wild and be adopted and quoted. I want to see it quoted and referenced in conferences and presentations for decades to come. I want it to be a go-to piece to articulate and celebrate the profession.”

The way, the deep

(A poem for information professionals; in libraries, knowledge and information management)

Start with chaos, the inkling, the overload.

A barrage of questions, or just a wondering…

To be alive is to pose why? How? What?

Where? So when – that too – someone asks: begin.

Breathing search engines, we dissect the quest.

A puzzle to be solved. Constant little connections

to the thrill of the chase, pinfinders in the infinite

haystacks, lifelines on the frontlines of information.

Inquisitively we specify and interrogate

every slip, every stamp, every accession,

every book, every byte, every query, every record,

every pamphlet, patent, every human expression

waiting to be called upon. We turn labyrinths

into frames, landscapes into maps; a reference

way, the route, the road through the deep data

cascades that might overwhelm. With high reverence

to the fact that facts ought to be there, true and right,

that knowledge is justice, and all should be welcome

in the temples of taxonomies. That what matters

is how we serve, custodians of the civic customs

we assemble to transform the world. In empathy spaces,

democratic salons, we share, guide and unlock,

more and better answers, so people climb stacks, hone

understanding from within our universal catalogue. – By Rishi Dastidar.