A report on the FIL Conference, King's College London, 2-4 July 2007

Citation

Goodier, R. (2007), "A report on the FIL Conference, King's College London, 2-4 July 2007", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 35 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2007.12235daa.002

A report on the FIL Conference, King's College London, 2-4 July 2007

A report on the FIL Conference, King's College London, 2-4 July 2007

This year’s FIL Conference took place at Kings College London in early July. The title of this year’s conference was “Access All Areas – Equality and Access in Document Delivery”. This title allowed for a wide range of interpretations on a theme which resulted in an interesting and varied mix of topics for discussion.

Our keynote speaker was John Vincent of The Network. His talk on tackling social exclusion in libraries, museums and galleries was extremely thought-provoking. At the outset, he helpfully demystified some of the current terminology which is used to describe the subject and provided us with a valuable and astute synopsis of the current situation with regard to Social Exclusion in the UK.

Attention was drawn to the various barriers which so easily exclude people from visiting and using Library services in the UK. These include such themes as poverty, language problems, family breakdown, geographic location, ill health and an increasingly ageing population. The UK Government has been working to redress these issues and have, amongst other things, brought out a document entitled Our Shared Future. UK Libraries have responded with the publication of papers such as Blueprint for Excellence and the Welcome to your Library directive which is aimed at including refugee communities.

The talk served as an excellent introduction to the conference as it initiated plenty of food for thought. It drew attention to the current challenges faced by UK Public Libraries in particular.

The Conference Dinner took place on Monday evening in the Weston Room at Kings College. An excellent meal was followed by a lively and interesting after-dinner speech by Alan McDougall (ex-Kings College Librarian) on the topic of London’s history.

Tuesday’s programme began with a Welcome address by Karen Stanton, King’s College Librarian. Taking into account the conference’s “access” theme, she drew particular attention to KCL’s current key strategy of encouraging widening participation. The initiative is progressing well, especially in the area of medicine. KCL’s digitization programme was also highlighted as a successful development which is currently making bold strides at Kings.

Christine Urquhart, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Information Studies at The University of Aberystwyth, talked about the complexities of running a distance learning programme. Distance Learning courses have been offered at Aberystwyth since1986, initially starting out with a Hong Kong connection. Overseas and home students are involved and not all of them have easy access to the internet. The variant needs of different types of distance learner were emphasised. In conclusion it was recommended that a Distance Learning Support Framework should be set up as this would greatly enhance the provision of such services.

Jenny Craven, from Manchester Metropolitan University, then addressed the topic of increasing accessibility to a range of users via improved web design. She first of all gave a brief introduction to the various types of adaptive technology which exist to help people with disabilities gain access to information. She then looked at ways of enhancing web design in order to provide more clarity to library users in general. The importance of clear layout was stressed, and it was recommended that web content accessibility guidelines should be taken into consideration by designers.

Helen Brazier, from the RNIB, gave a talk on access problems experienced by the blind and visually impaired communities, with particular reference to books published in accessible format for the visually impaired. Although many people who lose their sight are extremely keen to continue reading, their options sadly become very limited. In fact, only 5 per cent of books are currently published in accessible format. It was strongly recommended that libraries should endeavour to buy more large print and audio books. In turn, interlending teams should make a contribution to the process by obtaining material in accessible formats from other libraries using schemes such as “Bee Aware”.

The morning’s session concluded with the AGM. After lunch, delegates broke out into groups and visits to various libraries throughout Central London were made. Visits included The Natural History Museum, the British Library, The London Library, the Freemasons Library and Lambeth Palace.

Later on in the afternoon, delegates reconvened to listen to Jane Smith’s presentation on the rise and fall of document delivery services at the British Medical Association. A document delivery service was set up in 1989 to supply required articles to the BMA membership. The service reached a peak in 1998, at which point it had become a very important back up library for users throughout the UK. Since then, the service has gone into decline due to such factors as a shift in user focus, the mass introduction of electronic journals, a recent library move, increased access to quality information via the web and structural changes throughout the NHS.

The evening’s riverboat cruise along the Thames was most enjoyable, despite grey skies and the occasional clap of thunder. The boat took us as far as Greenwich, with many interesting sights along the way.

Wednesday morning’s session consisted mainly of workshops. Due to the higher percentage of delegates attending from academic libraries, it was decided to split the workshops on academic libraries into two, with Graham Titley (University of Plymouth) leading one of them and Peter Robinson (BLDSC) leading the other. At the same time, Sarah Washford (Southampton City Libraries) led a workshop for our public library delegates. Stephanie Taylor, from Critical Eye Communications, led the next workshop which concentrated on the topic of the interlending of electronic journals, whilst Graham Titley led another workshop on ILLs for socially excluded groups. The workshops provided delegates with the chance to discuss any pressing issues and to exchange their experiences of the more complex details of interlending work. Interlending is a field which depends very much on mutual co-operation and shared experience undoubtedly makes a very valuable contribution to general service provision.

Once again, this year’s FIL Conference turned out to be thought-provoking, lively and varied. It was, as ever, very pleasurable to meet up and discuss current affairs with colleagues from a variety of libraries and it was also good to see some new faces among the delegates. There is no doubt that the question of access to library services is an extremely important issue in this day and age. The various topics addressed during the conference undoubtedly succeeded in drawing our collective attention to the challenges which need to be faced in an ever-changing society.

Rose GoodierDocument Supply, University of Manchester, UK