Building Bridges: Linking Cultures – The Proceedings of the 86th Annual Conference of the Scottish Library Association

Citation

Freeman, M. (2002), "Building Bridges: Linking Cultures – The Proceedings of the 86th Annual Conference of the Scottish Library Association", New Library World, Vol. 103 No. 4/5, pp. 186-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2002.103.4_5.186.4

More good things coming out of Scotland! As Glasgow is going to be the venue for IFLA 2002, it is appropriate that these collected proceedings of the SLA conference have an international and cooperative flavour. The enthusiasm of Florence Ponce presenting a well‐written paper on “French culture and libraries” is infectious and heart warming: “It is good to be a librarian in France at the end of the twentieth century, we are living in wonderful times” – although her concept of Georges Pompidou as the Prince Charming who awoke French Public Libraries from their long sleep is singularly startling! There are several good, pertinent and interesting papers within these proceedings, not least Chris Batt’s illuminating exposition on the People’s Network and its potential for the UK.

Wendy Ugolini’s fascinating paper on the oral history of the Italian‐Scottish community is well worth reading, as is poet and librarian Colin Willis’s overview of the culture of Scotland. The themes of inclusion and cooperation are well covered and serve to reinforce the opinion that there are many good, innovative things happening in Scottish libraries and librarianship today. To sum up, Ted Hughes’ poem strikes an encouraging and perceptive note:

Even the most misfitted child who’s chanced upon the library’s worth Sits with the genius of the Earth And turns the key to the whole world

A well produced collection of papers on an interesting and relevant topic, well worth reading by practitioners and students.