Issue 25 Autumn 1998 Making an Impact: Why it Matters Grace Kempster	Collections under which this       article appears:       YLG Related Articles or Resources Other Articles by Author

Paper given at the
Making an impact: Youth Libraries Group Weekend Conference, Edinburgh 11-13 Sept 1998

I am deeply honoured to be here with you at the commencement of your weekend of celebration and enhancement and it is a real privilege to be asked to speak.

My brief is to alert you to the power and value of your work, and to the importance of developing your skills and effectiveness so that this work is truly used and appreciated and along the way share my personal credo with you.

All this set in the context of both our core work of inspiring and developing young readers and learners, to quote Tricia Kings, and in the wider context of all the education, arts, literacy and ICT initiatives currently moving forward - a challenge indeed for the next 50 minutes.

In the Spring Youth Library Review, Ray Lonsdale heralded this conference thus:

"a demonstrably distinguished and dignified array of speakers has been drawn together for your delectation and delight, to draw you into dazzling debates designed to develop and enrich the discerning mind"

I see many familiar and much respected and admired faces amongst you - people who could fulfil this brief far better than I. I see the battle-worn and still fighting; those who have not set aside their passion for professional indifference; those whose working lives and perseverance are a testament louder than words evidencing their own Why. And I see others for whom the embarkation on a career with children and young people is exciting, exhilarating and rewarding - oftentimes to the puzzlement of colleagues murmuring "Internet, Information and ICT" [a good riposte being "and I know what to do with it when I have got it!"]. And I see some for whom a wider brief now concentrates their minds and energies but for whom, as for me, the kernel of Why remains the championing of library and information services for the next generation. You do not grow out of being a Children's Librarian - it remains at the core, indivisible from all else.

AS LEADERS
It is not just another specialism - it is The Specialism and, to connect with the close of this conference, it is not just making an impact - it is making THE Impact. Little wonder then that so many library leaders are emerging from this background of working with children.

I consider work with children and young people quite simply as the investment arm of the entire library business - literally our Futures market. The work you are engaged in delivers powerful connections with future adults; nurtures lifelong library users and represents both the beacon and the vanguard of excellence in connecting readers with the books they delight in. It is an innovative stronghold of booktalking plugged in to live children now - all with a reputation for warmth, common purpose, shared passion and the meld of excellence with fun, humour with the highest professionalism.

EXPERTS AT CHANGE
Being a children's librarian grounded me in change, expecting it, anticipating it, and seizing it.The 'children first' ethos made the response to constantly evolving fads and fashion, and passions of the young, commonplace. What you expected today could not be expected tomorrow - a child's discovery and delight in story would need continual fuelling, the appetite voracious, the needs individual - and the next generation on the horizon like Mongolian hordes.

MELDORS OF KNOWLEDGE
This holistic approach to the child not only breeds daring and entrepreneurship but also a melding of fact with fiction and information with imagination. You are expert at the child's need to know: 'satiable curiosities' increasingly met by a richness of text, with image, with moving image - armies of format - not least for the child with particular needs - aligned for common purpose: enlightenment.

OPINION SETTERS
The opportunity for influence which you have is both unique and powerful. As a child takes up their "first badge of citizenship" that first impression of libraries does not come again. I recall trying to persuade George Mudie, now Minister for Lifelong Learning, that the library is the place, and being surprised that the library had not played a significant part in his own development from humble beginnings. Something had happened to turn him off libraries. Fortunately, the evidence and success of online@Leeds is altering his views.

We are today reaping the inheritance of the past, and while I know Linda Hopkins will celebrate the achievements in children's librarianshipin her talk tomorrow, I do want to pause and reflect that the national trends for growth in library use by children is firmly attributable to a generation of undeterred and feisty leaders.

So what will our legacy be - yours and mine? It has to be the creation of a generation of library users who in the virtual connectivity with knowledge of tomorrow will choose the added value of trusted and championing navigators.

When libraries may no longer be places, the services they offer are yet valued as powerful life changers.

PRIVILEGE OF IMMORTALITY
Charles Handy in The Hungry Spirit talks of business and the privilege of immortality. Businesses he says have an average lifespan of 40 years. Public libraries have existed for around 150 - who is to say they have an inalienable right to continue to exist?

QUOTE
How do we measure up then? Do we know what we stand for? Are we sure of central values, sure of our reason for existing, changing constantly what we do and how we do it, growing better? Do we have a continuing passion for our work? I reckon the answer is yes and yes and yes resoundingly for you. Others are less certain, colleagues who will need to transfer their allegiance from to the product to the user from the stuff to the client - a much greater shift surely than for you for whom the child has always been at the centre.

Put simply, all our futures are in your hands.

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS
This week, "Changing Perceptions of Britain" by Panel 2000 is published - heralding a new campaign to update both the style and substance of Britain's position in the world. The aim is to reflect the substance of what we are about in this country and I think this is a worthy parallel for the challenge that is before you this weekend. You know you are good - how can you emanate it? Connect in the words and meanings of other agendas and do yourselves justice, and make a bigger impact.

I have spoken of my view of you, but you are only too aware that this is not universal - library leaders, colleagues who are dismissive of your work; summer reading in libraries seen as a nice but not necessary adjunct to real learning in schools; teachers with outdated views of libraries, colleagues who cannot connect their agendas with yours; libraries perceived as on the margins not the mainstream of literacies for all.

We have to change these perceptions, to modernise the agenda for work with children and young people and dispel the myths that surround the core skills. Tomorrow you will learn 'How to Shout it from the Rooftops,' and be assured, others are already shouting, claiming our rightful territory - there will be no place for modesty or small voices in the cacophony of survival.

I would refer you to Investing in Children which contains all the argument for centrality of services to children and young people. Some of you may have noticed that in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's Comprehensive Spending Review, there is also a call for an LIC working group to firmly connect libraries with learning and part of the terms of reference are:

"assessing the development of integrated strategies at local level for delivery of library services to children and young people"

You will also find heartening and substantive support in Judith Elkin and Ray Lonsdale's recent work, Focus on the Child.

A common perception which always amuses me is the assumption that children's specialists cannot be doing anything seriously worthwhile because they are enjoying themselves! Or creating enjoyment and fun for others.

We have to be perceived as dealers in freedoms - choosing their books for themselves is probably one of the few choices children exercise in their early lives, existing in increasingly prescribed and protected environments. A local library offers the freedom to learn because you want to, to select things both too difficult and too easy for you - the before, after and in between of formal schooling.

LEADING EXPERTISE
The children's librarians in Essex know I expect great things of them and part of this agenda will be the managing of their own time effectively and continuing enhancement of their skills and spheres of influence and activity. It will not be enough to connect well with children; they will have to inspire and inform others, work through them, enhance their skills, confidence and competencies. The agenda is demanding - that for every child connecting with their library they receive the highest levels of respect, understanding and customer service.

Clearly, I am not at liberty to say anything about the Library and Information Commission's report to Government on building the library network. However, I would urge you to consider your role as trainers and the kinds of fundamentals which A Place for Children began to explore about common and widespread standards. Is it not true that every member of staff should possess a basic and up to date knowledge of formal education as well as an appreciation of the importance of pre-school learning, particularly able to help the parents and carers of young children who are learning to read and to find out? Surely everyone working in public libraries should have a working knowledge of literacy initiatives in Education, of Bookstart and other early reading initiatives, and of websites for children and their reading such as Stories on the Web, CHILEAS and Treasure Island?

I assume you keep up with reviews in Multi-Media Information and Technology, and have an ability and access to keep one step ahead of your media-literate young clients and increasingly interweave sources in finding solutions. If not, then I have to be blunt and say it does not then matter to you enough and your credibility is at stake.

What matters greatly is that quality of experience - first time and every time - and your essential role as an exemplar and catalyst for excellence and currency. If you are not clamouring to be the first to be wired up at work, then you are not doing yourself and your service justice.

The wide use of Speaking Volumes is a hallmark of the collaborative working in this sector.

CONNECTING
I expect a children's specialist to connect with the infra-structure of childhood and to be especially good at partnership and alliance working. I expect you to be seconded to work and set up alliances in other spheres; to be in demand as the cutting edge of professionalism with highly advanced skills in negotiation and influence. This weekend, we have an array of excellent workshops which really offer to extend and enhance your skills - drink deeply of all they have to offer.

I am assuming that you have at your fingertips all the knowledge and understanding of the rapid changes in education including the National Literacy Strategy, the Fair Funding issues and the imminent childcare legislation which gives us opportunity for proper funding for childcare information. Children spend much of their waking lives in class - you quite simply need to know to connect with their lives and experiences.

This Year of Reading is a superb opportunity to demonstrate our abilities and importance, and I know that through the influential mouthpiece of LAUNCHPAD the message will carry about the value of children and libraries - and we do have yet to convince that libraries are about literacies of all kinds - the basics for an informed, inclusive and advancing society where none are left behind.

Are you proving it by going into schools and talking to parents after your summer reading and gathering evidence for sustained or improved literacy levels among the young? The fact that education nationally closes down three times a year is distinctly our advantage now - when the national agenda is firmly a new continuous and lifelong learning culture for the nation.

LEARNING
I guess it may be the constant association with a rapidly and naturally changing and growing environment which makes children's specialist particularly alert to their own need to know. It is a constant journey, and there is no doubt that it will be the evolving people working in libraries and other professions who will survive and thrive into the future with a portfolio of skills constantly being honed. There will be no place for those who look longingly over their shoulder to a dewy eyed secure past .

Just as children learn, you too learn because you want to, because you need to know, and your innovation and creativity - making things happen from nothing will equip you well for the future.

My own opinion is that national Government is feeling its way towards new thinking about Education and its recognition and transformation into the pick and mix learning of the next century. The Learning Age does herald some advance in thinking and libraries are now actively sought as gateways to new learners. But we have further to go to be recognised as Local Learning Places of Choice. The Bookstart projects which should be exploding across the UK as a result of evidence of impact from Birmingham studies have a potential boost in the Year of Reading. We have three pilots in Essex with support from Health and Tescos rather than beleaguered formal early years education; and significantly, using volunteers, we have community and parental support. Remember that a parent cares about their child and will do anything to ensure success and advantage in the educational ratrace. We must use our unique advantage as the First Learning Place.

The work of Education Extra and their remit to further out of hours activity for schools is influential. I was heartened hearing Kay Andrews, its Director, showing her knowledge and understanding of the work going on now in libraries. It is helpful that she and her organisation can now connect after hours learning in schools with that in libraries. We know that children use us extensively for homework support but we will need to compete and act in robust alliance with schools. My experience in setting up online@Leeds was that teachers have little belief that their children use the local library - it has been turned around by the evidence. After all, if I am what is bleakly called a non-schooler, does not the library offer a safe non-judgmental place between home and school where I can go? Especially if the technology is free and easy to access with my friends - or where I can meet brothers, sisters, local friends of all ages? I challenge you to champion your homework and study support role - you must have a positive and unerring response to anticipating learning need; to provide CD-ROM for children; to develop yourselves into Learning Librarians. When did your library staff last enter a school? They are almost as closed as prisons. We must understand the child's other world to serve them well and not be another place that disappoints.

Remember, we are simply the only people who are on the side of the learner. We don't mind which college they choose, we have no vested interests. I predict this independence will be an area for challenge in the future. Are we robust enough to negotiate advantageous partnerships with learning institutions? We must value our trump card as trusted accesses to the new learning markets - so vital to the Government's agenda of all people engaged in self-improvement.

As Bill Lucas of the Campaign for Learning put it

"it is those who do not have the capacity to learn who will be the new disadvantaged of the 21st century"

PICKING THE PATH TO IMMORTALITY
I recently attended a conference in Amsterdam called "Convergence in the Digital Age: Libraries, Museums and Archives". Two key messages hit me: first that exclusivity is no longer possible and strong alliances will be necessary for impact, effect and sustainability. "We are not alone". The second was that the essence is that all those memory institutions gathered there shared a common wealth of storytelling: artefacts, archives, text and images all tell stories, interpreting yesterday today to inform tomorrows.

As children's specialists, you spearhead and lead the catalyst movement of words impacting on life. There's a car slogan that goes "If you can read this - thank a teacher" Mine for you would be "If you enjoy reading this - thank a children's librarian"

We must surely be for the reading experience; we must be about the impact of concepts knowledge and ideas to stimulate challenge enrich inform and enlighten, we must be for facts transformed into knowledge leading to understanding tolerance, justice and wisdom. We must be working to grow a generation of informed fulfilled lives realising their potential.

This all sounds great but what about Monday? You have so much to do you are overrun with golden opportunities and so many plates to keep spinning, how can you maintain your core knowledge of reading choices; your connectivity with so many other agendas and keep in touch with children now? Are you pretty sick of golden opportunities and wish they would go away? Do you wish the world would stop for a while and you could feel satisfaction with what you do rather than spread so thinly you cover everything but nothing well?

I cannot make your choices for you, but I do urge you to pause a moment and consider that these momentous times will not come again. I have never seen so much coverage of matters to do with children in the professional press, and a Government agenda at the end of the Millennium that cries Children, Children, Children. It is unthinkable that we should be panicking in a corner worrying and debating book selection when the eyes of the important are on us. The workshop on personal effectiveness will cover the art of saying no - but I would urge you to find the art of saying, "Yes, if I have...".

Now is the time to expect great things of ourselves and of our colleagues, to make the case for diverted resources for you to manage, to speak out and be heard - to be the solutions to a bright and successful future for us all, to gather the voices of all those who value their library, especially the young and those concerned with them. Tomorrow will be too late - and regret is a word I never wish to hear.

AIMING HIGH
I guess I have always reluctantly accepted that not everyone will use libraries all of their lives - after all where would we put them? However, I have never wavered from the conviction that everyone must be aware of what the service can offer, and make their choice. With the emergence of a virtual and national public library service, the former seems increasingly possible with use from the home . So if our aim is 100% awareness and in the digital age 100% use, why do we aim so low in our expectations of early use of services? There is no doubt that Bookstart is making a big impact and also the profile for summer reading is high in libraries. Smartcard technologies will no doubt be influential in the convergence of citizen convenience and the library card must be at the heart of this. Would you and I not assert with one voice that access to the memory of the world is a basic human right?

Children's use of libraries is the success story of the last decade - that is our future. We are a growth business. Our most intensive users are 16 and 17 year olds. But I would challenge you that if your child use is not growing by at least 10% each year you must act - you are falling behind - and if your child population is not at saturation - you must make it so. Whatever it takes - fine free zones, family friendly hours, CD-ROM for children - the next generation matters enormously - aim high.

This summer in Essex we really did double the number of young people who took part in the summer reading program - from 19 000 to almost 40 000. Everyone is really pleased with the achievement - so how did we do it? Frankly because we said we could - we evidenced achievement in similar authorities - and we dropped other things so that everyone was involved, we did it whole hearted by going into schools - we cannot let such effort trickle away and will consolidate with CD-ROM for children in every library with free print out vouchers. We want children to know that the library is there for them for study support for leisure for all their 'satiable curiosities - we also want money from our Education colleagues for next year.

No more half hearted "we'd best not promote it in case it is too successful" - we are going for it - and if we run out of books, if there are queues round the block well that is just the kinds of problems I relish - the challenges of success.

THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL
We limit ourselves more than others do - it was the vision of New Library: the People's Network which caught the imagination of the powerful seeking a solution for the many not just the few. Making it a reality and building the Network will require focus and purpose unprecedented in the public library world. The reputation for commitment and dedication is widespread among children's specialists - but it is not always meant as a compliment. Your time has come to lead the transformation - after all, change is what you are good at.

MAKING THE VOICES HEARD
I had to leave this until last for it is indeed the essence of what drives me and you - a sense of justice for every child.

Using the CIPFA PLUS survey will be a first to get the actual voices of young people heard. Despite all the difficulties, all the barriers we place in their path from restricted opening hours to unfriendly staff who judge them by height rather than by character, somehow an indomitable spirit wins through. Somehow children manage to perfectly understand the nature and unyielding values and meanings which the library has and will continue to have forever.

EXCELLENT FUN
Let us hear the voice of one child, 12 year old Hannah Pollard, who reveals a poetic view of the future taht libraries can offer children.

My library's like a lighthouse
It illuminates my mind
With sunshine trips to far off lands
Enlightening journeys of every kind
Going to my library
I've travelled in space and time
In sounds and pictures, words and music
Prose and sometimes rhyme
When all is dark and black as night
My library shines its welcome light
A beacon on the dullest day
Taking me places far away

I wish you the power to shine on - and to illuminate minds.

So, colleagues, it matters.

It matters that not one child is left behind in this revolution behind closed screens.
It matters that opportunity exists now for the many and not just the few.
including every "misfitting child". If we do not seize the moment, the impact of that
failure will not only be on ourselves but on a generation of people.
It matters to our social well being, our economic prosperity
It matters to the future of every kind of library and information service

FINALLY
I hope that you will leave here feeling your new power and very real potential and be able to walk tall and argue the case at the highest levels of your own organisation as we enter the future as quite simply the most important profession this country has.

Remember, we are the answer to social inclusion, the answer to the learning and knowledge society in creation, and the answer to a future of bright independent thinkers and economic prosperity.

Chris Smith said he was looking to a vibrant library service to lead the Information Society - not to follow or to be part of - but to lead - I want to see you in the lead of that charge, excited by a transformed and vibrant profession of the near future which offer limitless scope for innovation, creativity, connection and leadership.

The price for being "at the leading edge of change... and maintaining our place at the hub of the community" is that we have to deliver our own transformation, in the full beam of attention, and it starts with you.

The introduction to New Library conveys much of the argument of public libraries as the solution:

"The library is an enormously powerful agent for change: accountable to and trusted by people and integral to education, industry, government and the community"

There is no doubt that our immediate challenge is to work smart and fast and with innovation. We need to find new solutions as we open ourselves to embrace new uses and new users. We need to acquire new expertise; we need to integrate what we do so we deliver reader development with technology, and Bookstart with community involvement through volunteers.

We will shortly be the most important profession in the country - think a moment what that means for you and your service - and how you view yourself.

For me, you are simply the best, the leading edge, the future shapers, the life changers. I applaud you. I acclaim your success, impact and power. Let your never-ending story and mine flow into the just and good privilege of immortality.