There’s a line from Woody Allen’s Manhattan. It’s the opening restaurant scene with Mariel Hemingway and Michael Murphy and Anne Byrne, where the Woody Allen character says: “Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage”. It’s stayed with me all these years since watching Manhattan. Largely because … well, it’s a comforting thought, […]
When I read speeches or quotes from people speaking in defence of libraries, I notice that they often seem to invoke the same sentiment, sometimes reaching for exactly the same words. Their argument, more often than not, is a variant of the phrase: “libraries are important” or “Librarians do important work” (see the CILIP 2016-2020 […]
In keeping with my new spirit of engagement, I’ve been closely following @CILIPinfo and was delighted to come across CILIP’s new 2016-2020 Strategic Plan. It coincides with a moment of real doubt in my own career, when I’m full of questions and no answers: Where do I go? What do I do? I’m evaluating everything […]
It’s been almost ten years since I first entered the field of Librarianship. I was twenty-six at the time, three years out of uni., working odd jobs to earn some cash and totally confused about what to do with my life. My degree course in Electronic Engineering had turned out to be something of an […]
The Well-Tempered Librarian 