Tom Roper's Weblog

Setting the record straight

The paper for Agenda item 8 at tomorrow's CILIP AGM factually inaccurate. It states, 'Council took a vote and decided by a majority of eleven to one to present the amended proposals to members for vote at the AGM. The Trustee who abstained on this decision, Tom Roper, then took the decision to resign from Council citing the difference of views from the other members of Council on these issues.

That's not how it happened. I abstained on the proposal that the President and Vice President must be CILIP members and elected trustees and not appointed trustees, because it ignored the central point that the President should be elected directly by members, as madated by a past AGM. I then voted against proposals for a third of Council to be unelected appointees, and the consequent changes to the  Royal Charter, Bye-laws and General Regulations. The minutes are clear, though they do not record my name as a dissenter, which I requested. 

I did not resign at the meeting, but did so on 15 July, after a few days reflection. 

'Something of the cordiality displayed by an old-time innkeeper'

'Something of the cordiality displayed by an old-time innkeeper': thus Samuel Swett Green described the correct demenour of the reference librarian towards an approaching user in 1876.  The full citation is:
Green,  Samuel Swett
Personal relations between librarians and readers
Library Journal 1 (November 1876):  74-81

I fear the title of his article might give rise to sniggering at the back of a modern library school lecture hall. 

I came across this while skimming the chapter on Reference and Information Service in Sandra Wood's new Health Sciences Librarianship¹, an update of her 2008 Introduction to health sciences librarianship. 

Once upon a time there was a multi-volume series, Current practice in health sciences librarianship. It ran to eight volumes, published between 1994 and 2001 by Scarecrow Press. I cut my teeth on titles like Shane Godbolt and Leslie Morton's Information sources in the medical sciences,  Michael Carmel's Medical Librarianship, and his later work, Health care librarianship and information work. We no longer have a textbook aimed at the new entrant into British health information work. Perhaps we should. 

For the moment, however, I shall be cultivating the mien of an old-time innkeeper. 

 ¹ Wood, Sandra Health Sciences Librarianship Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. ISBN 9780810888128 

Was the CILIP Governance Review conducted 'in plain sight'?

Nick Poole, CILIP Council member and former Tresurer, has made the assertion at Public Libraries News that CILIP’s Governance Review, on which we vote at Saturday’s AGM, was conducted ‘in plain sight’.

Not so. I have commented as follows, ‘I am afraid that Nick Poole is simply wrong when he says that the discussions on the Governance Review were carried out ‘in plain sight’. The review began in 2012. The minutes of the March 2013 Council meeting state, ‘C2013/05 Governance Review Report Council discussed and agreed proposals from the GovernanceReview Board’. Intrigued by this, on 11 July 2013 I wrote to ask when the proposals would be in the public domain. The Chair of Council replied to say that they would be available in October of that year. By the time I attended my first Council meeting in January 2014, they were still not public. The discussion on them at that meeting took place in camera, and my proposal that the discussion be moved to open session was defeated, finding no support from any of my fellow councillors. The subsequent consultation was perfunctory. I know, I was a part of it.At my last Council meeting, members defended this secrecy, claiming that they would not have been able to talk freely if the review had been conducted openly. I fear I cannot see why members elected to office in a membership organisation by their peers should be scared of openness.'

The same post conveys the news that the site’s tireless author Ian Anstice has resigned from CILIP. I very much regret this; Ian has done more for the profession than many a card-carryng CILIP member. I hope, if we can maintain the democracy of our professional association, we will be able to welcome him, and many others, back.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Unity or partition

I have no vote in Thursday’s referendum in which the SNP are urging Scotland to secede; I think I should, but that won’t change in the next forty-eight hours. So I hope those who can vote will look at history. Most people in Ireland, divided in 1920, want a united island. Partitions since 1945, those of Germany, of Vietnam, of Korea, of India, of Yugoslavia all went badly, often ending in war. Germany and Vietnam both achieved reunification, but especially in the latter case, at great cost. I hope those who have a vote will use it wisely. I came across an article in the Gramophone, of all places, on Scottish composers and their ability to take pride in their traditions without following the secessionist road to ruin. Read the words of composer Eddie McGuire, 'I see Scottish traditions as part of a British family of similar traditions; you’ve got Northumbrian bagpipes, you’ve got great part singing in Dorset, you’ve got Welsh choirs. Scottish music, theatre and visual arts are all part of a fabric of British culture… And, to say that we are going to split working people’s ability to resist the onslaught of impoverishment in this capitalist crisis, is, to me, a bit of a betrayal.'

Public Libraries News: Two past presidents on the CILIP governance proposals

The influential Public Libraries News site has published statement from two past Presidents on the CILIP governance review. Tom Featherstone and Bob Usherwood. 'CILIP members are rightly proud of the part they play in maintaining democracy and want their professional body to reflect democratic principles. For many members, the governance proposals under discussion do not do that,’ they say. Read their views in full at http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2014/09/2-past-presidents-express-fears-over-cilip-leadership-proposals.html

I shall be at the AGM, and would be pleased to cast proxy votes for members who can’t be present. Forms in MSWord format can be downloaded at AGM Proxy vote form 2014.doc and must be returned to CILIP by 1.15 pm on Thursday 18 September. Contact me for my address, which you’ll need to put on the form.