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CILIP Conference 2024

 Blog by Daisy Hogarth

CPD is something we all want to do, but conference places are expensive, right? I’d highly recommend reaching out to CILIP NW for support through their bursary scheme.

graphic for CILIP 2024 conference with 'CILIP Conference 2024 10-11 July, Birmingham' in grey text, 'Welcome to CILIP Conference 2024' in orange text, 'Use our hashtag #CILIPConf24' in blue text, with 3D graphic of blue and orange lines to the right of the image

I found myself wanting to attend this year’s CILIP Conference but with no way of funding it. I work for a public library, so support via work financially was out of the question, and I didn’t have the money to fund the entire conference myself. I decided to reach out to CILIP NW and see what support I could be offered, and found the bursary application really simple and not too onerous to complete. I found out pretty quickly that I had been successful in my application to receive some money towards my ticket and the process of then obtaining my ticket with this money was really simple.

photograph of Daisy's name badge with her name, job role and employer written in black text, with both a bar and a QR code , and a graphic with orange and blue lines to the upper right of the badge

Now on to the good stuff, the day! The conference was in Birmingham so I got the train from Liverpool. I used the train journey to have some uninterrupted reading time, something I don’t normally get to do on my commute as I drive. What a luxury this was!

Registration at the conference was seamless and I got my badge and made my way inside. I’ll admit I was rather nervous, but everyone was so friendly and welcoming that I instantly found people to speak to whilst making a cup of tea.

photograph of author and lunchtime keynote speaker Tammy Huf in a pink suit, signing a book on a podium
I attended various sessions throughout the day. I think my favourite of the day was ‘The Digital Rights of the Child’ led by Tabitha Witherick, CEO of ASCEL. Tabitha was joined by Dr Gianfranco Polizzi from the University of Liverpool and Jake Hope, from the CILIP Yoto Carnegie Awards. This was a fascinating session. A key takeaway for me was that in 2024, 3 in 10 8-17 year olds in the UK believe most information on social media to be true, quite a scary statistic! We discussed children and young people’s levels of news literacy and how this translates into their civic engagement.

I also attended The Sectors Response to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (which had a speaker from St Helens but focussing on Liverpool), a discussion on Inclusive Collections and Evidence Informed Practice: Moving the Agenda forward. The evidence informed practice was really interesting and has given me the confidence to speak to my employer about how we could conduct research in the public library and contribute to the growing research for the library sector.

The Lunchtime Keynote was Tammye Huf, author and winner of The Diverse Book Award in 2021. Tammye spoke of her book A More Perfect Union, based on a true story of her Grandparents Irish/American love story and their battle with racism and discrimination. It was a fantastic way to spend lunch with some of the people I had met at the conference and Tammye did a book signing later on.

photograph of 7 women standing together in a conference centre hallOverall, attending the conference has been a brilliant experience and I am very glad to have done it. I made new friends, both in a professional and personal capacity, and it gave me confidence in my networking abilities. I learnt so much at the conference, but I also learnt a lot about myself and would definitely recommend you go to a conference at some point

Thank you again to CILIP NW for allowing me the opportunity to go- I wouldn’t have been able to without their financial support.

 

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