Euan Semple (of whom more in later blogposts) told the Talis Insight Conference (of which more in future blogposts) that blogging makes you a more “noticing” kind of person – more aware of stuff so that you can say “that’s interesting” and point to it in your blog. 

So here’s something I’ve noticed and found interesting – nay, mildly amusing.  The Cabinet Member for libraries in Hillingdon LBC is called Henry Higgins!   Given that Cllr Higgins is trying to give Hillingdon libraries a wholesale makeover to make them presentable in polite society (as he would see it), his name seems very apposite.

Henry’s sidekick in this enterprise is, of course, Tim Coates, who also featured at the Talis Insight Conference – “have you got your rotten tomatoes ready?” he said jokingly (I think) when he saw me, which I find rather encouraging.  Tim’s presentation was sweet reasonableness itself – but it did seem to suggest that a library service is no more than an efficient stock supply chain and a number of quasi-retail outlets full of books, computers and damn fine coffee (or rather, Starbucks – which is not the same thing at all).  All the professional aspects of the service seem to have been lumped together with “back office” costs as a suitable case for cutbacks.  Hmmm …. Perhaps not such a fair library after all.

Hillingdon, as you would expect, is on the list of Public Library Authorities which CILIP will be investigating in order to advise DCMS on whether or not they’re providing – or proposing to provide in the future – a professional standard of service.

But in the meantime Tim, good luck with your job – running the UK office for American library supplier YBP with the aim, Tim tells me, of sourcing and selling UK publications into the US academic library market.  He tells me the YBP supply chain is state of the art.  But then, it would be, wouldn’t it ….