Riveting

Last Friday morning I was in Newcastle discussing the new Central Library with City Librarian, Tony Durcan (I know Tony's actual job title will be more "corporate" than that but the reality of the job certainly incorporates the responsibilities that used to be associated with the term City Librarian).

We visited the site where the building is taking shape as a skeleton of steel girders and there, high up on the steel framework, was a construction worker welding rivets in a shower of sparks.

Cities like Newcastle were built on heavy industry and I wondered if the construction worker's father or grandfather had welded rivets in the shipyards along the Tyne.  There seemed to me to be something symbolic here - where once they riveted together great ships to support and enable Britain's industrial society, now they're riveting together a great library to support and enable Britain's knowledge society.

Construction of the Newcastle Central Library (a new castle of knowledge?) is a symbol of the transition that our city regions are making from industrial capital to knowledge capital.  That transition is central to the future economic prosperity and social well-being of our nation - and our profession is central to the success of that transition.

Now, there's a New Year message for us all to get across - to our colleagues and employers, to government and the media, and to the general public.  Let's hope they find it ... well ... riveting.