North, South..

.. East, West - when it comes to joint working, our profession is best. An opinion formed at the annual Irish conference which took place earlier this week in Athlone.  The conference is organised jointly by CILIP Ireland and the Library Association of Ireland and the tradition of joint conferences stretches back to the 1960s. This year in Athlone we marked the 40th such conference as well as the 80th anniversary of the Library Association of Ireland (and the 400th birthday of the Bushmills distillery but that's another story)

At the conference we heard from Andy Pollack, Director of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies and an expert on North/South cooperation. Andy was very impressed by the track record of cross-border cooperation demonstrated by the library and information community, and contrasted this with the slow progress made by some other professional groups.

 Which prompts two reflections. How heartening it is to see that the professional values which bring us together can transcend those forces which sometimes seek to drive us apart. And how important might our experience in Ireland (of working to common professional purpose across different governing jurisdictions) prove to be as we move to an increasingly federated United Kingdom.

So, congratulations to our colleagues in the LAI on their 80th anniversary. And congratulations to all of our colleagues who have been involved, over the years, in fostering cooperation across borders (of all types) in the island of Ireland.  And also congratulations to the town and people of Athlone for giving us such a good time this week: the river Shannon sparkled in the sunlight; the welcome - from the dignitaries in the Civic Centre and the locals in Sean's Bar - was warm and genuine;  the craic was as good as ever and, yes, there was singing in the hotel lounge until the early hours following the conference dinner. To those who were present to witness my attempted rendition of a classic Lancashire folk song I can only apologise: I'll try to avoid such indiscretions in future!