Picture yourself on a boat on a river...

...but no! We've stepped off the ferry at the Pier Head and now we're back at the Crowne Plaza for the PLA Conference, ready to hear from Phil, Andy, and Lyn.

Last time I was at a conference in Liverpool - the Cofhe/UC&R event earlier in the year - it was Frank Cotterill Boyce who gave us an insight into Scouse culture. This time it was Phil Redmond. I'll forgive him his reference to Oasis as "Manchester's Beatles tribute band" if only for his comment that he had "reclaimed his education" in Liverpool Central Library, having done not a lot at school.

Phil's keynote speech was full of good stuff. Like his take on the history of Liverpool - from commerce without culture through philanthropy supporting culture to commerce created by culture. Like his suggestion that in a culture-based economy,people will always want to come back to the primary sources - and the primary sources of knowledge are held in libraries, archives and museums. Like his vision of libraries as gateways to culture, with content and collections mediated by professional staff for use by everyone -a theme later echoed by the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, Andy Burnham.

And I realy liked Phil's tale of William Roscoe, a philanthropist who was the founder, directly or indirectly, of most of the great cultural institutions in Liverpool - but whose name is little known today. One of those institutions is the Liverpool Botanic Gardens and a recreation of "Mr Roscoe's garden" is being used to raise the profile of Roscoe's contribution to cultural life in Liverpool.

Behind Phil on the Big Screen was the image that's been used all year to promote Liverpool as Capital of Culture - a colourful burst of cultural activity featuring iconic buildings and people from Liverpool - McCartney, Rattle, Gerrard, etc. But no reference that I could see to libraries. Listening to Phil, I wondered if libraries are like William Roscoe - underpinning almost everything but unnoticed by almost everyone?

What, I thought, could be used, like Mr Roscoe's garden, to raise the profile of libraries? A storyline in Hollyoaks perhaps? Go on Phil, do it for us...