ASCEL Conference 7th - 8th November 2014
Libraries – Reading – Culture – Creativity
Exploring reading as a cultural activity and libraries as an integral element of the cultural landscape.
I was lucky to be chosen for one of the three sponsored places to attend the ASCEL conference 2014. This was my first ever conference, I wasn’t sure what to expect, the programme looked interesting and diverse but I felt nervous as well as excited at the prospect of attending. As a group manager, my role concentrates on the operations of libraries in my area. I work closely with our children’s specialist but my role can become quite generic at times and I was looking forward to focussing on libraries, reading, culture and creativity. To look at it in depth and take back ideas that would a) be easy for teams to develop b) were relevant and c) would improve what we offered children in my authority.
The conference aims were to:
· Give people current strategic landscape pictures.
· Learning from best practice.
· Exploring solutions to challenges.
· Equipping people with the tools and information to support development and deliver quality services within a reduced resource framework.
The following paragraphs are snapshots of the conference and what I took from the each speaker.
Friday
Philip Ardagh: Children’s Author
Philip Ardagh talked about what reading, culture and Libraries meant to him. He gave us an insight into the books that he loved as a child and how they helped shape his life and work. It was light hearted and funny with a powerful message about the importance for reading for pleasure. He reinforced the ideas that we promote when encouraging children to read for pleasure, such as it’s fine for children to read books that are aimed for younger age groups, and that re-reading books from your past will re-engage with and provoking memories of your personal history.
Question Time:
The panel answered questions based on children’s reading and its role within the artistic, cultural and creative life of the nation. Annie had asked ASCEL members to submit their questions prior to the conference. The questions covered topics a range of topics including the lack of diversity in children’s literature, advocacy, partnerships with the arts, the impact of reading on the lives of children and the need to evidence it. Some points made by the panellists included:
Hedley Swain (Arts Council)
· There is a book for every decade of Hedley’s life, there is a book for everyone, we must do all we can to help people find their book.
· Books are a wonderful way of seeing things from another point of view, diversity not just legally and morally important but creatively important.
· Funding for separate arts projects is shrinking but funding for combined arts projects is expanding. Libraries need to link into the wider cultural landscape and to work with arts organisations and practitioners.
Barbara Band (CILIP)
· It’s not the act of reading that is important but the effect it has on people. Reading and a love of reading has a long term impact, it’s not a quick fix.
· Organisations and decision-makers who recognise the importance of literacy do not always translate this into support for libraries and librarians.
· A room full of books is not a library.
Dawn Williams (Bridge North East)
· Using the Children’s Promise is a good way of evidencing the impact of what libraries do as it reflecting both the Universal Offers and Arts Council priorities.
· Life chances are severely impacted on if children cannot read. We are obligated to hammer on the doors of politicians.
· Align library work with regional festivals for a bigger platform.
Sue Wilkinson MBE (TRA)
· All children have the potential to enjoy reading, but it requires finding the right book for the right person. This is why professional staff are needed in libraries.
· It’s challenging to find a spectrum of books to show her granddaughter the world she is growing up in.
· Do we stop reading to children too early?
Philip Ardagh
· Use reverse engineering, by taking the child’s enthusiasm back to the family, use their excitement and interest in reading to chip away at their parents.
· If a national body took over libraries there would be centres of excellence but that lack of local facilities would mean that a lot of vulnerable and less affluent people would fall by the wayside.
Making your case for libraries supporting reading as a cultural activity: Campbell Storey
Campbell Storey gave an excellent and really useful presentation about how to use elevator speeches to advocate libraries. His method for creating an elevator speech was a really simple and effective way to plan and deliver a message with accurate and precise information. Campbell spent some time explaining how to talk to a hostile journalist and how to talk straight about the message you’re giving.
Literacy Hubs Project: Jason Vit, NLT
Jason gave us an update on the Hubs Project, promoting literacy and reading in
socially and economically deprived areas. Nationally, 1 in 6 people have poor literacy. A quarter of young people don’t recognise the link to reading and success. Men and women with poor literacy are least likely to be employed at thirty years old. He also talked about intergenerational low literacy which was mutually reinforcing a pattern of issues.
Universal Offers: Ciara Eastell, SCL President
Gave us an update on the Universal Offers, in relation to children and young people. An important point that Ciara made is to consider is that technology is changing the way people want to learn, so there is a need to enable access to resources and different approaches to learning or provide space that is conducive to learning. The SCL is looking at interventions that will keep people reading and using libraries. They are also talking to national commissioners about better evidencing the difference that intervention makes in terms of health and well-being.
Saturday
Digital Reading Research: Ben Lee, Shared Intelligence
Ben talked about the speed and scale of change he has seen in digital trends and demonstrated how it costs more to get on-line if you are poor. There is a current focus on computer science skills in the curriculum, to bridge the gap in computer programming skills. Children will learn programme skills using Scratch and Raspberry Pi. This has highlighted an issue surrounding the limited skills and confidence of early years teaching staff to teach these skills to children. Ben suggested that over-fives need activities in libraries to tap into new trends and the parents of under-fives need help to become more confident in what to use on the net with their children.
Good Childhoods and Well-being research: Dorothea Mueller
Presented research carried out by the Children’s Society. Dorothea said that reading was strongly associated with well-being and that learning or teaching ourselves new things (often through books) improved well-being. She suggested this is where libraries can contribute to the main principles of wellbeing to keep learning, to connect, to give, to be active, to take notice, to engage in creativity and play.
Evaluating Creatively: Sue Challis
Sue stressed the need to plan evaluation methodology and aims well in advance. She suggested broadening the base of the evaluation so that all participants involved can contribute to different aspects of the evaluation process. Using more creative methods of evaluation will capture the thoughts and feelings of a wider range of people.
Workshops
Culture and Creativity in the National Curriculum: Patricia Metham, See Through Education Partnership
Patricia talked about the National curriculum, saying that it should be considered the minimum and that a child’s progression will also involve enquiry, discovery, debate, vision, thinking and imagination. However, she explained that OFSTEAD, SATs, GCSEs and the syllabus puts pressure on and squeezes progress; this affects boys more, finding this oppressive leading to them reading less enthusiastically or as widely as girls. Patricia stressed that we have the vision, expertise and the opportunity to change the culture and raise expectations through reading for pleasure.
Lunch time Workshop Mapping Your Library: Sue Challis
I didn’t intend to join this workshop I popped back to the conference room during lunch and decide to give it a go. We were asked to use different coloured pastels to use mark making and patterns to map our library. Sue used this workshop to demonstrate how mapping could be used to evaluate the library space in a way that didn’t need words or speech. My colleague and I guessed each other’s library just by the marks, patterns and colours we had used. I found this session to be really liberating, which was a surprise after being quite sceptical at first.
Reading Literacy and the Brain – Nicola Morgan
Nicola talked about her work and her thoughts on how reading changes the brain. The brain is only so big and as reading is not a natural activity, the act of reading needs to be practiced. As a consequence, reading grows different networks in the brain at the expense of others. Nicola also suggested that it is a price worth paying because of the benefits that reading gives us. Nicola likened different reading material to food, different foods have different effects on the body and the same is for different books on the brain.
Importance of libraries and reading for young people: Perspective from young
people
Young readers shared the importance of reading in their lives and had helped them to gain self-confidence and self-esteem. Each stressed the importance of having someone on hand to guide them towards books that might interest them to facilitate their reading choices and reading development.
Reflection
The conference was packed with stimulating speakers and interesting topics. I gained an excellent overview of the current strategic landscape. The conference made me think about improvements and advocacy in relation to my own service. We should really use elevator speeches to make our case to customers and stakeholders. It would be good to introduce the ‘wellbeing five a day’ to parents and children in story time activity sessions based on the themes of; keep learning, to connect, to give, be active, to take notice. I will also look at how we can facilitate intergenerational learning, make spaces conducive to learning and enable children to tap into digital trends.
Another aspect of the conference that I found inspiring was being surrounded by so many passionate and switched on library professionals. It is so easy to become caught up in the daily grind, it’s so important it to step out of your day job to be reminded of the value of your role and how it contributes to the learning and cultural experiences of children and young people.
Nicola Barnes