Best wishes for the new year to all our members. We thought we’d take this opportunity to take a quick look back at what we’ve achieved as a network in the last year and more importantly, look ahead to our exciting plans for 2018.
Over the last 12 months we have seen the Community Managed Libraries Network grow to almost 200 members, we have hosted two webinars and a legal workshop and two pilot group meetings for those involved in shaping the network as we grow.
We are now planning for 2018 and are excited to announce plans for our upcoming Community Managed Libraries Conference: The Changing Landscape as well as more webinar and workshop opportunities. We have added a Resources page to our blog, where you can find links to watch our past webinars, workshop handouts and other resources. On top of all this we are busy working to ensure a growing and sustainable network that remains relevant and useful to our members beyond 2018.
Network Conference: The Changing Landscape
We are delighted to announce the first national conference of the Community Managed Libraries Network. To be held in Sheffield on 20th March 2018, the conference is a chance for anyone involved in running community managed libraries to get together, meet other libraries and access relevant talks, workshops and masterclasses. There will also be an opportunity to visit community managed libraries in Sheffield.
The conference is FREE and relevant to anyone involved in running a community managed library.
Date: 20th of March 2018
Location: Sheffield Library Services, Carpenter Room
Contributors: Community managed libraries in Sheffield; Upper Norwood Library Hub; Locality; Libraries Taskforce; Power to Change; Sheffield Library Services; Society for Chief Librarians and more.
Draft programme (subject to slight changes): Organised visits to community managed libraries in Sheffield; masterclasses in Building Impact & Creating Influence, Volunteering & Succession Planning, Skills Acquisition, Income Generation and Business Planning; surgeries and carousel type events including stalls.
Please register now to secure a place at the conference or for further information email margaret.adjaye@unlt.org
Have you attended one of our webinars or workshops yet?
We have had excellent feedback on our first set of workshops and webinars and we are planning lots more for 2018. A list of the planned events can be found on our Events page, however do keep an eye on it as we are busy working on adding more dates and topics to the list.
If you haven’t attended a webinar before and are concerned about joining one for the first time then don’t worry, it’s simple to register and join in. Also, once you have signed up to take part in one of our webinars we will send you a brief ‘how-to’ guide for logging on and joining in and will also give you the opportunity to log-in the day before as a test run for the next day. And you don’t have to take part alone, you could always get a group of colleagues together and join in as a team?