Twenty members of GLTU and / or SALCTG met on Thursday afternoon at City of Glasgow College Library for a tour by Librarian Tony Donnelly. The College was formed when Central College, Glasgow Metropolitan College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies merged on 1^st September 2010, and the library has been extensively refurbished, Level 1 in 2007 and Level 2 in 2012. It was interesting to see the changes in thinking between the two – Level 1 was attractive but felt more like a traditional library with separate IT suite. Level 2 was a more open and integrated space. For more information and pictures, see the GLTU blog. The SALCTG blog also has some feedback from participants.

The illustration is the winning entry in a competition for stonemasonry students to design a sculpture for the library. It “recalls the first great library, the Temple of the Muses, which, according to some sources, stood in Alexandria from 305 BC to 48 BC. The sculptor has cracked the stone intentionally, recording the library’s violent destruction and evoking both the ancient beginnings of human curiosity and the shocking impact of new ideas.” It is typical of the high quality design of the library.

Although I’ve organised many visits for both groups before, this was the first joint one. It seemed to work well, with everyone from different sectors finding much to interest them. Tony’s tour was inspiring and his passion for, and pride in, the library shone through.

Badges can tell your life story. My friend Pat and I both collect them, so when we heard about Glasgow Women’s Library’s new Badges of Honour project, we decided to go along to the launch. The project aims to show how badge-wearing women changed the world – well, I’m not sure either of us would claim to have done that, but we took along some of our favourite badges anyway, and were filmed talking about them for the archive. It was really interesting to take part and I’m looking forward to follow-up visits to other badge collections.

Here are the badges I spoke about, and an explanation of why they are important to me.

I was brought up a Methodist in the 1960s. In those days, Methodists were tee-total and alcohol was not allowed on church premises. I sat the Band of Hope (a temperance organisation) exams twice and won prizes both times. In 1967, aged 10, I came first nationally and was awarded a medal, top left. I got 100% – although this wasn’t difficult. I remember going to classes on a Saturday morning and being impatient because all there was to study was a four page booklet which I probably learned off by heart. We had to remember the names of different spirits – I remember being told that thinking of a frisky kitten would help me remember whisky, which I thought was very patronising. It also didn’t work as I certainly like a drink or two!

I was also a member of the Junior Missionary Association, and every Sunday after the church service I went round the congregation collecting money. My JMA medal is the top middle picture – I got this for my first year of collecting and each year after that I added a bar. The first bar is dated 1964 so I must have got the medal in 1963 when I was 6. The last bar is dated 1972, then there is a cross – I’m not sure why, maybe I had reached the age limit or the maximum number of bars. This is also representative of a way of life I no longer follow, but although I’m not a church-goer, it instilled charitable values in me which I still try to live by.

The rest of the badges shown are from the early 80s. I came out of university straight into Thatcherite cuts, and the badges reflect this – it was my most politically active decade. They are strongly pro-Labour and anti-Tory (top right). Campaigns included support for the striking miners and opposition to the dismembering of metropolitan authorities (“Save South Yorkshire”). The Cold War was at its height and I used to have a recurring dream that a bomb went off and I was trying to walk from Doncaster, where we lived, to Sheffield where my husband worked. I still remember the feeling of sadness that I would probably never see him again. We were both in CND (bottom left) and marched in Glasgow, Barrow (where Trident was built) and London, where a “witty” banner strung across Whitehall read: “1983 election: losers’ entrance”. I also visited Greenham Common to “embrace the base”.

The final group (bottom right) is library campaign badges. Then, as now, libraries were under threat. Today’s campaigns are sophisticated, internet driven affairs. We had a conference and some amateurish badges. I can’t remember much coming of it, though Doncaster Libraries survived – to be one of the most notorious cases of library closures these days, unfortunately.

This is a really interesting campaign, and I wish GWL all the best with it.

Book Week Scotland 2013 was announced in Edinburgh this morning – I was invited to the launch by Scottish Book Trust, which delivers the event, because of my children’s literature blog and was really sorry to have a clash of engagements which prevented me from going. Anyway, the lovely folk at SBT sent me a press release and some photographs and I’ve written up the announcement more fully on the children’s blog. The pictures are: “Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop and Scottish authors Denise Mina, Mairi Hedderwick and Richard Holloway showing off their treasures, as Scottish Book Trust launches a hunt for the nation’s cherished objects. The Treasures campaign invites Scots to submit a piece of writing about the item they hold most dear, with a free book featuring the best stories and poems to be given out during Book Week Scotland, running from 25 November to 1 December this year.” Last year, there was a similar campaign on the theme of My favourite place. I meant to enter, but never quite got round to it. Maybe this year when, allegedly, I have more time? We’ll see.

All photographs credited to Rob McDougall.

There are several levels of pun involved in the title of Glasgow’s book festival, which finished on Saturday: Aye Write! “Yes, write” and”I write” are probably obvious to all, but non-Scots might not know that “Aye, right!” is a Glaswegian expression of some scepticism, a rare example of a double positive making a negative. I’m not sure what this says about the festival – Glaswegians take little on face value and might be more likely to question the veracity of the speakers? Well, not in the sessions I attended anyway in which remarkable consensus ensued.

This is the eighth Aye Write! In previous years I’ve been a ticket-buying punter; this year I was lucky enough to be invited to staff the doors in return for free events, nine in all. I had a great time, particularly as most of the talks were not ones I’d necessarily have chosen myself, so it was definitely mind-broadening. Here they are in chronological order:

Tuesday: Patrick Ness and Matt Haig; Unstated

Patrick and Matt had an interesting discussion based on their new books,  both of which have fantastical elements. Why does this make them less literary in some eyes? Would Shakespeare’s agent have suggested he should lose the supernatural, e.g. the ghost in Macbeth? Fantasy is no more “made up” than any other genre and the only rules should be dictated by the story, not imposed from the outside. They liked distinctions by age as little as by genre: who says a book is YA? (Though often, Matt suggested, teenagers are more open to fantasy, because life hasn’t yet taken their imagination out of them.) Another strand to the discussion was their stimulus to write: Matt sees writing as a compulsion, therapeutic, almost therapy. Patrick likes to use rules to stimulate creativity e.g. the words “I love you” are never used in The Monster Calls. I knew Patrick Ness’s work already – I went away wanting to know more about Matt Haig and to read his book.

Unstated brought together the views of 27 writers and activists on independence and Scotland. In this session, editor Scott Hames discussed some of the issues with three contributors, Margaret Elphinstone, Meaghan Delahunt and Alan Bissett. As they were all writers, talk focused more on the cultural and social justice arguments in favour of independence rather than economic ones. It was interesting that in a wide-ranging audience discussion, no voices were raised in favour of the Union (though one admitted to scepticism). Preaching to the converted?

Wednesday: Mona Siddiqui; Anne Lorne Gillies

I didn’t get a lot out of Mona’s talk on the centrality of Jesus in Christian-Muslim relations. Not her fault – the acoustics were against her rather quick, light voice. The Main Hall certainly seems to be the Mitchell’s weak spot, with sound troubles in several sessions.

Anne Lorne Gillies told the story of three female Gaelic song collectors spanning a century and a half: Frances Tolmie (1840-1926), Marjory Kennedy Fraser (1857-1930) and Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004). The first and last were more serious; Kennedy Fraser spoke no Gaelic and rather romanticised her “translations” or, reading between the lines, made them up, though this did result in the beautiful Eriskay Love Lilt. Anne’s presentation included images and song, an all-round delight.

Friday: AL Kennedy, Jackie Kay

AL Kennedy’s On writing is a collection of blog posts, essays and the transcript of her stand-up show. She read two sections which were very droll, one on attending writing workshops and what she would like to do to some of the less attractive characters there (not pretty) and one on defending the arts in hard times, which she has been doing since “the kind and smiling days of Thatcherite cuts” (cue cheers.)

Jackie Kay was hilarious: effervescent, engaging, risqué – is it only in Glasgow that a douce, middle-aged, audience will laugh like drains at jokes about orgasms and breadbins? (Read the book, Reality, reality, a collection of short stories, to find the connection!) There was also a definite food theme – after all, food can be an indicator of character. How many of us judge a person by the contents of their supermarket trolley? Jackie read a “tapas” from her book. The Chair told us she made excellent broccoli soup (not something he often got when interviewing writers). One story was about a serial dieter and, in another, an old lady dreamed of having a red cardigan, the colour of her soup. This was the stand-out session for me, and also included the best audience question of the whole programme – when the serial dieter fell off the wagon, so to speak, into a curry, the food was lovingly described. “How much research did you have to do to get this right?” Jackie was asked (answer, a copious amount.) Reality, reality is now in my collection and I can’t wait to read it.

Saturday: Ronald Frame; Seamus Milne and Daniel Stedman Jones; John Gordon Sinclair

Two very different fiction sessions on Saturday, and one non-fiction two-hander. Ronald Frame has written Havisham, a prequel to Great Expectations, and said he was surprised that no-one had attempted this already given that Dickens offers quite a bit of back story. He was inspired by an old brewery to write about Miss Havisham, the daughter of a brewer, and the book started life as a radio play. He doesn’t think Dickens would mind other people taking over his characters, but felt he had to win over the Dickens fans.

Ronald Frame is an established writer; actor John Gordon Sinclair has written his first book, an IRA thriller. This, too, started life as something else, in this case a proposal for a screen play – when he was asked to write an autobiography, he decided to develop this instead. He felt being well-known already played against him – people might expect an actor to write about the theatrical world, and some publishers couldn’t get past the idea of Gregory, his most famous role. This must be irritating for him, but I see where they are coming from. Funny and self-deprecating (he doesn’t do readings from his book because he is “shite” at it) he is exactly how I would imagine Gregory at 50.

Finally, a session on neo-liberalism with Seamus Milne and Daniel Stedman Jones. I thought this might be a bit dry, but found it fascinating and curiously uplifting. Seamus is of the opinion that opponents of the existing world order have been wrong on the major world events of the 21st century and their opponents have been vindicated. For example, the “war on terror” exposed the limits of US and western imperialist power (he was proud, in 2001, to be on Tony Blair’s list of 10 journalists who were “wrong” to predict that this would lead to guerilla warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan). The crash following 2008 had the greatest impact on the most deregulated economies, yet the Right are still crowing and asserting that neoliberalism is the way to go. The Left should capitalise on being right and mobilise policy and social pressure to turn the tables. Daniel’s book is more historical and goes back to the inter-war years where neo-liberalism emerged in response to the Depression. He was more cautious than Seamus, though hoped he was right that 2008 was a watershed for neoliberalism (and Seamus certainly was so confident that he was almost convincing). However, Daniel can’t see any ready-made alternatives on the horizon. I now feel 50% optimistic that there is a way out of this!

So – that was my Aye Write! It was a great experience, and I thank Mary and Josie at Glasgow Life for offering me the opportunity to hear so many wonderful authors. For a completely different selection of events, see this review by Helen McKinven. There was just so much going on. See you in 2014!

This blog has been sadly neglected – because I have been BUSY! Never need I have worried about filling up my time after leaving work. Most of the activity has been social media related – notably the eighth in the series of Glasgow Library Tweetups that I have organised. This was a behind the scenes tour of Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, one of the biggest reference libraries in Europe. The highlight was undoubtedly seeing the Leningrad Album, which is not normally on view, in Special Collections. During the Siege of Leningrad in the Second World War, the women of Airdrie and Coatbridge, near Glasgow, sent an album of solidarity and support to the women of Leningrad, who, despite living in dreadful conditions, managed to reciprocate. It’s a beautiful piece of work and the stories attached to it are very moving. You can read more on the GLTU blog.

I’ve been asked to speak about GLTU at the MmITS AGM next month – in fact I’m quite busy speaking, having already given talks on using Twitter to engage with users to Glasgow Women’s Library, Amina Muslim Women’s Resource Centre and Glasgow University School of Engineering. I never used to do talks beyond my own organisation, so this is quite a surprise.

I’ve also done a couple of guest blog posts for Glasgow Book Groups and Glasgow Women’s Library – you might notice a certain overlap of content, but, hey, who doesn’t recycle material. I’ve mentioned GWL twice now – I volunteer there regularly, and fully intend to write a complete post about it soon. It’s a wonderful organisation.

Before we leave the subject of blogs, I’m very proud to say that I have also got my 83 year old Dad blogging! He’s a retired minister who recently gave up preaching after 60+ years, and a blog is an ideal way for him to continue to share his faith. He supplies the content and I post it – find him at John Mitchell – called and sent.

Coming up next week? I’m volunteering at Aye Write!, Glasgow’s Book Festival. I’ll be on the door at nine sessions and, assuming there aren’t too many latecomers, get to listen in. I’m particularly looking forward to Patrick Ness and Jackie Kay. I’ve also got an induction session as a media and communications volunteer at the Scottish Refugee Council, and there are other opportunities in the pipeline which are not yet formed enough to write about.

So I realise, as someone who used to work full time, that this may not sound all that busy, but I do have a serious point to make. When my job disappeared, I thought I would have to sit down to plan my future to avoid sinking into lethargy. That would no doubt have worked, but actually I never did it. I kept an eye open for suitable openings, and one thing led to another. Before I finished work, I spotted a request to help Glasgow Libraries with Book Week Scotland. Doing that, and proving I was reliable, led directly to Aye Write. I saw a request from Glasgow Women’s Library for new members of their Women Make History Group – after joining that, I got involved in many more aspects of their work (really must write that blogpost). I spotted the Scottish Refugee Council opportunity on Twitter, and using social media generally has given me lots of connections. The skills and knowledge I have built up over many years in work are in demand, and I can concentrate on the interesting ones without having to worry about the dull stuff, such as invoices or statistics. So to anyone else contemplating retirement, assuming the financial situation is right, I would say, go for it. There’s a new world out there waiting for you.

How nice to see joined up thinking between two parts of Glasgow Life with this mini library at Scotland Street Museum. I almost forgave them for taking away the café! Scotland Street was originally designed as a school by Charles Rennie Mackintosh; these days it has displays on the history of education, including mock classrooms from different eras. However, last week I was visiting a temporary exhibition, Liz Lochhead’s Competent at peever, which was absolutely great. If you’re interested, there are pictures of the exhibition on my travel blog – which will also tell you what peever is if you don’t already know!

My second attempt at editing Scottish Roundup, a weekly summary of the Scottish blogging scene, came out yesterday: Love, loss and libraries. I choose the dates carefully so that I can include something about libraries – last time it was Book Week Scotland, this time National Libraries Day. It’s quite hard work bashing the submissions into a coherent narrative, but I think I got away with it! It’s something I enjoy doing, and if I can thereby bring a little extra attention to libraries that’s a bonus.

Instead of having an event for National Libraries Day this year, GLTU (Glasgow Library Tweetups) decided to create a Twitter snapshot of Scottish libraries – what people use them for and why they value them. After much tweeting and retweeting, we got a great response. It’s obviously not comprehensive, but there’s a geographical spread from Orkney down to Dumfries and Galloway and representatives of public, academic, school and special libraries, so there’s pretty broad coverage. There are cute kids, a dog, a cat (cheated a bit on that one) and cake – what’s not to love? Head off to the Storify to see the full results – it’s too long to embed, but here’s Strathclyde’s NLD cake as a taster. (Too late to taste literally, I fear). And if you just have time to look at one part of the Storify (it’s quite long), scroll down to Dundee Libraries and check what they did. It is truly awesome.

A couple of lessons I’ve learned which might be useful to anyone else doing this sort of thing – Storify is not as easy to use as I thought for something on this scale. I started with the app which seemed to “eat” tweets, I think because it kept crashing. The PC version kept freezing too, so that I would have to come out and start again. Also, services such as Twitpic transferred seamlessly to Storify but Hootsuite’s ow.ly links did not. Adding the tweet does not display the picture so, in most cases, I have ditched the tweet and included the picture. If I did this again, I might look for something different – but on the other hand, Storify IS free!

Finally, the idea behind the project was that it might be a springboard from which to launch some in-depth case studies of the role libraries play in people’s lives. If anyone has any ideas about how to do that, please let me know.

If you don’t know Glasgow, a great way to explore the city is on a guided walk. And if you DO know Glasgow it’s still great, because you will find out all sorts of hidden histories and little known facts. Several organisations can help, but my favourite walks (DISCLAMER! I help with them) are Glasgow Women’s Library’s Heritage Walks. There are five in total: West End, East End, Merchant City, Garnethill and the Necropolis. In addition, for most of them you can download maps from the link above to follow the walks yourself and for the West End walk there is even a podcast at £3. Walks are £7.50 and the programme runs regularly throughout the year. Below is a montage of three of the walks, and a link to a great blog post by a recent participant on the Necropolis Walk. I also wrote in more detail on this blog about the Necropolis after my last tour exactly one year ago and I’ve created a Storify about this one..

Women of the Necropolis Walking Tour

Keukenhof’s theme this year was the UK: Land of Great Gardens. The Juliana Pavilion had an exhibition from the Royal Horticultural Society and the Oranje Nassau Pavilion was meant to have a flower-mosaic of Big Ben and Tower Bridge outside – again, the weather had wreaked havoc with this. Inside, its idea of the UK seemed rather London-centric, but the gerberas were lovely. We chose not to investigate the restaurant with its “typical British” style.

I mentioned in my previous post that the bulbs in the fields and the park were sadly lacking because of the cold spring, but the Willem-Alexander Pavilion was dazzling: mainly daffodils and tulips, but a few other types of bulb flower as well. We spent ages in here and were just blown away by all the different colours. Here’s a flavour:

In other news, this is my 100th post on this blog. Woohoo!

Keukenhof is a park amongst the bulb fields near Amsterdam which puts on a lovely display each Spring – well, except this one! We have been before at this time of year, and it has been beautiful, but this year’s cold weather has certainly inhibited growth, and I really worry for the fate of some of the bulb farmers because I couldn’t even see shoots in some of the fields. Despite the bitter cold, we decided to vist anyway because the hothouses wouldn’t be affected, and we still had a wonderful day, coming away with about 200 photos, so there will be several posts. This one covers the Beatrix Pavilion which housed the orchid show – absolutely gorgeous. Enjoy the photos!

NB The best way to get to Keukenhof from Amsterdam is to buy an all-inclusive ticket from the Tourist Office (there was one in Leidseplein near where we were staying) which covers the entrance fee plus fares for a bus to Schipol and then one directly to the park.

In March 1981, two young people went to Amsterdam for their honeymoon on what was known as a British Rail Stardust Holiday – train, overnight ferry, two nights in a hotel, overnight ferry, train. Exhausting. However, we, for it was indeed us, fell in love with the city and have been back several times – last week was our sixth visit. These days, we travel more comfortably, and the last twice we have forsaken hotels for the wonderful Prinx Studio Apartments which I heartily recommend. Beautifully run by Ton and Hector, the house is on a quiet canal near the Rijksmuseum and not far from the myriad restaurants in the small streets round Leidseplein. In the six nights we were there, we ate Italian, Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, Indonesian and Dutch, all within a few hundred yards of Prinx.

On our last visit, we used the I Amsterdam card for discounted access to museums – it’s a great idea, but this time, we didn’t bother because the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum are not open until later this month after extensive refurbishments, and we planned to make a couple of trips out of the city. I’ll  blog about them later – in the meantime, here is a flavour of the lovely area in which we stayed.

Like many major cities, Glasgow has grown by incorporating surrounding towns and villages. Govan was a separate burgh until 1912 – it once had a population of 60,000 when shipbuilding on the Clyde was at its height. Now it is more like 16,000, and is a sadly rundown district of decaying historic buildings and boarded up shops. In the 19th century it was dominated by the Elder family – they lived across the river in Glasgow, but John Elder (1824-1869) was boss of the Fairfield Shipyard in Govan employing 4,000 men. He was known for good worker relations and, after his untimely death, his widow Isabella (1828-1905) carried on his good works. In Govan itself, she provided a park, a library and a hospital and in Glasgow she contributed to the University, including providing a property for the fledgling Queen Margaret College for the education of women. Today’s millionaires, including the shower in the UK cabinet, could learn a lot from such Victorian philanthropists.

Govan is only a few stops on the Subway from us, so yesterday we went over to have a look at Isabella’s legacy. On the way to Elder Park, we passed the Aitken Memorial Fountain, the Pearce Institute and the old Fairfield Shipyard itself.

Although funded by Isabella, Elder Park Library was opened by Andrew Carnegie in 1903 – he later funded several others in Glasgow himself. We could only visit the outside as it was closed for the Easter Weekend.

Elder Park has statues to both John (erected 1888) and Isabella (erected 1906).

Other features of the park include two memorials to shipping disasters, the K13 submarine which sank during trials on the Gareloch in 1917 and the SS Daphne which capsized during her launch in 1883; “The Launch” by George Wylie, a sculpture of the bow of a ship complete with champagne bottle; and the portico of the former mansion-house of the Linthouse Estate.

We used Glasgow City Council’s Elder Park Heritage Trail – if visiting Glasgow, check out the council’s excellent page of similar trails (though for some reason it doesn’t include this one). They are usually well illustrated and packed full of historical information – highly recommended.

I was dismayed to see this picture last week – the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall is to be partially dismantled to make way for an access road to new luxury apartments. The Wall has been beautifully painted by various artists and is known as the East Side Gallery – I wrote about our visit on our Berlin holiday last year, which we really enjoyed. The image above links to another Telegraph photo, and the full gallery includes an artist’s impression of the proposed new apartment block. According to the accompanying story, about 300 protestors prevented all but a small section being taken away, and Demotix has a photo-story of thousands protesting on Sunday. As of yesterday, it seems that the process has been put on hold and the Mayor has said that he will try to ensure the structure is preserved. I hope he succeeds – I’m all for progress and regeneration where appropriate, but this is a unique piece of history that should be preserved.

PS 11/3/12 – since I wrote last week, there have been further developments, including the setting up of a petition and support from David Hasselhof no less. If you want to sign the petition, all the information is on andBerlin’s blog.

What a great wee museum Scotland Street is! A former primary school designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who fell out spectacularly with the School Board of Glasgow and was more or less taken off the case, it’s now a School Museum with, amongst other things, classrooms of different eras. You can see something of that in my last post about it – this time I went for Liz Lochhead’s exhibition, Competent at peever.

Liz is currently Scotland’s Makar, or poet laureate. She studied at Glasgow School of Art and was a teacher for a while, but is now a playwright and poet. For a flavour of her work, read her moving contribution to Book Week Scotland’s My favourite place project. The exhibition results from a year-long residency at Scotland Street and comprises poems, drawings and collages on the themes of childhood and primary school. The highlight for me was her art school project from 1968 in which she went back to her old school – it brought back so many memories since that was the year I finished primary. Not all pleasant unfortunately – I enjoyed learning “sums” with the cuisenaire rods she illustrated, and there’s a real set to look at elsewhere in the museum, but my headmaster was not as benevolent as Mr Ritchie and I still smart with humiliation from an undeserved punishment. I came away with the exhibition literature and a collection of poems from the bookshop – but where has the cafe gone? I was also planning to have lunch there, so that was my only disappointment about my visit. Finally, for non-Scots, what on earth is peever? Well, the clue is in Poem for my sister: “I like to watch my little sister playing hopscotch………She is competent at peever.” If you’re in Glasgow, hop, skip and jump over to this exhibition as soon as you can! It’s on till 7th April.

I love old castles and palaces, clambering up and down staircases and trying to imagine what it must have been like to live there. Before Christmas, we had an abortive visit to Linlithgow Palace because we failed to check the website and didn’t realise it was closed. All was not lost, we had a good walk around the adjacent Loch and a pub lunch in the Four Marys. I posted some external pictures and vowed to go back for a proper visit later. Yesterday, we did just that. We visited the Four Marys again (their hummus is a definite highlight) and ended with a warming coffee in a lovely little cafe next to the Palace, So Strawberry. We needed it after the cold and the effort of climbing several towers. The Palace is probably most famous for being the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots – she was baptised in the adjacent St Michael’s Kirk, which you can also see in the pictures below. The aluminium crown is a 1960s addition to replace a masonry crown which had to be removed in 1821. It was apparently controversial at the time, but I like it. However, the real highlight is the elaborate, carved fountain in the courtyard which was restored to its former glory a few years ago. unfortunately, it’s only turned on in the summer – sounds like a good reason to go back again!

I’ve been nominated as a Versatile Blogger! For this, I thank Ana Ela who writes a fabulous blog at The Habitual Runaway. We discovered each other recently because in a way we are opposites – she lives in Canada and has written about her trip through Europe, including Scotland. I live in Scotland and have written about my trips to North America, including Canada. It’s fascinating to see your own culture reflected back, and I always look forward to what Ana Ela writes. Her pictures are lovely too.

So what does the Versatile Blogger Award entail? Well, according to the rules, I’m supposed to pass it on to fifteen other blogs that I’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. Fifteen! Do I know that many? I’m also supposed to tell you seven interesting things about myself – that sounds easier. I’m going to start there.

1. I like to travel. Hmm, probably not a surprise. Why else would I be writing this blog?
2. I like books. My favourite author varies with time, but I keep coming back to Jane Austen. I love her sharply drawn characters and her wit: the way she says so much while saying so little. This task reminds me of a passage in Emma - the picnic at Box Hill at which participants are instructed to say one thing very clever, two things moderately clever or three things very dull indeed. Will that make my seven things excruciatingly dull? I do hope not.
3. When I was very young, I used to tell people I wanted to be an author when I grew up – until I was about 12, I wrote stories in notebooks and on scrap paper which I kept in a shoebox. Once I realised that this wasn’t a very secure career path I settled on librarian as the next best thing because I thought you could read all day (wrong!!) It took me decades to get back to writing for pleasure. Blogging is the equivalent of that shoebox.
4. I AM a librarian – I’m not in work at the moment, but once a librarian, always a librarian. When I worked in a Faculty of Education, I started Anabel’s Children’s Literature Blog which I still maintain. There’s even an element of cross-over with this blog; for example my posts about Anne of Green Gables.
5. I am an Englishwoman living in Scotland. I moved to Glasgow when I was 28; this year I shall be 56 and will have lived in Scotland for half my life, so I might start calling myself Scottish. In total I’ve lived in 10 towns or cities and had 17 addresses, so you can see that Glasgow is by far my longest place of residence. Not only that, we’ve just celebrated 20 years in our current house and can see no reason to move. Glasgow is a wonderful place – if you haven’t visited, you should!
6. I’m a little bit obsessed with Leonard Cohen. I’ve seen him in Glasgow, but have also travelled to both Dublin and Berlin for his concerts and written about the trips on this blog. He’s 78 – how much longer can he keep up this crazy schedule? Long enough for me to see him again I hope.
7. I’ve been married to John for nearly 32 years. None of the other six things matters as much as that.

So those are my seven things – I’ve even managed to link some of them to travel. Now to pass the award on. Ana Ela skimped on fifteen and chose five. I’m going to skimp even further and choose – two! Well, it does say recently discovered, and I have just come across these in the last few weeks. I would also be really interested to find out about their seven things.

1. Humph and grumble. This blog is very young – only three posts – but the author seems to be keen to get started. I used to know ultraviolet101 (not, I can exclusively reveal, her real name) when we worked in the same library. Maybe the Versatile Blogger Award will give her a stimulus for a new post?
2. Christina James, Crime Novelist. People are always tweeting and retweeting blog posts on Twitter. I’m fairly selective about which ones I read, but one of Christina’s really caught my eye. She didn’t say, but I knew as soon as I started to read it, that it was about living in Yorkshire at the time of the Ripper. It was a chilling piece of writing which conjured up exactly the right sort of atmosphere. I know, because I was there too. Since then, I have found other common experiences in Christina’s posts and I would love to read her seven things.

There is, of course, no obligation on the above bloggers to carry this on, but I’ve enjoyed the process and maybe they will too. Thanks again to Ana Ela for nominating me.

Twenty members of GLTU and / or SALCTG met on Thursday afternoon at City of Glasgow College Library for a tour by Librarian Tony Donnelly. The College was formed when Central College, Glasgow Metropolitan College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies merged on 1^st September 2010, and the library has been extensively refurbished, Level 1 in 2007 and Level 2 in 2012. It was interesting to see the changes in thinking between the two – Level 1 was attractive but felt more like a traditional library with separate IT suite. Level 2 was a more open and integrated space. Rather than describe everything, here are some of the things that struck me:

1. Tony himself! He kept us interested throughout and his passion for the library shone through.
2. The best money you can spend is on good design – preferably design that doesn’t look like design.
3. Level 1 was project managed by Estates and was 3 months late. Level 2 was project managed by a librarian. It was one year in planning, nine weeks in execution and finished on time and on budget. Keep as close to the project management as you can.
4. Invest in good materials and students will respect them. Expensive easy chairs were still in good condition six years later.
5. Keep soft seating areas where you can see them and they will not become “rogues corners”. The library does not have behavioural problems. On Level 1, there was a comfortable area in front of the desk big enough to take all of our group. On Level 2 there were the “lily pads” (see pictures). These areas are also great for informal inductions.
6. The artwork on walls and shelf-ends was attractive. There were also four sculptures created for the library in a competition for stonemasonry students, a great way to utilise in-house talent.
7. Simple ideas that work! The cutting table – standing height with a suitable surface and all the equipment needed such as paper-cutters and staplers. The branded card wallet containing credit-card sized leaflets on the library and ICT services (and an extra space for a train or subway ticket).

I had to rush away at the end to attend another meeting, but most of the group were still there asking questions. This was the first visit arranged jointly between GLTU and SALCTG and it seemed to work out well in terms of attendance, and everyone seemed to find a lot to interest them. The photos below were taken by me except the first three on the bottom row which are used by permission of Erika Jagielko. If anyone else has anything to add – pictures or blog posts – please let me know so that I can link them in.

I was delighted to be invited to speak about GLTU at the MmITS (Multimedia and Information Technology Scotland) AGM last week. It took place in the beautiful Royal Faculty of Procurators’ building in Glasgow, and there was an opportunity to look at their library afterwards. There’s an account of the meeting, including my talk, on the excellent MmITS blog so I refer you to that for details. An exciting extra was that I was able to announce the very first Scottish Library Camp (Saturday 26th October, Mitchell Library) because we’d just firmed up the date the day before. Watch this space and see #LibCampGla on Twitter. Below are some pictures of the afternoon – thanks to Louise Morrison of MMITS and Cathy Kearney of CILIPS for additions to my own photographs.

GLTU9 is a joint venture. Tony Donnelly, Librarian at City of Glasgow College, has kindly agreed to show members of GLTU and SALCTG (Scottish Academic Libraries Co-operative Training Group) around the Library at City Campus on the above date from 14.45 – 15.45. The College was formed when Central College, Glasgow Metropolitan College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies merged on 1^st September 2010, and the library has been extensively refurbished. The tour will demonstrate how thinking has moved on since Level 1 was remodelled in 2007 to the new design and features incorporated into the Level 2 Library opened in September 2012. For more information and to book, please go to the visit’s Eventbrite page. Places are limited to 20.

What a fabulous tour Myra Paterson put on for her band of 12 library explorers on Wednesday. We oohed and aahed at old things and new things, we laughed at Myra’s patter and almost cried when looking at the Leningrad Album, a token of friendship between Scottish and Russian women in the Second World War. Myra’s colleague, Susan Taylor, gave us a wonderful introduction to that. For a history of the Mitchell I can do no better than direct you to its own website, and Lynn Corrigan has already written such a good blogpost on the visit that I feel I can’t add to it – thanks for saving me a job, Lynn! However, I’ve created a Storify of #GLTU tweets, many containing pictures, and added a few more photographs below. Thank you so much, Myra and Susan.

Four of us headed off to the Koh-I-Noor for a curry afterwards, then staggered home happy and replete.

PS Update – another great blogpost on the event from Helen MacKinven.

Kevin McGinley, Library Information Worker and Social Media Admin for Leisure and Culture Dundee Libraries, has written this guest post on how @dundeelibraries created their contribution to our National Libraries Day Storify.

National Libraries Day on 9 February 2013 was a culmination of a week’s worth of celebrations in school, college, university, workplace and public libraries across the UK. Our involvement began when we were asked by Anabel Marsh of Glasgow Library Tweetups if we would like to take part in a Libraries takeover on Twitter. It seemed a great concept and we quickly decided to take up the challenge. We were inspired by the fantastic faceBOOK project by photographer Keith Pattison and decided to use this as the inspiration to tweet similar photos throughout the day. We have to say we were a bit nervous about how our customers would react to having their photos broadcast all over the world, but we need not have worried as almost everyone we spoke to was keen to take part.

After a bit of planning and admin (gaining permission via photo consent forms etc) we soon set about snapping customers as they visited our libraries, asking them what they loved and why they were visiting their library. We tried to get a broad spectrum of activities photographed and hopefully we managed to give a nice flavour of what we offer in terms of Library services. Yes, books and reading are core but it doesn’t do any harm to show that libraries are involved in wide range of activities from Pram Pushing Groups to Video Games Coding Workshops for young people.

We decided to schedule some of our tweets in advance via Hootsuite, just in case we were overwhelmed on the day. This worked well as we scheduled tweets every 30 mins and mixed them in with live tweets. We had retweets and replies from all over the UK and it was brilliant to see #nld13 as the top trending topic on Twitter. What was also great was the feel-good factor it created in our own libraries as lots of staff got involved in the lead up, snapping photos on their mobile phone as the chance arose. Special thanks go to Jacque, one of our Library and Information Assistants who, as Tinned Tomatoes, doubles as a very successful food writer and blogger in her spare time. Jacque took photos, and also helped tweet on the day ensuring the success of the project.

If anyone is thinking of trying this type of project in their Libraries, the best advice we can give is just go for it. It’s great fun! You can view the full set of photos we used on the day on our Facebook page.

The next GLTU will take place on Wednesday, 20th March at 4pm. Thanks to Myra Paterson (@MyraCPaterson) and her colleague, Susan Taylor, we will have a tour behind the scenes of the Mitchell. This will take about 1.5 – 2 hours and, as is now traditional, those who wish to stay on can follow up with a curry at the Koh-I-Noor at 6pm. Booking is now open on Evenbrite (you can book for either or both) until Sunday, 17th March. Places are limited to 15, so hurry!

The highlight of the Mitchell visit will undoubtedly be a viewing of the Leningrad Album from World War 2, which is not usually on public view. Here’s a description from Susan, followed by a few sites to check for further information:

The Anglo-Soviet Aid Committee in Airdrie and Coatbridge had an active women’s section and they decided to send messages of support and solidarity to the women of Leningrad during the siege. The ‘Scottish Album’ was taken to London and given to Madame Maisky, the wife of the Soviet ambassador. Given wartime censorship, no further details are available of how the album made its way to Leningrad. It could have been transported on a convoy ship to Murmansk or Archangel, by air or even by overland via the Southern states of Russia. Once it has arrived in Russia, there were only two ways in to the city – either by air on one of the very few flights that made it into Leningrad or (more likely) across Lake Ladoga, the main route in to the city during the siege. The journey could be made by boat in summer or over the ‘ice road’ in winter. The Leningrad Album was sent in return – it was supervised by Anna Petrovna Ostramova-Lebedeva, a well-known graphic artist in the city. It’s boxed in gold brocade and the album cover is decorated with an ancient embroidery from the Russian Museum in Leningrad. There are 3,200 signatures and it also contains messages and photos of housewives and workers and their children in happier times.

Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser

Glasgow Herald

Pat’s Guide

PetersburgCity.Com

Scotiana

StPetersburgForum

UK in Russia

UWS

Instead of having an event for National Libraries Day this year, GLTU decided to create a Twitter snapshot of Scottish libraries – what people use them for and why they value them. After much tweeting and retweeting, we got a great response. It’s obviously not comprehensive, but we have a geographical spread from Orkney down to Dumfries and Galloway and representatives of public, academic, school and special libraries, so there’s pretty broad coverage. There are cute kids, a dog, a cat (cheated a bit on that one) and cake – what’s not to love? Head off to the Storify to see the full results – it’s too long to embed, but here’s Strathclyde’s NLD cake as a taster. (Too late to taste literally, I fear).

National Libraries Day, Saturday 09/02/13

What do you use your library for? What does your library mean to you? Help GLTU to create an online snapshot of what goes on in Scotland’s libraries by tweeting the answers to these questions on National Libraries Day, or in the week running up to it. All sorts of libraries count (e.g. public, academic, special) and, if you are at work in a library on the day, or are self-employed, join in by tweeting about what you have done to help your users.

Please use the hashtag #nldScot so that we can gather the tweets together (in full or, if too many, as edited highlights) in an online document, probably Storify, which we hope will be the start of a larger project celebrating Scottish libraries. The official hashtag for the day is #nld13 so it would be useful to include this as well – if that makes your tweet too long, consider tweeting twice. It would be good to get both trending. Make sure you mention the word library or libraries and consider adding a picture to make your tweet even better – though if you include anyone else in it, you must have their permission. If you don’t want your photograph online, you could, for example, take a picture of your hand holding the books you have borrowed or a card saying what you did in the library, e.g. “I used the computers to search for information.” (For ideas, see Keith Pattinson’s photographs.)

For this to work, we need to spread the message as far as possible so please share the request with family, friends and colleagues and ask them to help too. They don’t have to be on Twitter – they could put information on blog posts, Instagram, Flickr etc and leave the links in the comments to this post. For those without any of those things, a simple comment below will do and this can be tweeted on their behalf.

Can’t wait to read what everyone gets up to – happy tweeting!

For the first GLTU of 2013, thirteen people came to the Mitchell last Wednesday for a lively discussion about future plans. We talked about the possibility of running a Library Camp in Scotland, for which there was definite enthusiasm, and discussed ideas for more GLTUs. A few suggestions were added to those already put forward in the previous post i.e. Cornton Vale, Scottish Parliament (SPICe) and Glasgow School of Art (Mackintosh Library) and most people said they found the current pattern of a late afternoon meeting followed by a social event easiest to attend. Watch this space for news on both these topics.

As it is coming up on 9th February, and therefore urgent, we spent most of the time on National Libraries Day. Again, some ideas had already been proposed and a library flash mob attracted interest and discussion, with some people enthusiastic and others not! However, it was agreed that there wasn’t time to organise one before NLD anyway, but we might pursue it for a future books / libraries celebration. Ken (@iusedtobealibra) suggested a collection of contemporary stories about Scottish libraries making a difference to people’s lives, both public and other e.g. academic / special. Similar things have been done elsewhere, e.g. Voices for the Library and Let’s Talk Libraries (Newcastle), which could serve as models, and we might also explore other online initiatives such as a week in the life of a library (see face Book for an example) or a Fifty people One Question video (multiple examples if you Google it). Again, it was agreed that we couldn’t do this in time for NLD and if we were to build up an online resource advocating for libraries we would need the support of CILIPS, plus people with relevant skills. (Cathy – @kearneycath – has since confirmed that CILIPS will be supportive, particularly as the President’s theme for 2013 is “Making a difference”.) On NLD itself, we can start by tweeting about the many activities going on in libraries, including photographs where possible, and if we set our own hashtag in addition to #NLD13 these can be preserved, e.g. as a Storify, and used to launch the wider idea. Catriona Stewart has written a supportive article about libraries in the Herald and might be willing give us some publicity. So how does this affect YOU? Well, if this is to succeed, we will need everyone to help, both by tweeting on the day (or the week running up to the 9th) and by spreading the word to colleagues, family and friends who could also tweet about their use of libraries. More information will follow very soon.

After all that talking, some of us had built up an appetite! Eight of us trooped off to the Koh-I-Noor and enjoyed an excellent curry to round off the evening.

It’s 2013 and time for the next GLTU! This will take place on Wednesday, 16th January and a sign-up form is now available. The first part of the event is a planning meeting in the Stirling Room of the Mitchell Library at 4.30pm. We’re looking for ideas and suggestions for the 2013 programme of informal tweetups and National Libraries Day celebrations and to explore the idea of a Library Camp Scotland. The meeting should be over by 5.30pm, when we will again visit the Koh-I-Noor for a curry (5.45pm) – we had a very good meal there after GLTU6. As before the meeting is free but you pay for own meal, and please sign up for each part of the event separately – it’s perfectly fine to come to either or both. To make booking a table easier, it would be helpful to have sign-ups for the curry by Monday 14th at the latest.

In my last post, I posed some questions and outlined a few ideas already mooted. A reminder of what was said:

What sort of events would you like for future GLTUs? What could we do for National Libraries Day? Is a Library Camp Scotland feasible in 2013? Here are some ideas we already thought of  – can you do better?

Visits – behind the scenes at the Mitchell; the BBC; Glasgow Women’s Library (again) after it has moved to Bridgeton, combined with the new Bridgeton Public Library; the Panopticon.

NLD – a Twitter quiz; a library flash mob with fliers to hand out and (possibly) a sponsor; something charitable, e.g. raising money for the project in Peru that Michael Charlton (@sololibrarian) worked with.

If you think of anything before the meeting, please add a comment below or tweet me @anabelmarsh. It would also be helpful if you could tweet about the event (use the hashtag #GLTU7), or use any other means of publicity you can think of which might reach new people. See you on the 16th!

PS – a useful suggestion from Lynn Corrigan – if you have time, arrive early to see the George Wylie exhibition which is on in the Main Hall of the Mitchell. Stunning!