New MLA Chair Wants More Focus on Libraries
Posted by Brian Kelly on April 15th, 2009
A news item in the April 2009 issue of Library & Information Update (“Call for MLA to focus more on the ‘L’“, page 5) reports that Andrew Motion, the new Chair of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is ‘insisting’ that MLA focus ‘more equal attention’ on libraries than in the past. In a speech at the London Libraries conference in St Albans he spoke about his new role and how he feels that ‘we need to encourage government to think more strategically about libraries in general’.
It is good to see this focus on libraries and it will be interesting to see what concrete initiatives emerge. UKOLN has previously contributed to a range of projects in collaborations with the public library sector – Internet provision in public libraries, Stories from the Web, NOF-digitise and the People’s Network Discovery Service, People Flows, Cornucopia and the Public Library Web Managers Workshops – and we’re looking forward to further work in this area, such as the national library card that Andrew Motion mentions.