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Dear List I asked our Vice President, Phil Bradley to respond on behalf of CILIP to your comments today as I have been tied up trying to develop a plan to meet the future needs of our members and keep us at the forefront of campaigning and advocacy. I am pasting his response to you again below. I spent an hour on Radio 4 with the biggest number of callers that they have probably ever had talking about saving libraries this week. We are talking to media every day. The work we do at Westminster has to be a little less high profile until it comes to fruition. I am not sure what more we could be doing to satsify your individual concerns, but I am confident that we are doing everything we can to support our members, the profession and saving libraries. Perhaps if we pool our energies. Best Annie I find it both sad and ironic that Tony has decided not to renew his CILIP subscription for what he sees as our lack of advocacy at the very time when the Institute is doing more of this than ever before. The membership has made it clear that this is what the organisation should focus on, so I'd like to briefly illustrate some recent activities. CILIP CEO wrote to all English MPs in December 2010 to point out to them the value and importance of libraries. The letter is available here: http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/public-libraries/Documents/LettertoMPs_Dec2010.pdf We also issued a general press release at the same time: http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/Pages/news101215.aspx CILIP is increasingly in the news, with details here: http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/Pages/cilip-in-the-news.aspx but in summary CILIP staff and Trustees have been quoted in the press at least 16 times this year, including an hour long 'You and Yours' this week. On February 7th CILIP published a clear set of actions for Jeremy Hunt and expressing our concern for the future of libraries which can be seen at http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/Pages/news110207.aspx Moreover, Annie Mauger has been in direct, face to face discussions with various senior MPs on both sides of the House, as well as members of the Lords. CILIP Trustees and members of the Presidential team were active on the Savelibraries day in a variety of different ways, both in libraries and online. There was an excellent coverage of the role and value of professional librarians throughout the country, before, on and after the Day of Action, and I have personally had comments from around the world regarding both the activities on the day, CILIP's role in it, and the role played by many other professionals on the day. The Voices for the Library group has an entire website which has a considerable focus on how the lay public value both their libraries and librarians. The Heart of the School group at http://heartoftheschool.edublogs.org/ is also doing sterling work to promote the value of both school libraries and librarians. We are aware that this is however simply the start. CILIP will be doing more in the future and will continue to be active whenever libraries are threatened, be they public, school, corporate or academic. We also do considerable work behind the scenes briefing journalists and politicians alike. Often however journalists want to show the 'human' side of the effect of cuts and for the sake of a good story wish to emphasis the bad news over the good. While we can brief journalists, we cannot force them what to write. Consequently, just because CILIP is not mentioned does not mean CILIP was not involved. I therefore have to dispute Tony's comment that CILIP is not mobilising the profession or providing an effective campaign of self-defence. However, while we are doing this, and encouraging CILIP members I do not think that it is unreasonable to also expect members to act themselves, as indeed many have - last weekend on Twitter there were countless messages which members were tweeting about their involvement in the day, and a great many blog posts as well. I wish Tony well in his retirement; I've always watched what he has done with interest during my own library career and have appreciated his insights. However, I would like to reinforce my central point in an effort to reassure him - CILIP is aware of the dangers to the profession and to all libraries and we are actively involved - more than ever before - in defending them at the highest levels. Finally, if he gets bored reading dreadful Victorian novels he could take a break from them by reading Annie Mauger's blog, and in particular this posting: http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/bossblog/archive/2011/01/25/savelibraries.aspx Phil Mark