Service Point 93.pdf - CILIP

I also met up with the librarians from East Riding, London and
Warwickshire. The East Riding staff had come across on a freighter from
Immingham with their mobile library.
The next day the conference started, Alan Moir, the Chief at East
Riding, was first speaker and gave a very well-received speech on the
cutting-edge performance of his library service
Also well received was another UK speaker, Philip Ware of Bexley.
All the papers can be found at
http://www.nordicmobile.no/index.php?c=2&kat=Programme
and also more pictures of the event.
Viewing the vans
The afternoon was spent looking round the vehicles and networking
with delegates from many different nationalities. As well as the East
Riding vehicle there were many splendid vehicles to see. Soria Moria,
a children’s vehicle from Norway, was a very colourful van and
deservedly won the livery prize. With an exuberant librarian who tells
ghost stories dressed as a ghost and does belly-dancing, this was a
popular van with delegates
There were two immense trailers from Finland and Denmark, one of
which had sections which open out to make the vehicle twice as wide.
It was more like the size of a classroom than a mobile library. There
were small vans to get in mountain areas and a splendid show of international
co-operation, a German van with Danish books and a Danish
van with German books both operated around the borders.
We had a van all the way from the Sami people in North Norway. This
van had actually travelled further than the East Riding van. This is also
an international van as the Sami people are to be found in both Norway
and Sweden. It was very personalised as the staff had made their own
diy improvements to the interior.
Prize winners
In the evening there was a party and the announcement of prize winners.
Much to the delight of our British contingent the East Riding
mobile library won first prize in two of the three categories. So it was a
happy bunch of mobile librarians that celebrated afterwards although
beer and wine at £6.50 per glass kept the drinking down. I bought a
drink for the Head of Nigerian Library Services who had come to IFLA
especially for the mobile library sessions, but as she earns less than a
tenth of a British librarian this was the equivalent of a £90 drink to her!
Congratulations to East Riding and thanks to all the other UK delegates
who made the long trip to Oslo.
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