New year, new Library?

All over the world people have been celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of another. Possibilities of new opportunities, chances and developments of current projects have been in the minds of many.

What will 2011 hold for Conductive Education and what will it hold for the knowledge and information needed to develop it?

It is nearly two years since the librarian's post at the Foundation for Conductive Education was made redundant and I left, but I am still regularly asked what is happening to the Library. I have to answer ' I don't know'. I also don't know if this question is put to those that should know, those who are in charge, and what they say, if asked.

All I hear is bits and pieces through the grapevine and this is what I have heard:

• there was an electrical fire last summer but stock was not damaged.
•  student volunteers have been recruited to help in the Library - doing what I have no idea
• there is no prospect of employing a library professional in the near future.
• the Library is no longer available all-year round

To me  this means that the library is no longer a 'living' library. Those responsible cannot possibly have the time or expertise to carry it forward, so to me it is now just a collection of material accumulated from the early 1980s to the  early years of the 21st century.

 Shame. This was a jewel in the Foundation's crown.

2011 seems a good time to announce that I have started to build my own library of material to use to answer enquiries that I receive. Hopefully this will be really useful to me and others in the future  if  passed on at a later date or 'joined up' with another library. So far, it consists of only a single bookshelf and a shoebox full of papers, press cuttings, etc and books, brochures and leaflets  I picked up in Hong Kong has given it quite a boost!

If people have anything that they no longer want then  I should love to have it. Photocopies or electornic copies of possibly useful materials would also be most welcome. These could be a book, document, centre brochure, conference programme, video, DVD, press cutting - anything. I would be happy to refund postage ( within certain limits of course!)

Just contact me to discuss arrangements.