A valuable, early morning session with colleagues, arranged by Sue Hill Recruitment in Borough Market’s Roast restaurant. Sue regularly arranges breakfast meetings and lunchtime sessions in support of her chosen charity Clic Sargent Cancer Care for Children.

I joined Sue and 9 other colleagues to discuss current factors exerting their influence on information management – we considered the role of CILIP in the light of other groups such as: BIALL, SLA, SCONUL, SCIP, National Council of Archives and RMS. Questions along the lines of: “who joins CILIP, and what do they gain?” drew inconclusive answers, as did the question of “what should CILIP’s manifesto for the next election contain?” Perhaps too early in the day to come up with answers but certainly the questions are good ones.

“What has the biggest impact on your work right now?” elicited an easier flow of conversation – the list below outlines the issues we toyed with:

– who manages the information team ? accountants?
– doing more with less
– coping with the recession
– realism
– communication
– enthusiasm
– diversification
– people still like printed copy
– quiet spaces for school children to do their homework away from tvs
– does anybody read these days?
– if you don’t read will you ever be able to write ?
– does Amazon only want to sell best sellers? (what about the long-tail – selling idiosyncratic items to single buyers … )
– Google book deal (or not ..)
– bringing folks out of retirement because no body fills the posts ..

Again – more questions than clear answers.

And finally, “what would you do if you were not in your current job?”

– just the same thing
– teaching
– law
– police work
– voluntary work

– ballet dancer … (me).

Meanwhile: if you are a foodie try Borough Market – and if you are a foodie looking for a restaurant try Roast.