A fantastic first day at CILIP Conference in Liverpool, starting with an inspirational keynote from Sayf Al Ashqar who rebuilt the Central Library at the University of Mosul after it was destroyed by ISIS. His comment that “the soul returned to the Library when the students came back”. He is now working to rebuild school libraries in Iraq.

Rebuilding and renewal is a theme running through Conference as we return to ‘normal’ after the pandemic.

Sessions throughout the day focused on EDI, Health Literacy, Intellectual Freedon and Censoship an Decolonising the Curriculum.

The final keynote from Krystal Vittles was indpirational. She set out that as librarians we have a profession, we are professionals, and we show professionalism in what we do.

It was great to meet so many people from CILIP HQ and school librarians including our rep Charlotte and our bursary winner Hannah. It was great to meet face to face and be surrounded by librarians from all sectors. We finished off with a fantastic evening reception at the Museum of Liverpool.

Day 1 over – and looking forward to Day 2. You can follow us @CILIPSLG #CILIPConf22.