I am really looking forward to the celebration of Warm Welcome Spaces today at St Paul's Cathedral and honoured to be doing a reading. A lovely occasion to thank everyone who has delivered warm spaces - including the thousands in libraries

Thank you to everyone who has donated to our appeal to buy a mobile library for Ukraine. Every little helps and I will be enormously grateful if you are able to donate or share the funding campaign through your networks crowdfunder.co.uk/p/mobile-libra…

To date over 600 public libraries and 2,000 school libraries have been damaged or destroyed by Russian troops in Ukraine. In partnership with Library Country Ukraine we are seeking to restore a small part of Ukrainian learning and culture. Simon Savidge youtube.com/watch?v=s8SIAz…

Inspiring keynote at #eblida24 by Rolf Hapel setting libraries in context in our rapidly changing society to find a vital and refreshed purpose for them

Here I am in beautiful Lisbon for the EBLIDA/NAPLE conference to hear about challenges and opportunities in developing the library workforce. Looking forward to meeting and learning from colleagues across Europe - especially the friends I have previously made online #EBLIDA2024

Congratulations Louis! I am looking forward to working with you in your new role as CEO for CILIP

Flowers from the garden 1 even though spring was nearly blown away today

A rainbow to end my weekend with some nice cycling between the rain, including the event Glorious Gravel on Salisbury Plain and a visit to William Morris’s house at Kelmscot

Thank you Cumbria Libraries for an inspiring visit to Carlisle and Workington Libraries. This is a library service firing on all cylinders and full of ambitious plans for the future. I look forward to visiting again in a year or so to admire all the developments!

This is the sound of a modern public library. Cumberland Libraries

Pleased to be quoted in ⁦The Guardian⁩ “Without a more secure financial settlement for local government, libraries will remain particularly vulnerable to cuts and closures.” theguardian.com/books/2024/mar…

One of the loveliest library experiences I’ve ever had. A lunchtime concert with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at Barrow Library. A packed house - swept away by the music of the sea Westmorland and Furness Council

Our Chief Executive Isobel Hunter MBE welcomes public #Library investment from round three of the Libraries Improvement Fund, but warns that without a long-term funding solution for libraries the sector will remain in crisis. The Bookseller thebookseller.com/news/forty-thr…

I’m in Kendal today with Ayub Khan MBE for a visit to libraries in Westmorland and Furness Council. Really looking forward to understanding more about delivery of libraries in this rural (and beautiful) county

“We do need to see much wider and longer-term investment in the library network” good to be quoted in The Bookseller - Forty-three library services benefit from £20.5m funding boost thebookseller.com/news/forty-thr…

Tabitha has been an amazing colleague and I have learned so much from her in her time at Libraries Connected. I’m sad to see her go, but looking forward to working with her in her new role as CEO of ASCEL

Good to see libraries listed in the essential work delivered by Oxfordshire County Council and great work by the libraries to lend over 3.3 million items last year

“Investing in libraries not only creates stronger, happier and healthier communities but is likely to reduce the demand on frontline care services.” My letter to ⁦The Times and The Sunday Times⁩ today

Many congratulations to our wonderful past President Carol Stump for her MBE. Carol steered us through the pandemic and did an incredible job to provide courage and certainty in such uncertain times Carol Stump MBE

Woman of the Day Ernestine Rose - not the suffragist, although she was named for her - born OTD 1880 in Bridgehampton, New York. She became branch librarian at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem in 1920 and championed an integrated staff and…