Libby Church is now in France…

Bibliotheque national du France

I’m now blogging from Paris, darlings. I caught the red eye out from London. Always wanted to say that!! I feel so worldly – Paris is everything I thought it would be and more. The people are elegant and refined, the food is spectacular, and the history and culture surrounding me everywhere is just mind-boggling. I saw the Eiffel tower from the taxi on my way in to the Conference this morning…

The library Conference is being held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and is about “Libraries now and into the future”. Check out this picture of the interior of the library. Amazing! It’s really inspiring for me to understand libraries in the international context, and I’ll be able to apply what I learn here to this years LIANZA Conference. The theme of that Conference is He Tangata, he tangata, he tangata (The People, the people, the people).

I’m particularly interested in sucession planning for the library profession, as in NZ in general the proportion of mature to junior younger librarians is quite high. What happens when the baby boomers start retiring? I see in the LIANZA Conference programme there’s a paper on the University of Wollongong Library Professional Cadets, I must make a note to catch that and see what they’re doing about this challenge.

Anyway, back to France, after this Conference finishes up I’ll be meeting my Aunt Sarah and Uncle John in Lyon, where they live. Can’t believe I’m getting paid to have a free trip to France to see my relatives! Of course I’ll have to get myself to Lyon, but getting to France was the hard bit! I’m so glad I bit the bullet and applied for this grant – my life will never be the same, it will always be coloured by the experiences I’ve had here. I am officially a fully-fledged bonafide Conference junkie!!