Presidential Column: 3

President's Perspective
This is a strange Presidential column to write because this issue is reaching not only fellow members of the Institute but several thousand IFLA delegates who will find it stuffed in their conference pack and no doubt use it as a riveting antidote to jetlag. It’s a bit like being promoted from the Sunday Post to the New York Times. I’m writing this column with a couple of weeks to go and the excitement is mounting. By the time you read this, IFLA will have finally arrived, five years after the bid to hold the conference was accepted. At least for a week Glasgow is the centre of the library universe, with record breaking numbers of conference delegates– at least for Europe – confounding the prophets of doom. The pace has been quickening for the last month or so for my bit of IFLA. For the last fifteen years I’ve made friends and received hospitality, faithfully attending every conference from Tokyo to Boston. This year it’s a pleasure to offer a little in return. The questions have flowed in from colleagues in over a dozen countries seeking advice on hotels, restaurants, the best whisky to buy, room hire, kilt hire, the need for raincoats, presents for IFLA’s 75th birthday, where to hire a pub to drink in (sic - ok so I have some funny friends), where to visit in Scotland after the conference, how to reclaim VAT and many more. And remember the party line is that the Loch Ness monster does exist and yes we all go commando when wearing the kilt.