Peninsula of Sanctuary: Libraries in Cornwall and Devon working together
The Peninsula of Sanctuary Libraries project is celebrating a successful year of activity funded by South West Regional Library Service and supported by CILIP-SW. The project was led by a group of library professionals from across Cornwall and Devon inspired by the national Libraries of Sanctuary movement.
“Libraries of Sanctuary is a network of librarians, library staff, community groups and book lovers who are raising awareness of the issues facing people in the asylum system, offering support and participation opportunities, and contributing to a culture of welcome in the wider community.” https://libraries.cityofsanctuary.org/
Kay Ecclestone, then Chair of CILIP-SW and current Vice Chair, was part of the project group from inception, co-leading with SWRLS on the communication workstream and leading on evaluation for the report which was published at the end of last year. CILIP-SW supported the project by hosting the online training events. This project empowered library staff in Devon & Cornwall to improve the welcome for people seeking sanctuary, and other new arrivals, by raising awareness and building confidence through training, an online forum and a shared resource bank. The training was provided by John Vincent of the Network.
The forum and resource bank are an ongoing legacy of this project and are now open to all library staff in the South West. This includes regular news, a bank of community information, recordings of training events, a training kit that libraries can use with their own teams and information about where to source books in foreign languages. It is also a safe space where libraries from all sectors can ask questions, share information, news and successes.
With thanks to SWRLS for providing financial support, to Jane Choules our Project Co-ordinator for keeping us on track, to the volunteers on the steering group, to John Vincent of The Network for providing training, and to everyone who engaged in the activities of the project in whatever way.
This is a SWRLS funded project, supported by partners in different sector libraries across Devon and Cornwall (including CILIP-SW), that aims to provide access to free training, a shared resource bank and an online safe place to share information and ideas to make our libraries more welcoming and accessible to new arrivals.
What we have been involved with, to date.
Free Training – including the pilot, there have been 3 training sessions delivered online by John Vincent. In total 42 library colleagues from across Devon and Cornwall have attended these online sessions. Public, HE, FE, health and special libraries have all been represented.
From the feedback received across the three courses, 92% found the training mostly or very useful, whilst 88% felt confident supporting new arrivals after the training compared to 55% before the training. Feedback has been extremely positive with attendees suggesting further training would be useful to hear about and develop more practical ideas to take back to their libraries.
Consequently, the next training session will be a hybrid session hosted at Plymouth Marjon University
Working with New Arrivals, Theory into Practice: A Workshop for Libraries in Devon and Cornwall, Wednesday 13th September 2023,
Join us in person at Plymouth Marjon University OR join us online for the hybrid sessions, for the last in the series of free training funded by the Peninsula of Sanctuary: Libraries project, open to colleagues working in any library across Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth or Torbay.
The workshop will focus on developing achievable, practical ideas to apply in your own libraries, building on the successful online training we ran in the spring. Whether or not you attended one of our previous sessions, this workshop is for you if you are keen to develop your work with new arrivals – be they people seeking sanctuary or others such as international students – and to learn from best practice elsewhere.
To attend in person book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/681515881347 This session will run from 10:00-14:30. Lunch and refreshments are included, and travel bursaries are available.
If you are unable to travel to Plymouth you can still attend the sessions we are offering hybrid (10:00-11:00 and 12:00-13:00) by registering as an online attendee: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/681559190887
The funded element of the project runs until end of October 2023, so this is the last chance to make the most of the excellent free training offer that has been put together as part of the project.
As well as delivering training we have developed the Forum, an online community of library staff from across Devon and Cornwall.
The Forum – a safe, welcoming online platform for discussion and the sharing of ideas is open to anyone working at any level in any library across the Peninsula. This is continuing to grow but in June 2023, there were 19 staff based in Public Libraries, 14 in HE libraries, 2 in FE libraries, 3 in Special Libraries and 2 in Health Libraries. The majority of public library staff are based in Devon or Torbay libraries, and we’d welcome more participants from Cornwall and Plymouth. We’re also aware that, to date, we have no school library participants. Please spread the word and help us grow this to cover all sectors and areas. The intention is for The Forum to continue to grow beyond this initial stage of the project.
The resource bank – consists of local and national information to support working with new arrivals in libraries, ranging from details of specialist stock suppliers, to how to source detailed local population data, to information on becoming a Library of Sanctuary, amongst other things. The resource bank also houses recordings of useful training and webinars run by us and others.
Good practice drop-in sessions: Short, informal online sessions have been organised with individuals already involved in work with refugees, asylum seekers and new arrivals. The intention is to support the development of practical ideas, share information from work already taking place and facilitate networking and collaborative working in an informal way. These are conversational, drop-in sessions for Forum members and are recorded if you haven’t got time to attend. Please contact Jane if you would like to share what you are doing in your library or information service.
The Forum is hosted on the SWRLS Basecamp and is free and simple to join. Drop us a line with your name and job title at peninsulaofsanctuary@gmail.com and you will receive a link to join.
CILIP South West Member Network 