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Culture Secretary highlights role at British-Irish Council summit

On the day the British-Irish Council summit had a focus around digital inclusion, and coinciding with Book Week Scotland, the Culture Secretary has highlighted the vital role played by Scottish libraries in the digital drive.

The 23rd BIC summit, hosted by the Isle of Man Government and the first e-summit, has spotlighted participants’ shared aim in raising digital participation levels, by supporting people to make the best use of the internet and digital technologies.

Scotland’s digital participation strategy - “A National Framework for Local Action” - was published in April and the Scottish Government is working with a number of partners to ensure its success.

Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said:

“The Scottish Government is committed to increasing digital participation and ensuring that all of Scotland is able to enjoy the social, cultural and economic benefits of the internet.

“Scotland’s libraries are playing a crucial part in raising the levels of digital participation all over the country.

“The learning opportunities which are being offered are varied to include everyone. Courses are available for cyber tots through cyber teens to silver surfers. These are proving very effective and popular.”

Ms Hyslop said:

“The wonderful scope of online participation has been perfectly illustrated during this, the third Book Week Scotland, by the highly creative and engaging web content from the Scottish Book Trust.”

Public libraries in Scotland provided 8.8 million hours of free internet access via library PCs in 2012/13, a 14 % increase over a five-year period.

The Scottish Government provides the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) with £500,000 annually to support improvements in public libraries.

This has included a Training in New Technologies (TNT) project to develop frontline staff skills. Implemented across 15 local authories/library services, and set for a national roll out in 2015, modules cover a range of mobile devices, dedicated social media and eResource (ebooks, emagazines and eReference) support.

In 2014-15, SLIC received an extra £300,000 to support the development of wi-fi projects across Scotland’s libraries.

Amina Shah, CEO of SLIC, said:

“Public libraries have always played an active role in opening up access to information and, over the years, their services have adapted to keep up with new technologies.

“With over 500 community based hubs all connected to the internet, Scottish libraries have a key role to play in supporting digital participation and ensuring equality of access.

“Helping people to get online has been a key part of what libraries do since computers first appeared in our branches back in 1999.

“Since then library staff have been working to ensure that no-one gets left behind by technology, whether by offering one-to-one support, or by delivering free learning sessions in local communities.”

Book Week Scotland (November 24-30), now in its third year, is delivered by the Scottish Book Trust and is supported in 2014 by £250,000 from Creative Scotland. SLIC is a key partner and funds the programme in libraries.

Book Week Scotland has always had accessible digital activity at its core. In 2012, a nationwide treasure hunt for intricate book sculptures by the mystery Edinburgh book sculptor, with online clues, generated 12,000 BWS website hits and made news sites worldwide including the New Yorker.

Last year’s ‘Who In Fiction Are You?’ Facebook personality quiz went viral, with the app reaching 1.3 million people in over 100 countries. It was recently shortlisted by Futurebook as one of the ‘Best uses of digital in a marketing campaign’.

This week’s partnership with The Guardian for Book Week Scotland’s Love Letters to Libraries campaign saw a special illustrated letter by Chris Riddell shared with The Guardian’s four million Facebook fans, and millions of Twitter followers.

Marc Lambert, Director of the Scottish Book Trust, said:

“Scottish Book Trust’s overall aim for Book Week Scotland was to celebrate the joy that books can bring. Our digital campaigns achieve that on a truly astonishing scale, encouraging people all over the world to engage with literature in a creative and, most importantly, fun way.”

Background

Participants at the British-Irish Council were: Isle of Man Government, Irish Government, UK Government, Northern Ireland Executive, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, Government of Jersey, Government of Guernsey.

The Scottish Government published its digital participation strategy, “A National Framework for Local Action” in April. The strategy sets out how a national movement for change based on collaborative working with public, private and third sector organisations can ensure that digital technology is not allowed to reinforce social and economic inequalities.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/04/6821

The Book Week Scotland programme is available at http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-scotland