After doing my (short) stint on stage as a bit-part in our Roadmap presentation, I thought I’d try and get into the hottest, hippest, coolest, wickedest, sickest (that means good now, apparently) session of the conference. A conversation with the Future, a panel session with a few voices you should know from Ian Corns’ young librarians series on Talking with Talis.

Chaired by Frances Hendrix, a woman with no small reputation, the session was a great chance for this group, all of whom have great future’s ahead of them.

In an echo of some of Euan’s thoughts there was a lot of passion for bringing libraries together with Facebook, libraries together with MySpace and libraries together with the web as it is today. What stops them doing that now? Empowerment, permission and time are big factors; with a unanimous message that the committees, debates and reports are just taking too long and that what they want is to just get on and do it!

The panel, Michael Stead, Bolton Central Library; Subnum Hariff, Bolton Central Library; Cheney Gardner, MLA; Claire Styles, Freelance Libraries Consultant and Anna Simmons, Luton Libraries were well-informed, energetic and looking forward to a brighter future for libraries - a future they plan to create.

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