I was delighted to accept an invitation from Louis Coiffait-Gunn CEO of CILIP, on behalf of Alison Tarrant, Chief Executive of the UK School Library Association, to the UK parliamentary reception on Monday 21 October for Libraries Change Lives, convened by Laurence Turner MP.

The parliamentary reception was jointly hosted by eleven library sector organisations: CILIP; Libraries Connected; Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL); Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians (ASCEL); School Library Association (SLA); The Reading Agency; CILIP School Libraries Group (SLG); CILIP Youth Libraries Group (YLG); CILIP Information Literacy Group (ILG); CILIP Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG); and CILIP London. The event was sponsored by Bibliotheca.

The reception connected policymakers with library sector representatives and allies to showcase the power of libraries to create opportunities for everyone, and featured 3 of over 190 case studies that have been gathered so far in 2024 from across the UK, “demonstrating libraries’ hugely positive influence on their communities”.

I was particularly pleased to meet up in person with Mary-Rose Grieve of CILIP SLG and Alison Tarrant of the SLA, Co-Chairs between them of Great School Libraries, to discuss how great school libraries change lives through inquiry, specifically FOSIL-based inquiry and in its incarnation as Heroic Inquiry at Blanchelande College. I had much time on the way back to Guernsey to reflect on the transformational scope and reach of our definition of inquiry as “a stance of wonder and puzzlement that gives rise to a dynamic process of coming to know and understand the world and ourselves in it as the basis for responsible participation in community”.

I was also delighted to meet Sue Williamson, President of CILIP, who Elizabeth Hutchinson and I have been in discussion with about FOSIL-based inquiry – more to follow.