OCLC sponsors live chat session with author Louise Welsh at Edinburgh Festival of Libraries
From left to right: Joanne John, OCLC Application Services Consultant;
Louise Welsh, Author; Yvonne Kennedy, Librarian, Edinburgh City
Library; Ian Kirkby, Senior Library Officer, Edinburgh City Library
As part of a week-long Festival celebrating Edinburgh's libraries, Louise Welsh, well-known Scottish author, took part on 13 November in an online chat session. She answered questions from the public on both her published works and on her particular area of interest, Robert Louis Stevenson. The event helped to raise awareness of the online library reference service, Enquire, and the opportunity it affords the public at large to direct their questions to trusted custodians of knowledge through the medium of online chat.
The session was sponsored by OCLC and Enquire, the People's Network service provided by OCLC to support nationwide online library reference enquiries. Enquire is currently manned by staff from over 80 public libraries across the country, including Edinburgh Central Library.
Louise Welsh has published three novels to critical acclaim "The Cutting Room" (2002), Tamburlaine Must Die (2004) and The Bullet Trick (2006). She has also received a number of awards for her work including a Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award in 2003. Asked about her reaction to being involved in this event, Ms Welsh said: "I found the experience exhilarating and thoroughly enjoyed the chance to chat with people who didn't have an opportunity to attend the Festival of Libraries in person, but nevertheless had the desire to engage with a 'literary' event. I'll certainly be using this forum myself in the future to ask questions of librarians."
The session was hosted at Edinburgh Central Library, an active participant in the Enquire service. Ian Kirkby, Senior Library Officer for the library said: "We wanted to offer an event that fired the imagination and allowed those who could not attend any of the many events at fixed venues during the Festival of Libraries Week here in Edinburgh to still take part. Having done this exercise, we are convinced that we can use Enquire as a forum to enable further online 'conversations' between the public and the library and potentially with other local government offices."