Information Services for Migrants and Refugees

With presentations by Helen Carpenter (Paul Hamlyn Foundation), Diana Edmonds (Assistant Director Culture, Libraries and Learning, London Borough of Haringey) and Amanuel Gebrekidan (British Broadcasting Corporation, Future Media and Technology, Information and Archives)
Chaired by Stephanie Kenna (The British Library)
The afternoon starts with Helen Carpenter talking about the opportunities and challenges facing libraries in a multicultural environment. She will draw on her experiences of running the award-winning Welcome to Your Library Project, which encouraged librarians to reach out to refugees, and on what she learnt about multiculturalism in North America and Europe during her tenure of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust travelling scholarship in 2007.
Diana Edmonds follows with an examination of the practical aspects of designing and running library services. Since she took over in 2001, library performance in Haringey – one of the most ethnically diverse of London boroughs – has improved dramatically.
Finally Amanuel Gebrekidan, a journalist and qualified librarian and himself a refugee from Eritrea now living and working in UK, will speak on what sort of library services a migrant or refugee to UK wants and will use.
There will be ample time for discussion, questions and answers.