"Sitting on a railway station, got a ticket for my desitination" - Paul Simon
Like so many dreams, this was another one, dreamt up on a rainy railway platform in 2005. But unlike most dreams this one chewed relentlessly on the challenges of attracting more young music loving people into libraries to consume their music there, rather than all of the usual and, in most cases, more attractive access points. Hmm, hardly the stuff of romantic verse, I will confess, but Get It Loud in Libraries © or GILIL for short, coveted its own idylls.
The aims of Get It Loud in Libraries, or GILIL for short, were simple: create a live experience to leave young people better disposed to library use in the future. Simple as that. Libraries are the original cultural powerhouses, right? Then why don't we showcase their potential more?
This was the baseline starting point: libraries can be better than this. We have the potential to change lives, infuse the spirit and be brilliant. If it's eminently doable, then why are we sat on our hands?
Engaging young people
GILIL can be raucous, it can most certainly be rock 'n' roll and it's mostly always fun, but is it for you? The answer for that will come from your attitude to music as a relevant cultural delivery resource, your position as a library open to engaging young people and teenagers, and your approach to developing new audiences and leaving your comfort zone behind. If you feel your library is a genuine champion and advocate of giving people what they want most in the place they visit least, then staging live music within your traditional library premises will be a richly rewarding, fun experience that not only shifts your library out of its comfort zone, but positions it perfectly to deliver music to the community in a format that is immediate, socially inclusive and reflects the cultural lifestyle choices of its young people.
In terms of offering a safe, easy access venue and platform for live culture, GILIL offers young people a route back into libraries that is naturally cool and identifiable but also one that entertains, allows a clear undertow of youth involvement and opportunity, and achieves positive publicity for libraries as a modern brand.
Putting gigs on in libraries is ultimately both very simple, and yet very involved. This toolkit aims to set out the steps that Lancashire County Library and Information Service have taken over the last four years to establish a project that has welcomed over 3,500 new library users through the doors since conception.
The trick is to love what you do and let your enthusiasm and will to connect communities and to culture create the building blocks for success. I hope the following outline of advice can support your own drive to make great things happen.
Let's be clear: Inviting a great band to come and play a gig in your library is challenging and hard work, but it is more than achievable; the results are worthwhile, exhilarating and fun; and the satisfaction at seeing a queue of new faces; excitable teenagers streaming into your library is beyond compare. It's an adrenaline rush unattainable stamping out books - but the ethic and principles-connecting the community to the best of contemporary culture - are just the same.
Stewart Parsons September 2009
Photo credit: Andy Werner