Since 2012 the British Library has run a mentoring scheme, connecting mentors and mentees from across the Library’s St Pancras (London) and Boston Spa (Yorkshire) sites. 

However, with the formation of the Living Knowledge Network in September 2016, the possibilities for mentoring within the British Library have expanded. Through the Network, which sees the British Library partnering with 21 public library partners around the UK as well as the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, the benefits of mentoring can be further shared and evolved through and with other libraries. 

Mentoring, as a process, aims to be a way for one person (the mentor) to actively encourage the development of another person (the mentee) for the benefit of both individuals and the organisation.

Mentoring relationships can be formed across any Network partners. We hope to evolve this scheme as just one element of the Living knowledge Network. As a Network we aim to work together to share resources, skills and ideas, promoting the enduring values of libraries in the twenty-first century and reinforcing the idea of the library as an accessible public asset with the power to transform people’s lives. Mentoring is just one way we hope to achieve this.

Andy Wright, Libraries Manager, Wakefield Council (Living Knowledge Network mentor) said:

“I’ve been involved with mentoring schemes for a number of years as both a mentor and a mentee, and I’m a big advocate.

“As a mentor you have a responsibility first and foremost to do what you can to ensure that the mentee benefits from the relationship, but I also value mentoring very much as a learning experience for myself. It’s amazing how something as simple as “just talking and listening”, because that’s all that it is really (albeit within an agreed framework), can be so beneficial to both parties.

“I think that the Living Knowledge Network mentoring scheme is particularly useful because it’s given me the opportunity to mentor someone from a different organisation, so as a natural part of the process I’ve learned about that organisation, what it does, how it ticks, and how that knowledge can help me professionally.

“I hope that the person I’m mentoring has gained something from my experience and also that I’ve brought a fresh perspective to issues that she has looked at previously. I see mentoring a bit like shining a torch in an already lit room – I believe that if the mentee allows the torch to shine, they can see things that, although already clearly visible, seen under a different light, gain a new clarity. That’s the value of mentoring for me.”

Carol Stump, Chief Librarian Kirklees Council, Chair of Society of Chief Librarians Yorks and Humber region (Living Knowledge Network mentor) said:

“I thought the half-day session for mentors and mentees was really useful and as a mentor it reminded me of the skills needed to be a mentor. The half-day session gave some good hints and tips and some useful templates to use on the mentoring journey.

“Being a qualified coach for my local authority it was good to explore the differences in coaching and mentoring and to think about what a mentor and a mentee role is about.

“I am keen on workforce development and think this scheme will be a good way of sharing knowledge and skills both for local authority staff and for British Library staff. I have just started mentoring and am already finding it extremely rewarding and interesting.

“Mentoring is a fairly long term commitment, anything from six months to a year but does give good opportunities for personal development and can give an alternative point of view for the mentee outside of the mentees organisation.”

Emma Cass, Copyright and Licensing Manager Publisher Relations, IP & Licensing, British Library Boston Spa (Living Knowledge Network mentee) said:

“The British Library organised a day’s training for mentors and mentees who’d signed up to the scheme. This was an opportunity to meet potential mentors as well as find out exactly what mentoring involved. The training session was really useful and I actually think it’s crucial to do some training in order to ensure that you have the right expectation of the mentoring process, so that both you and the mentor get something out of it. We learnt the difference between mentoring, counselling and coaching. One of the crucial elements is to have a specific goal, so help with a particular aspect of your career rather than a vague or incredibly wide aim. My goal was to work out how I can direct my career as I have been in the same role for a good many years.”

Staff from the British Library and Living Knowledge Network partners can find out more about the scheme by contacting mailto:[email protected]

The next training day will take place in London on 15 September.

Ella Snell

Living Knowledge Network Manager

 

On Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 May we had a taste of ‘the greatest literature show on Earth’ as the legendary Jaipur Literature Festival came to the British Library at St Pancras.

Founded in 2006 Jaipur Literature Festival sees authors from South Asia and across the world come together for five days of readings, debates and discussions in Jaipur, India. May 2017 was the fourth London edition of the festival, and we were thrilled to be hosting it as part of the events marking the seventieth anniversary of Indian independence and the UK-India Year of Culture.

ZeeJLF @ BL was a fantastically rich and vibrant takeover of the Library, with spoken word, music, performance and debate spread across the Knowledge Centre, a temporary marquee on the piazza, and a specially erected stage in the Entrance Hall.

Nayanika Mahtani in Meet the Mongols, ZEE JLF@British Library. Photo: Stuart Armitt.

Hailed by the Indian Express as a ‘sellout success’, the festival saw crowds flocking to the Library, including many first-time visitors, from Saturday morning till late on Sunday, enjoying everything from a panel on P G Wodehouse in India, to an extraordinary collaboration between White Mughals author William Dalrymple and musician Vidya Shah.

One of the Library’s core Purposes is our commitment to international collaboration: we promise to 'work with partners around the world to advance knowledge and mutual understanding', and this reflects the fact that while we may be the British Library, our collections are truly international. The Library's culture and learning programming is always layered with distinct elements reflecting our collections and expertise from all parts of the world, and our recently opened exhibitions about the Russian Revolution at our London base, and an exhibition about icons of British literature in Beijing, are testament to this.    

Gramophone Women: Vidya Shah with Rachel Dwyer at ZEE JLF at British Library. Photo: Stuart Armitt.

Special sessions highlighted the richness of our collections and curatorial knowledge base, and featured several curators working with collections from and relating to South Asia, including a session highlighting ten treasures from our South Asian collections.

On Saturday evening, British Library Chairman Tessa Blackstone welcomed VIP guests, including the High Commissioner of India to the UK, His Excellency Mr Y K Sinha. Celebrations continued at the High Commissioner’s residence on Sunday night once the festival had ended.

The singular JLF atmosphere – colours, crowds streaming across the Library piazza in the sun (another, unexpected, import from Jaipur), the sounds of the musicians who start each day with a gloriously uplifting Reveille – did not so much transform as amplify those very special British Library spaces.

Giles Milton, John Keay, Jon Wilson and Zareer Masani in conversation (with William Dalrymple) on the history of the East India Company. Photo: Stuart Armitt.

What made JLF's new residency at the BL so congruent was the connections each panellist or speaker could draw to the exceptional Library collections that relate to India and the wider region. Whether poet Daljit Nagra explaining his version of the Ramayana, author Shrabani Basu in conversation with director Stephen Frears about the research for her book Victoria and Abdul (released as a film this autumn), or a session on the East India Company, participants made explicit links to – and grateful acknowledgment of – the resources and curatorial interpretation of the Library

The feat of organisational and imaginative energy needed to host a Festival of this scale was tremendous, and drew on huge contributions from across the Library, led by Head of Cultural Events Jon Fawcett and his team.

Building on the success of the festival in London, and on our presence in Jaipur earlier this year with a facsimile of Magna Carta, we hope to collaborate more in the future.

Jamie Andrews

Head of Culture and Learning