Like most readers my library service has no training or CPD budget so I was very pleased to be awarded the bursary from NHS England to attend HLG 2024. It provided me with the opportunity to deliver an oral and poster presentation on the Leeds Libraries for Health partnership, outlining some of the many benefits that collaborating across organisational boundaries has brought to our services in Leeds. It also gave me the invaluable opportunity of learning about the work of other health library and knowledge specialists, provided a chance to network, and of course explore Regents Park and the venerable interior of the Royal College of Physicians.

I admit to some anxiety when I realised I had been placed on the agenda directly after my former boss Sue Lacey Bryant. To add to my worries my presentation featured an in-built audio-visual recording providing further opportunities for malfunctions and technological mishaps – but fortunately all went well and the delivery went without incident.
There were so many interesting and enjoyable presentations during the conference, and I was able to resurrect my long-neglected “X” account (@dpfgilroy, #HLG2024) to provide a little commentary and thought on some of the content. Two particular highlights for me were Gavin Moore and Suzanne Toft’s account of the West Midlands Evidence Repository, and Dr Paul Cannon’s workshop detailing the development of an online escape room to share knowledge about Systematic Reviews.

Gavin and Suzanne’s talk was of particular interest because I am part of a working group looking to establish an organisational repository at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, so it was great to hear about their experiences of working in this area and then to follow up later with more probing questions and specifics.
Paul’s escape room workshop was great as it offered participants a chance to experience the escape room first hand and to participate in the experience. A major advantage of Paul’s approach was that it used OneNote, rather than any more sophisticated and costly technology, to design and deliver the escape room experience. As such it is something that can be replicated relatively easily by NHS libraries who may, like myself, have zero budget to assign to such a project.

So where does the bear hunt, parakeets, and cockapoos come in? Our unexpected guest speaker on the morning of day 2 was author Michael Rosen who gave a moving, funny, and thought-provoking account of his admission to intensive care due to a COVID infection, his subsequent medically induced coma, and long recovery. As someone who had only read his children’s books to my daughter, his talk made me realise he has published other books worthy of attention too.

Our evening meal – homemade pizzas washed down with seemingly limitless supplied of wine served by roving butlers and serving wenches – provided an enjoyable social opportunity, enhanced by parakeets flying overhead in the garden. I was told later that these are wild parakeets common throughout London and that they are spreading north – hurrah!
Finally while walking through Regent’s Park to and from the Conference each day I was struck by the number of canines present in the grounds. As an ignorant northerner I had assumed most Londoners, living in 3 feet square apartments, would have no room for such animals. Most however were smaller beasts and cockapoos were in particular abundance, reminding me of my own dog “Sirius Black” and triggering a small element of home-sickness. Here is the “little fella” to counterbalance all the pictures of cats that my fellow librarians seem to prefer.

Dom Gilroy – The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust