What a rubbish week. I don’t understand people. Here’s a photo of a wallaby joey in my mum’s backyard to fix the universe.

This is a very welcome development indeed IF the recurrent costs of funding school librarians is fully budgeted. ‘A pile of books is no more a library than a crowd of soldiers is an army’ to quote Gabriel Naudé who figured this out … 400 years ago… www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

No clue where I am but a’ chaora mhòr have been here before me 🐑

A’ dol dhachaigh / going home and what a day for it. For future reference there is time between bus & ferry for Cult coffee & Ullapool bookshop, bringing the holiday book count to 6 📚 #islandlife #hebrides #librarianlife #reader #booklover

Am bu chaomh leibh tachartas a chur air dòigh ann an 2025? Tha sgeama nan Tabhartasan Beaga a-nis fosgailte. Le taic o Bhòrd na Gàidhlig, gheibhear suas ri £500 gus tachartas a tha a’ comharrachadh na Gàidhlig a chur air dòigh. seachdainnagaidhlig.scot/seachdain-na...

Want to host an event in 2026? Our Small Grants are open now. Supported by Bòrd na Gàidhlig, our grants offer up to £500—to help you put on an event that celebrates the Gaelic language. We have two information sessions coming up at 7pm on Wed 8 Oct & Thurs 23 Oct—book a session here: buff.ly/vYQ9PA1

In Munich airport and the random woman sitting beside me is a former Leòdhasach. Because of course. #islandlife

Prague 🇨🇿

Taking a break from paint and plaster and statistical returns to squeeze the last few drops of August out of the year and remind myself that it wasn’t that long ago I was wishing and hoping for this life ❤️

🤐

Calling all the UK public library workers! 📚 Seeking participants for UCL MA Library and Information Studies research project #LibraryScience #Libraries #LibraryLife #LIS #LibraryTwitter #LibTech #UCL #EDI #Librarians #LibraryStaff #CulturalHeritage #PublicLibraries #Research

Page 31 and already enraged. Why is English (which spreads like the plague) so threatened by other languages?

As an immigrant to this country, it is *already the case* that you cannot access public funds (incl. disability benefits) at any point up to gaining indefinite leave to remain. For me, that was more than ten years of student & spouse visas, healthcare surcharges, a Life in the UK test, etc

Midnight & 9pm

So impressed with my wee team pulling this together for the summer. Next year we’ll get it out on time 🙈 but… nì clachan beaga tric carn mòr uaireigin issuu.com/leabharlainn... #libraries

Call for participation! Divergent Minds in the Archive is exploring how archives can be more accessible for neurodivergent people. Find out more and apply to take part in our workshop: www.scottisharchives.org.uk/latest/call-...

📚Can you help? There’s nothing our Librarian, Partnership and Governance Lisa enjoys more than receiving a long lost copy of AARL and we are down to the last missing volume... Do you have AARL Volume 23 Issue 3 1992 sitting on your shelves? If you do, we would love to hear from you.

One of those afternoons that reminds me why I love my job-visiting Stornoway care homes to meet staff & talk libraries ❤️ Impressed by how much staff care about their residents. We had some excellent chats about reading, local history, archives @MemoriesScot & Gaelic

All young people deserve better. So much for closing the attainment gap - getting rid of qualified librarians will serve only to widen it

Leughadh Didòmhnaich / Sunday reading

Hard to get your head around when budgets are being cut. I like this bit though “public sector reform (by) cutting “back office costs” to redirect money to the frontline” As long as our government remembers that libraries are part of the frontline. #libraries #publiclibraries #localgov #scotgov

As a librarian who has inherited archives that are not only not digitised but also uncatalogued, this is very real.

Here I am stuck in the CoOp with you

No-one's brain cells are getting out of this era alive

Liniclate

On my way to visit my libraries in Benbecula and Barra and say hi to my Uist Mobile Library driver who is just back from South Africa 🦒 #leabharlann #libraries #librarianlife #leabharlainnnaneileansiar #outerhebrides #westernisles #calmac

Madainn mhath à taobh siar na Hearadh

💯 because they developed a strategy and a strategic approach on a national/broad scale instead of the death by 1000 cuts we see in Scotland where we can’t even settle on what is meant by ‘adequate provision. Shameful #libraries #ScotGov #stopmakingexcuses #librarystrategy #localgov

Crofters and cottars and lairds, oh my! Co-organising this conference in July. Sign up to the mailing list for updates here ➡️ eepurl.com/i-Zqf2

Really excited for this post and looking forward to working with them as a key aim for my library service this year is collecting data on the use of Gaelic in libraries, and how vital we are to the support and promotion of language and culture 🙌

Oifigear Measaidh is Fiosrachaidh na Gàidhlig, Steòrnabhagh / Gaelic Evaluation & Information Officer, Stornoway, closing 9/6: myjobscotland.gov.uk/councils/com... #gaelic #gaelicjobs #stornoway #westernisles

Our library service is one of only 20 in the UK who received funding for the UK-wide #OurFreedom project commemorating 80 years since VE Day. It’s a privilege to bring Gàidhlig & Island voices to the table - quite literally - mo bhalaich Ghàidhealach còmhla rium 💕

Lucky to hear from South Lanarkshire Libraries again about their @SLIC1991 funded podcasting project. It’s absolutely fabulous & I’d love to see this in Western Isles Libraries #libraries #CILIPS

Something uncanny about sitting in a library conference in Scotland listening to someone speak about Australian Indigenous archives. Really interested to see if they connect with Gaelic eg institutions are facilitators, not owners #CILIPS #libraries #Gaelic

I work for Scottish Book Trust and we’re running a survey for parents/teachers/kids book enthusiasts about how they find books for kids. I’d be enormously grateful if anyone can spare 5-10 mins to share their thoughts. #KidLitUK forms.office.com/e/EdVhWA0T0n

Alison Nolan confronting the room with the public spend on libraries per head in Scotland vs the world: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 = 50p 🇮🇪 = €3 🇳🇴 = €29 Says it all really. Where do we go from here?

My first @cilipscotland.bsky.social conference in Dùn Dè this week & have learned it’s possible to tell librarians in the wild even in an entirely different country. Loving the newbie badge & match up card game👌 #libraries #librarians #CILIPS

Woke up in one of my favourite corners of Skye ❤️

Do other professions experience the same joy as librarians visiting a counterpart? Maybe farmers 😂 Behind the scenes in Inverness Library this morning. I could have stayed a week #librarian #librarylife #libraries #Gaelic #localhistory

The peach really pops with the furniture gone… Clearing decades of junk seems to always be on my librarian bingo card 😮‍💨 but this will be Stornoway Children’s Library by next summer so it’s worth it. @designconceptuk.bsky.social @lizmcgettigan.bsky.social #librarian #librarylife

OK folks, I'm opening up the Berneray Visitor Centre and museum tomorrow at 11.00am. Come tell your friends. See me in the flesh! The Coral Box gift shop will also be open at 10.30 by lovely @eilidhcarr.bsky.social Picture is this morning, 10am

Where office chairs come to die 🪦 #librarianlife

It’s not just a story about a loom but it’s a story about everything good we’re letting economic rationalism ruin. One student described the (new arts) training package as akin to “filling out a visa application over and over again”

Hope your week was better than mine 👍

Sunday reading. Have lost count of consecutive days of sunshine and I need a couple of little sheep to come eat the grass

Good. I hope their week has been a miserable as mine. I’m trying to complete a Strategic Plan that I don’t know I’ll be here to deliver. Concentrating is not possible. #migrant #movetoscotland

What a day ☀️ the utterly demoralising immigration news dropped on us this week almost fades for a moment. But in reality it has been a week of sleepless nights going through every scenario, trying to figure out whether I can afford to stay. #Migrantlife

Innse Gall indeed. This is the most kamikaze take I’ve seen from a politician in a long time. And Tromp exists.