I was lucky enough to attend the recent annual ARLIS UK & Ireland conference in Liverpool. Liverpool is a city re-inventing itself as a hip and vibrant destination, probably due to its winning the crown of European Capital of Culture for 2008.

The keynote presenter, Sir Drummond Bone, one of the organisers, spoke on what was a five-year journey to realise this dream. As a first-time visitor, I was very impressed with the city. It felt like a place with an exciting future, arising from a somewhat historically suspect past i.e. its connections with the slave trade. On the pre-conference day, I went on a tour of the newly opened International Slavery Museum. A moving yet simple feature of the exhibition design placed a window onto the area below, scene for the docking and departure of the slave ships.

Organised visits were offered as part of the conference and I chose to visit the Punk Archive at the John Moores University. After a fascinating illustrated talk, we were shown items from the archive, which included tee shirts, badges and fan letters.

Amongst the many interesting and engaging speakers was Linda Newington who enthused us all on the knitting archive at the Winchester School of Art. Who would have thought that knitting patterns and knitted objects could tell us so much about the individuals who made them and the society at that time?

I intend to write a longer piece for the ARLIS/ANZ Journal and will include feedback on the visits I made to six art museum libraries in London, following the Liverpool experience, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Hi,

I'm off to the ARLIS conference in Liverpool shortly. May I ask members if anybody else from NZ/Australia is going?

Thanks,
Caroline