South Eastern Education and Library Board library service’s Beyond Words arts and culture festival received national recognition at an awards ceremony in London’s famous Landmark Hotel last week. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Public Relations and Publicity awards celebrate the best examples of library promotional practice throughout the UK.

Beyond Words is a week long arts festival involving all SEELB libraries. This year’s festival featured some of the top names in the arts from Northern Ireland and further afield. Local cultural heavyweights like Roma Tomelty, Eoin McNamee, Damian Gorman, Sam McAughtry and Sinead Morrissey were joined by big names from across the water; Liverpool rap poet Levi Tafari and top children’s author Jenny Nimmo entertained audiences in several libraries. Art exhibitions, musicians, illustrators, cartoonists and authors completed a varied programme of events that drew a total audience of nearly 1500 people. Damian Gorman was the festival’s writer in residence. His contribution was sponsored by the library service’s festival partners, Down District Council Arts Service.

The festival received a Commendation in the Promotional Campaign category, with the judges complimenting Beyond Words for marketing the library as a cultural centre. The judging panel were also impressed with the way all library staff were encouraged to get involved in the organisation of the event.

Chief Librarian Beth Porter was delighted with the award:

The award is recognition for all the staff who worked so hard to make sure the festival was a success. Their enthusiasm and commitment came through to the audiences. We received lots of very positive and warm comments from the public. What pleased us most was the number of people who were attending an arts event for the first time

Derek Flack, the library service’s marketing manager, who attended the awards ceremony along with designers Jane Brown and Deirdre Hunter, was interested to see how SEELB compared with other UK library authorities:

It was brilliant to see what other libraries were doing by way of publicity. We were more than pleased to receive this accolade – we compared very well with other authorities, most of whom had far greater resources at their disposal. Libraries generally have come a long way from felt-tips and stencils. There’s still a lot of work to do raising our profile and the award will spur us on to even more creative ventures in 2004

Look out for next year’s Beyond Words  festival – dates for your diary Thursday 13 May to Thursday 20 May 2004.