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news the periodical

Endings and Beginnings

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Last Autumn, after 3 years and much fun selecting and sending out fine publications made and shared on bookleteer, I decided to end the Periodical’s monthly service. There were a number of reasons – some practical and financial – but I felt that as a project it had achieved as much as it could in its existing form. At its height there were over 80 subscribers across the world. Something like 60 different books were distributed during the 3 years, and there will be a few more that will be sent out to the last subscribers later this year as part of the LibraryPress Legacy project.

Since many subscribers were keen for the project to continue I will be considering options – the most likely being a once yearly round-up. If you’re interested in subscribing to this, please leave a comment on this post to let me know.

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My work with anthropologist James Leach and the villagers of Reite in Papua New Guinea has defined much of my recent work with bookleteer and is shaping the trajectory of development in which it is heading. You can read about our fieldwork in PNG, about the TKRN project and the TKRN Toolkit or explore the lovely handmade books created by the community on the dedicated website I created for them. We are returning to Reite in April and May this year to do further work, and to expand the project into some neighbouring villages. We have also been invited to develop a parallel project with indigenous fieldworkers in the neighbouring island nation of Vanuatu. Later in 2016 we hope to facilitate some of the villagers from Reite to transfer their skills and knowledge of using the TKRN Toolkit to local people in Vanuatu.


This past year I have also been helping (in a small way) Grace Tillyard to develop her amazing Breast Cancer awareness and engagement programme for women in Haiti. The project is hosted by Project Medishare‘s Womens Health Centre in Port-au-Prince and recently received $60,000 in funding. Grace is currently co-developing with local people a new kind of Patient Notebook using bookleteer to help communicate more about the condition and the medical treatments available, as well as to allow people to record their own medical information in a dedicated book of their own. We hope to have a prototype ready this Spring for testing by the community.

LibraryPress Legacy
I have also been collaborating with Peter Baxter of Camden’s Library Service to extend and continue the work of introducing self-publishing using bookleteer into London’s libraries that was initiated in 2014 and 2015 through the LibraryPress project. Last week we held a professional development workshop for Librarians from Camden, Hackney, Brent, Hounslow and Harrow. Over the next few months the aim is for these librarians to use bookleteer to create publications with library users as part of the many events to promote reading and literacy that take place. We shall be selecting some of these to be printed and distributed as part of a special issue of the Periodical.

Lastly, I wish to share a stunning new book, Northern Musings, created by the Canadian artist and printmaker, Joyce Majiski:

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events

LibraryPress Launch Event

Last night we took part in the launch of the LibraryPress project in Soho’s Society Club, celebrating this year’s programme of workshops across the seven partner services (Brent, Camden, Harrow, Hounslow, Islington, Lewisham and Merton).

The books which have been produced and distributed (via the Periodical) as part of the Pop Up Publishing workshops and Masterclass which Proboscis led for LibraryPress in 2014 were on display and we’re looking forward to making more in the coming months.
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events news

Bookleteer Masterclass for Librarypress


Yesterday I ran a Bookleteer Masterclass for Library professionals from the boroughs of Lewisham, Brent, Hounslow, Camden, Islington, Merton and Harrow at the Deptford Lounge. The event was part of our collaboration with the Librarypress project and was designed to introduce library staff to bookleteer and how they might use it in their own projects and activities with library users and local groups. We had a fantastic turnout with very inquisitive and engaged participants – it was wonderful to see them all getting straight down to making books and StoryCubes with text and images they had brought along with them specifically for the day. We will be selecting a series of books made by the participants for the Periodical over the coming months, as inspiring examples of what can be done with bookleteer to engage readers and local groups with library projects and services.

I’d like to encourage other library authorities who are also interested in using bookleteer as part of their services to get in touch : we are more than happy to offer workshops and provide consultancy on how bookleteer can used by the public and integrated within existing projects and services.

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events news pitch up & publish

Islington & Wembley Pop Up Publishing Workshops

More workshops are being held next week in Islington & Wembley Libraries as part of the Librarypress project. Below is the presentation I’ll be using to illustrate my talk on bookleteer to participants and explore the kinds of things they can do with it.

Pop Up Publishing with bookleteer from Giles Lane
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events news pitch up & publish

Pop Up Publishing with Librarypress


This month I am running 6 pop up publishing sessions across three libraries in London : Hounslow Library; Islington Central Library (First Steps Learning Centre) and Wembley Library. All the sessions are free and last for about 3 hours in the evening. The sessions are part of the Librarypress project which aims to get more people publishing.

The aim is to introduce bookleteer.com as a simple way to create and share publications that can be both physical (paper) and digital (readable online). Everyone is welcome, no technical/computer experience required or previous publishing experience. Bring stories, pictures, ideas and we’ll help you turn them into simple publications you can make and share.

We are hoping that some gems will emerge over the sessions – we have arranged with Librarypress to select up to 12 books by participants for inclusion in the Periodical, to be printed professionally and posted out to subscribers.

The sessions are :

    Hounslow Library : Tuesday 6th & Thursday 8th May 5-8pm
    Islington Central Library : Monday 19th & Thursday 22nd May 4.30-7.45pm
    Wembley Library : Tuesday 20th & Friday 23rd May 5-7.45pm

To book a place at one of these sessions, email Librarypress : news@librarypress.org.uk