Annual conference held at Marriot Hotel City Centre, Liverpool

Local public services are going through a massive period of transformation in order to better serve communities, people and places. With Libraries in closer proximity to local populations than most core services, they are well placed to enable local services to deliver their corporate priorities and bring tangible benefits to the quality of life and outcomes for communities. This national conference brought together an audience of senior decision makers from local authorities, the libraries sector and stakeholders. The event looked at progress and forthcoming opportunities stemming from DCLG's commitment to embed culture in their policies on sustainable communities. Roy Clare CBE, Chief Executive of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, ruffled a few feathers by questioning whether the right people had been invited to the conference. Listen to him ask how many delegates are involved in regeneration and his reaction when only three respond in the affirmative: “everybody else in the room has failed”, he said. “What is a public library if it is not a key tool of regeneration?”