It's a wrap: the end is only the beginning!

In January we hosted a wrap event for the Digital Skills Sharing programme at the magnificent Canada Water Library in London.

The audience was welcomed by Nicky Morgan, Head of Libraries at Arts Council England who also talked about the Libraries Development Initiative, which funded the Digital Skills Sharing Programme. Bill Thompson, journalist and commentator, followed with an inspiring keynote speech on Digital Public Spaces. Later in the afternoon the audience enjoyed a lively panel discussion what might constitute a compelling reading experience in the library of the future - and how we might go about it.

The event marked the formal end to the programme, and provided an opportunity for the hard-working teams to showcase their projects and share their experience - the highs, the lows! - of the last nine months with an audience drawn from library, publishing and wider culture communities. We recorded the showcases and you can watch them by clicking the links below:

• Gloucestershire with Bloomsbury, Granta and Profile
• Halton and Lancashire with Raintree and Faber and Faber
• Leeds and Wakefield with Random House Group
• South Tyneside with Pan Macmillan, Headline and Canongate
• Nottinghamshire with Penguin and Hotkey Books
• Triborough London with Little Brown and Hodder

You can also catch up with a social media round-up of the event over on Epilogger.

Shortly after the wrap event, the Digital Skills Sharing project won an Edge 2013 Award Virtual/ Digital, which rewards good practice in innovative library and information projects. You can read more about it here, suffice too say that it is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the project teams, and to what can be achieved when we work together: the end is only the beginning!