Foreword

I've been inspired recently, having been exposed to speakers at the Creative Cities Southern Hui held in Dunedin, and in Wellington at the National Digital Forum, and also the Kotui Managers' Meeting which involved managers from 33 public libraries around New Zealand.

These gatherings demonstrated enormous levels of commitment, collaboration, passion and enthusiasm for the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). Clare Curran, our local member of parliament for South Dunedin and now Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, was in attendance at the Digital Forum and spoke with passion about the importance of the creative and cultural sector and the need to fund it appropriately. She particularly mentioned the Aotearoa People's Network, so vital to community engagement and citizen's rights to information.

Anna Maria Lorusso from the Bologna City of Music spoke about creativity and how it grows on memory, spreads through relationships, is serendipitous and becomes culture if it builds a future with a durable development, such as Dunedin's UNESCO City of Literature status, the South Dunedin Community Pop-up, the Robert Burns Poetry Competition, and 'Muse', which is an exhibition of artworks mounted by library staff and inspired by the Dunedin Public Libraries collections.

Dunedin Public Libraries is a pillar in Dunedin's creative culture, building on physical and digital collections, preserving documentary heritage, engaging technologies, reaching out to deliver experiences which can spark a thought, drive a dream, and ensure we are all connected to the social and creative fabric of society.