This workshop is available to all library staff including librarians, assistants and volunteers, archivists and other information professionals who work in public, academic or specialist libraries.

Libraries are a key resource for everyone: a repository of ideas, creativity, and diverse and challenging voices. They are also vital to their community, offering training and shared spaces in which users can learn, express themselves, and explore the world.

As part of Scottish PEN’s campaign to protect free expression in the digital age, we are excited to announce a workshop that will help libraries support users in strengthening their online privacy. This workshop has been developed in partnership with the Library Freedom Project, and is supported by CILIPS.

The aims of the workshop are to:

• Identify and discuss the challenges faced by libraries in Scotland when confronted with both government and corporate surveillance, especially in light of the Investigatory Powers Bill that can be used to target libraries.
• Demonstrate technology tools that can help thwart surveillance from the intelligence agencies’ dragnet and the massive data collection done by corporate entities. These tools can be installed on public computers or taught to patrons in computer classes, and provide practical ways for everyday people to prevent search tracking, browse the web anonymously, and encrypt some of their online communications. This workshop is available to people at all levels of technical ability and will focus on a solutions based approach to enable you to roll out the training to the users of your libraries.

Because of the limited number of spaces available, we would ask that each participating library send a maximum of 2 delegates to participate in the workshop. This will ensure that we are able to offer this training to as many libraries as possible.

Please bring a laptop so you can take full advantage of the hands-on training provided.