Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Information Awareness Month Opening Night 2008

As the ALIAActive Convener I was invited to attend the opening night of 2008 Information Awareness Month (IAM) at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). Ross Gibbs the National Archivist opened the month for IAM. I felt privileged to be there as I had only participated in the committee that organised IAM in a very desultory way. The overall opening night was illuminating because of the diverse range of information management groups attending such as ALIA, AGLIN, the Records Management Association of Australasia (RMAA), the Institute of Information Management (IIM), the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) and actKM.

Each convener was called upon to give a brief summary of what their group is about, how it helps and promotes information professionals and what they were offering as their contributions to IAM. All such group events were listed on the IAM calender. I was interested to see the wide range of seminars and workshops offered such as the AGLIN/ALIA Information Sharing Forum on the Learning Commons presented by Shirley Oakley the University Librarian of Charles Stuart University and the actKM world cafe event.

We were pleased to learn that the NAA has become housed as one of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) portfolio agencies, a better placement for its government recordkeeping focus and heritage function along with other public accountability agencies such as the National Audit Office. Treasury and the like. The opening session was followed by supper and a change to network with others interested in promoting information management. I wish to thank the NAA and in particular Mathew Eggins for all his efforts in organising opening night.

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