Monday, July 15, 2013

Winter Dinner July 2013

The Winter dinner was held on  4 July 2013 at the Scholar Restaurant in Dickson. For a winter night we had a good turnout of 25. This dinner gathers librarians across all industry sectors and ALIA groups in the ACT region and judging by the buzz of chatter, all enjoyed catching up with colleagues and friends. For many of us it is the only opportunity to see others from beyond our usual field of work. The food was  delicious too.  


Three awards were presented on the night.

The ACTive  ALIA award for sustained contribution was presented to Gaik Khong for her many years of dedicated volunteering for ALIA and the library profession. Gaik is a quiet achiever who has contributed to ALIA both locally and nationally. Gaik has been the ACTive ALIA treasurer for over five years and has drafted budgets to ALIA headquarters on time with excellent documentation. Gaik has also been involved in organising events and seminars for our local group. 

Gaik was a member of the ALIA Special Libraries Advisory Committee which worked successfully  to improve the visibility of special libraries within the broader ALIA community.  This committee collaborated with the Australian Government Library and Information Network (AGLIN) in a joint exercise to provide a Special Libraries stream for the ALIA 2010 Conference in Brisbane. Gaik played an important role in the planning, implementation and management of this stream program for the conference.  She has also been involved in arranging a variety of joint AGLIN/ALIA seminars in Canberra for librarians and others across all sectors. Gaik was awarded a certificate and a book. 



Catherine Jordan, librarian at the Australian Botanic Gardens, was voted most popular librarian of the ACT as part of the National Year of Reading 2012. Catherine was nominated over ten times, with all of her nominators discussing her extensive knowledge of her specialist library collection and the amazing service she provides for everyone who enters her library. Catherine was presented with a book to mark this achievement. Her winning poll does much to bring the work of dedicated librarians to the notice of the public and colleagues.



Karna O’Dea was presented with a Silver Pin for five years’ service to ALIA committees.  Karna has been an outstanding contributor to ALIA over many years, the ACT Group Convenor for more than five years and she has worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to ensure a range of programs are offered to meet the needs of members.  Karna is a passionate advocate for the profession, sharing information and ideas.  She was a major force behind the Value of Libraries symposium in 2012 as well as library visits, meetings and publicity.  She manages the ALIA ACTive blog, taking us into social media with gusto.
All who attended enjoyed the  fellowship and conviviality of the evening.  We thank Roxanne Missingham and Vanessa Little for presenting the awards, and the National Library for donating the books presented:  A steady hand; Governor Hunter and his First Fleet sketchbook, by Linda Groom (National Library of Australia 2012), and Collecting ladies; Ferdinand von Mueller and women botanical artists, by Penny Olsen (NLA Publishing, 2013). 

Our next social event will be an end of the year gathering at the new Arboretum.

Silver Pin presentation:
Award winners, Catherine, Karna and Gaik,  standing and at right:

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Libraries and Ebooks Summary

On the 3 July 2013, 45 librarians from the Canberra region met at Gungahlin Library to discuss the current limitations around ebooks. The two presenters were Margarita Moreno (NLA) and Vanessa Little (Libraries ACT), who also led the discussions.  
The session began with Vanessa speaking passionately about how libraries are at a crossroads in regards to epublications.  Vanessa stated that we need to fight publishers to provide our customers with the access and flexibility they expect as well as being able to receive any epublication we feel belongs in our library’s collections.   Vanessa went into more detail with “Setting the scene: the E-book landscape” - a presentation from Margaret Allen.  (http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/advocacy/Margaret%20Allen%20ALIA%20ebooks%20think%20tank%2028%20May%202013.pdf).  Afterwards everyone briefly introduced themselves and broke into smaller groups to discuss their ebook experiences and issues that arose in their libraries (http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860054/Collated-notes-from-Libraries-and-Ebooks-03-07-2013-docx - pages 1-3).
The second presentation, from Margarita, looked at Inter Library Loans (ILL), Document Delivery (DD) and ebooks (http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860419/E-books-and-ILL-July-2013-ppt).  This was followed by a second discussion session where the focus was on ALIA’s draft principles (http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/advocacy/ALIAebooksandelendingposition130522.pdf 
and collated notes at http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860054/Collated-notes-from-Libraries-and-Ebooks-03-07-2013-docx - pages 4-5).
In between the two presentations attendees had the opportunity to see behind the scenes at Gungahlin Library and visit the Digital Hub.
Thank you once again to Vanessa Little for leading the discussion and Margarita Moreno for her presentation on the ILL and DD perspective.
Also a big thank you to all the Libraries ACT staff who helped make this afternoon possible – Sharon, Adrian, Shruti, Billie, Halina, Matthew and Debbie.


Additional resources:
http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/a4le

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/14/pay-us-for-library-ebook-loans

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/05/technology/ebooks/overdrive-and-sourcebooks-to-launch-ambitious-ebook-data-experiment/

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/10/opinion/random-house-says-libraries-own-their-ebooks-lj-insider/

http://www.infodocket.com/2012/12/20/ebooks-e-approval-plans-in-research-libraries-preprint/

http://ebookadvocacy.wordpress.com/