proACTive blog

Handwritten Exhibition Christmas Function 2011

2011-12-15T22:13:00.003+11:00

2011 ended with a fabulous get together of ALIA groups and members at the National Library of Australia. 60 attended – a testament to the strength of our profession in the ACT.

The URLS convenor Aileen Weir at the behest of other groups members agreed to organise a joint Christmas function at the National Library on 7 December to celebrate another year of professional workshops and events. Aileen organised a great function and by opening up the Handwritten exhibition to us afterhours got a very good turnout of 60 librarians in all. With the help of Cathy Burton, the tables in the Ferguson Room for supper were very Christmassy with decorations and a array of festive fare to temp all of us into celebrate through eating and drinking as well as talking and sharing information.

It was wonderful to see such a gathering of librarians in the one place from all sectors such as the ACT Group, University and Research libraries, Library technicians and the One Person Library group. All groups were well represented and contributed to the festive fare. It was a wonderful to see the Handwritten exhibition to view handwriting samples of many famous historical individuals such as Copernicus, Martin Luther and Einstein. You read the biographies of such people but what brings them to life for real is to see how they worked on their rough drafts and you could in some cases see the thought processes behind the writing. and how they actually formed their letters. What I found interesting was that most wrote in a very clear copperplate hand or at the very least a legible hand unlike my own illegible scribble . It made me wonder how much copying work many had done as children to achieve a legible clear hand. I was also pleased to see several had rather illegible handwriting and therefore to know that others have failings like the rest of us such as scribbly writing so not even intellectual giants are free of imperfection.

We want to thank Cathy Burton and Aileen Weir for doing a sterling job in organising such a pleasant end of year event for all us and arranging for us to view the Handwritten exhibition at our leisure without the crowds I suspect it will draw. We also want to thank Kym Holden of AGLIN as well as ALIAActive, Beth Rogers of OPALS and all of the others who contributed to our festive fare for the function, it was appreciated.

We also acknowledge that such functions only happen because other library professionals give of their time to make such events a reality.

Karna O'Dea

ALIAActive convenor

ALIAActive Spring dinner 2011

2011-10-25T23:17:00.004+11:00

The ALIAACtive Spring dinner was attended by about 20 people at the southern Cross Yacht club on 28 September 20111. As usual it was a good cross section of librarians form across the library sectors. The company was excellent and the meal pleasant with people catching up on gossip as well as networking with others they have not seen for a while. Mid evening Kym Holden was awarded the ALIAActive Outstanding contribution award 2011 by Roxanne Missingham for all her efforts over a very long period of time, supporting and leading AGLIN as well as doing more than her share for ALIAActive events. Renee Schuttleworth who has consistently organised the Midwinter dinner over several years was thanked for her work by the ALIAActive Committee.

Next year we are proposing to have the dinner at the Scholar Restaurant in Dickson or somewhere similar.

New Librarians Symposium 2011 Encore report

2011-10-22T00:47:00.001+11:00

New Librarians Symposium 5 (16-18 September 2011) Conference Report

Keynote highlights

Mal Booth, UTS

• The UTS Library is preparing for the future, turning their library into a place for people, rather than storage for books.

• They will be putting the books in an underground vault with robotic retrieval, while improving methods of online discoverability.

• They hope to use RFID in a different way to how it has been implemented thus far, collecting data on internal use of items, not just loans.

• Their people focus will extend to how they treat and train staff, as well as to the design of their buildings.

• Challenged us to think about how we serve our clients, curate our collections, be sustainable, and prepare for changing expectations.

• This presenter was a force of nature and my notes hardly do him justice. Please see http://www.slideshare.net/malbooth/presentation-to-alia-nls5-2011

Kathryn Greenhill, Curtin University

• Everyone has different backgrounds and comes to the job with a set of internal ‘rules’ that they have developed over the years. No one is ‘wrong.’

• Are workplace conflicts related to a real issue, or just differences in the way people operate?

• You can’t change others. All you can change is you.

• People who do not know what we do will not fund us.

• Committee meetings do not get things done.

• Just ask. Your boss may be happy for you to do that training if you just let them know etc.

David Lee King, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library

• Pointed out that, to some, the online library presence will in effect be their only branch.

• Demonstrated how his library engaged these people, using technology to enable two-way communication and conversations, and the discovery of resources.

• Outside the website they use social media to engage different age groups, promote events, break news, provide support etc.

Research and writing

A number of the presentations and workshops were devoted to the topic of academic research and writing. We were encouraged, as practitioners, to take up the challenge to expand the academic literature by identifying something we were working on, and/or passionate about and trying to get published. This benefits both ourselves, and the profession.

The keynote by Katie Davis, an associate lecturer at QUT, reinforced this, but also brought our attention to a new way to approach the issues. She proposes turning our current model of puzzle solving – evidence-based theory – into real problem solving by hybridising it with design thinking. More info @ http://katedavis.info/?page_id=43

Advice from managers

A few notes from this workshop:

• Challenge the story you tell yourself about your capabilities; extend yourself.

• Record all difficulties with difficult people – internal and external.

• You don’t have to do it all by yourself. Use the strengths of others in the org and avoid the silo mentality. Learn from people outside the profession.

• You may have great ideas, but do they align with the org’s role?

• Mistakes are opportunities to learn, be humble, re-evaluate and learn respect.

• And from the speaker retiring that day: Don’t treat staff like mushrooms; kept in the dark and fed BS.

Programs to note

RMIT new tech club

A group from RMIT Library gave an overview of a work sponsored lunch time club they had formed to investigate the ways they could use new technologies.

The organisation bought them iPads, iPhones and other products to experiment with.

They began without any real objective, and one poor person who had to always report to management. They realised this was a mistake.

Since re-evaluating their purpose and structure, they have been more successful. iP(roducts) are now put to good use in roaming reference services. The also use Writeboard for collaboration across the organisation.

State Library of Victoria’s Shared Leadership Program

This was new to me, but has apparently been running for a while. The State Library of Victoria funds this program where participants, nominated from public libraries, learn to lead through the collaboration of those involved. Over 5 months, with 10 afternoons of contact time, they must agree on a mutual objective, and allocate tasks to take advantage of each person’s strengths. It sounds like an excellent way to foster team skills, as well as teamwork with internal and external partners.

Ideas

iTunes U

This is a section of the iTunes store where educational institutions upload free lectures for people to access. A presentation on this trial at the University of Tasmania made me think this might be a good online vehicle for our library lectures. On further reflection, a YouTube channel might be a better avenue due to better:

• compatibility – will work easily on non-Apple devices

• discoverability – will appear in Google search results

• required resources – server space and professional IT support would not be required to start and maintain

Robin Bell

Library Technicians Conference Encore 2011; New Librarians Symposium Encore 2011

2011-10-22T00:45:00.005+11:00

Almost 20 attended the conference encore at the National Library on 19 October. A YouTube of Rachel Green, one of the keynote speakers at the Library Technicians conference, started the session focusing on confidence and networking.

Robin Bell gave a great presentation of the New Librarians symposium, emphasizing papers on a range of programs that strengthen the development of technology skills and knowledge. He talked of the inspiring presentations of Mal Booth and Kathryn Greenhill. While technology was a focus so was teamwork and personal development. A copy of his slides will be available shortly.

Naomi and Noellen from the National Museum talked about the National Library Technicians conference. They came back with lots of ideas from presentations and tours. They recommended Rachel Green's presentations on networking and client service. A bus tour to Edith Cowan University and Wannaroo Library gave great insights. The presentation on use of iPads was very useful and gave confidence to explore their use at work (and home). The Acquisitions seminar was very useful. Suppliers at the seminar gave very practical advice. They have been in touch with people they met at the conference and seminar, putting into practice the networking tips from the conference. The RDA presentation was also excellent. OH & S issues were well covered in a session at the conference. The bus tours were highly recommended.

Catherine James from the AFP also practiced her presentation skills. She was found the conference a great way to meet colleagues she know only via the phone and email. The presentation "Getting out of your comfort zone" was terrific, highlighting how to juggle your life and work to get better control and manage priorities. A great suggestion is to make an appointment with yourself to focus on particular things. It's ok to say I'll get back to you. Finding your most productive time of day is important by scheduling things around that. She enjoyed Rachel Green's session on networking, gently building confidence to engage with others through exercises in her session.

Lucinda from Treasury showed a video from YouTube "first follower" which emphasized the importance of the first and subsequent followers, not just leaders. "It takes guts to be a first follower. The first follower transforms a lone nut to ....a movement". Rachel Green's use of freddo frogs to demonstrate "dropping the ball" to not pick up others anger in the workplace was great. Elana Norlin inspired us with a presentation of persuasion and influence, using her library and their funding review to identify how to and how not to present your case. She recommended everyone look at the presentation. The presentation on the WA Dept of Sport library was enthralling - the library became "virtual" with it's physical collection significantly reduced.

Janetta from ALIA found Rachel Green's session on mindfulness very challenging and has inspired her. From the ALIA stand the conference vibe was really strong and positive. The follower video was also used in the crossover event on the Friday afternoon of the Library Technicians and New Librarians events. Janetta presented at the Library Technicians conference on the review of the education system for technicians and gave an overview of the project.

Leadership lessons were talked of including getting up on the dance floor. the music at the dinner was great.

The event also provided an opportunity to talk about the need for a rounded approach to LUS and museum and archive skills. For educators there is a challenge in making this doable for students. RDA, metadata and cataloguing were key areas of discussion at both the new librarians and library technicians conference. Rowena's presentation at the Library Technicians conference was recommended.

Roxanne Missingham

Parliamentary Librarian

Kym Holden awarded the outstanding contribution award from ALIAActive 2011

2011-10-07T00:58:00.008+11:00

The ALIA ACTive group congratulates Ms Kym Holden on becoming the group’s 2011 Outstanding Contribution award recipient.

Kym is the Director of Library Services at the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations She received this award as recognition of the following:

Work for ALIA in encouraging capacity building and knowledge sharing for library staff across the ACT;

· contribution to Information Awareness month which has effectively raised the profile of libraries within the information professions and supported many professional development activities;contribution to the ACT ALIA committee; and

· considerable achievements in the workplace including delivery of new online training services, development of library intranets and information skills in the department, reflecting extraordinarily well on the skills and knowledge of the profession.

In addition to her work in the ACT Kym has made a major contribution to Australian government libraries through hear leadership in the Australian Libraries Government Information Network.

We will be recognising Kym’s success in an article in a forthcoming issue of the ALIA newsletter, Incite.

The ACT Group thanks James Bennett for the prize (two fabulous books) which we were able to award Kym with.

Well done Kym!

Roxanne Missingham

Parliamentary Librarian

Vale Nilofer Mannan

2011-09-12T22:48:00.001+10:00

Nilofer Mannan a library colleague battled cancer for quite some time. She passed away on Sunday 3 September 2011 in Greenwich Hospital in Sydney. She was surrounded by family and friends and our thoughts are with her children Adam and Aniqa. Nilofer, as the former Library Manager at the Dept. of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, was an active member of our library community, serving on the AGLIN Executive Committee for a number of years. She worked in a range of portfolio libraries during her library career. Nilofer always met life with a smile and will be sadly missed by all those who know her.

Kym Holden
DEEWR Library Manager

Gungahlin library opening: the Jewel in the crown

2011-06-20T21:24:00.007+10:00

A number of us were fortunate enough to be invited to the opening by Simon Corbell, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, of the new Gungahlin library on 17 June 2011. The opening of a new public library is a very rare event. It is a new purpose built library that incorporates a number of gee whiz facilities that many of us wish for but never get. These features include feature free internet access, a media zone with DVDs and CDs, a café, an interactive soccer game for youngsters and an outdoor courtyard. What I liked most about the new library was its spacious light airiness and the enthusiasm of the staff that seem to enjoy working in this clean bright new building. A lot of planning and thought has been put into the Library – this shows in such things as the thematic organisation of the book collects such as Home and garden, Health etc and then sub arranged in to the Dewy number systems. However this larger grouping works better for the average library user who wants to browse and find things easily rather than having to navigate the complexities of the Dewey Decimal system.'

The Government has invested approximately $12 million dollars into the new library as part of the Gunghalin College project which also includes Gungahlin College Library Zone and CIT and Community Rooms. All in all this form so part of the wider educational precinct in Gungahlin and makes the overall zone, a delightful piece of public space. What topped off my pleasure in the new library was the memoralisation of Michael Salmon’s books, the Monster that ate Canberra with the new statue of the Monster at the front of the library. This ties the new building in with the wider history of the National Capital in the form of bunyip whimsy. I suggest you go out and look at the new library yourselves both as librarians and library users as then at least you can say you have been there and done that.

Several interesting features on the library were broadcast on ABC radio 666

Sorting the books at the Gunghalin library

Bunyip sculpture unveiled in Gunghalin

Trove wins egovernment award 2011

2011-06-17T21:33:00.005+10:00

Congratulations to the National Library of Australia for winning the Excellence in eGovernment Award at CeBIT Australia last week. Trove is a fabulous service providing access to a wonderful range of information resources held in Australian libraries and other cultural Institutions.

It reveals digitized material, scholarly collections and print material held in libraries in all sectors. A wonderful recognition of a fantastic product.

you can read more at

http://www.cebit.com.au/2011-in-the-media/CeBIT-2011-Trove-search-engine-wins-eGovernment-award

or at the AGIMO govspace blog.

Roxanne Missingham
Australian Parliamentary Librarian

Digital Hansard presentation 8 June 2011

2011-06-16T21:59:00.002+10:00

Bernie Harris, Kathryn York and Roxanne Missingham gave a presentation on a cold winters night to an audience of enthusiastic librarians at the National Library. They reported on an over 12 month project which has delivered access to over 600,000 pages of Hansard, enabling the community to have online access to the complete Hansard for the federal parliament. Hansard is now fully accessible in facsimile as PFDs and searchable through conversion to XML. Bernie described some fabulous stories of Hansard and its making including controversial proceedings and changes in speech making by members of parliament over the years. The slides include a link to Bernie’s Whispers in the corridor history, a speech by Arthur Calwell and Question time videos.

Powerpoint presentation

Library Technicians Day 2011

2011-05-25T19:30:00.015+10:00

National Library Technicians Day was celebrated in the capital with a great breakfast at Pork Barrel attended by around 40 enthusiastic ACT library staff and students. Colleen Gammage and I had a wonderful time organizing the event getting more and more excited as the list of acceptances grew. We had two door prizes -a great book published by the Centre for Information Studies at CSU "Libraries in the twenty first century" and "Uniting a profession" published by ALIA.

Library technicians are a vital part of ACT library services - they have fabulous energy, great ideas and skills. I'd like to thank all library technicians for the terrific contribution they make to Australian libraries.

In the coming months we'll think about some more activities for library technicians. If you have any suggestions please contact Colleen or me.

roxanne.missingham@aph.gov.au
colleen.gammage@treasury.gov.au

Roxanne Missingham

Parliamentary Librarian

welcome reception for Anne-Marie Schwirtlich

2011-03-22T22:36:00.004+11:00

Dear ALIA Colleagues

I am delighted to invite you to a welcome reception for Anne-Marie Schwirtlich as the new Director-General of the National Library. Anne-Marie has returned to Canberra and many of you will remember her for her excellent work in Australian Archives and the National Library.

Event details:

Monday 18th April 5.30 – 7.00 pm
ALIA Conference Room , 9-11 Napier Close, Deakin

Please rsvp to Karna O’Dea email: karna.o'dea@ato.gov.au

Welcome to Anne-Marie Schwirtlich new Director-General National Library of Australia

2011-02-15T01:14:00.000+11:00

Welcome to Anne-Marie Schwirtlich new Director-General National Library of Australia
I am delighted to have congratulated Anne-Marie on her appointment on behalf of all ALIA members in the ACT. She is wonderful person who without a doubt will make a great contribution in her position at the National Library to that organisation and to librarianship in Australia. She follows a many dynamic and insightful predecessors, not the least Jan Fullerton, who have delivered wonderful developments in services.
Many of you will know Anne-Marie through her career in the National Archives, National Library and the Australian War Memorial. Her most recent position in Canberra was as acting head of national Archives from 2000–2003. She left our borders to be CEO & State Librarian, State Library of Victoria where she has led a major program of transformation which has led to greatly increased use of the collection and state library services.
Anne-Marie is an inspiring librarian – one with vision and passion. She is a fabulous facilitator of thoughtful discussions and incubator of innovative thinking. We are truly fortunate to be able to welcome her back to the ACT and the Canberra library profession.
For some biographical information see http://ourhistory.naa.gov.au/dg.html#schwirtlich
When she settles back in Canberra the ACT ALIA group will, together with other ACT library groups, host a welcome reception for her.

Roxanne Missingham
Parliamentary Librarian

Biblio Tourismo

2010-12-01T00:51:00.006+11:00

Last week the “mild ones” or Biblio tourismo, a tour by librarians on motorcycles visited the Parliamentary Library, among other libraries and sites in the ACT. They enjoyed meeting Dr Andrew Leigh, Member for Fraser and Senator Gary Humphries as well as a number of Library staff.

Biblio tourismo are a group of enthusiastic librarians who take an annual tour of libraries in eastern Australia -their blog can be found here http://biblio-turismo.blogspot.com/

To read more and see photos Roxanne Missingham's blog

Notes from ISF on resource sharing and ALIA Review of ILL voucher scheme

2010-10-20T23:32:00.001+11:00

Sue Hutley, Executive Director, ALIA, introduced the topic of the review of the ALIA ILL voucher system. She explained that while use of the voucher scheme has reduced significantly in the past decade, the issue that had brought it to ALIA’s attention is the associations audits over the past several years. ALIA’s financial management needs to be strong and there is not clear information about how many vouchers are held and also concerns about ALIA's obligations.

The ILL vouchers were developed to facilitate interlibrary lending pre Libraries Australian Document delivery scheme and interlibrary lending automation.

The ALIA Interlibrary Lending Advisory Committee is reviewing the scheme and seeking information through discussions and several surveys. The first survey, launched on 12 October 2010, seeks information on how many vouchers libraries are holding. All libraries are encouraged to complete the survey which can be accessed through the following page: http://www.alia.org.au/interlibrary.lending/voucher.review.html This survey closes on 7 November 2010. Please note it is important that libraries that do not use vouchers also complete the survey or send ALIA an email with the information

ALIA have also announced on the website that a further survey to be conducted from November which deals with the issues and future future requirements to support effective resource sharing in Australia.

A question was asked about whether libraries could redeem their vouchers for attendance at ALIA training or products to enable a cost effective benefit for the redemption, rather than a reimbursement that may end up in the organisations accounts. This was referred to ALIA and will be considered along with any other suggestions that come out of the second survey.

The next survey will seek information to review overall issues and options for interlibrary lending/resource sharing schemes in Australia.

Very animated discussion occurred on topics including:

· How does ill fit into the 21^st century library environment? We increasingly use online journal aggregations and databases, with decreasing reliance on traditional document delivery of journal articles. Over the past 10 years ILL requests from government libraries have fallen in some cases to around 20% of what occurred a decade ago. Requests for monographs have mostly remained steady for government libraries, however in those sectors where there are new resource discovery tools, such as BONUS, requesting has increased.

· Cost – discussion suggested that while the costs of providing a journal article have fallen as we most often obtain these online to supply via ILL rather than retrieving a physical item, cost from monographs have probably increased because of overall cpi type increases. The discussion referred the issue to the Advisory Committee about understanding the costs of ILL better and having appropriate charges, noting that it was about a decade since the last charge review.

· Information on overall issues and trends – NLA reported that ILL through LADD was increasing slightly, and Margarita Moreno reported that supply through copies direct to the public had increased very significantly – up now to around 8-9k per annum. Discussion on the different experiences in different sectors suggested that perhaps it was time for a roundtable discussion on ILL, whether through a general national library sectors meeting or through a specific event on ILL.

· Reciprocal resource sharing. Discussion noted that many sectors have very successful reciprocal arrangements and asked whether it was time to discuss more or broader reciprocal arrangements.

· ShareIT wiki a reminder the wiki is available at http://www.alia.org.au/governance/committees/interlibrary.lending/wiki/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.ShareIt please consider sharing your experience/knowledge with others.

Roxane Missingham

Parliamentary Librarian

ALIAACtive MidWinter dinner 2010

2010-08-18T14:40:00.003+10:00

The ALIAActive midwinter dinner on 4 August 2010 at the Canberra Southern Cross Yacht Club was the usual pleasant occasion . Thirty librarians gathered to witness Trish Milne, the former professor of librarianship at the University of Canberra be awarded her ALIA fellowship by Kate Sinclair. Trish has a long history of being actively involved in the profession both as a librarian and teacher. She taught library information studies to students at UC for nearly 20 years and then moved onto teaching knowledge management to graduate students. Trish was well known for her kindness to and pastoral care of all her students as well as her rigour in teaching. Many of us remember her role in our professional development with affection.

The Midwinter dinner was its usually pleasant occasion with librarians across all sectors gathering to catch up and exchange gossip. Trish addressed us for a short time on her memories of developments and challenges of teaching librarianship. ALIA head office was well represented as well as other groups who represent particular sectors of librarianship. Overall it was a good night and one that will be remembered by those who attended.

Order of Australia for Victor Crittenden

2010-06-16T00:02:00.001+10:00

ALIA ACTive congratulates Mr. Victor Crittenden on being awarded the medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia in the General Division. Victor has been a wonderful contributor to Australia through his work as a librarian (including as the Foundation Librarian, Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1968-19860, researcher (particularly in Australian history) and publishing, publisher (Publisher and Editor, Mulini Press, since the 1980s) and writer (editor, from 1995, of the periodical Margin as well as author of Bibliography of the First Fleet, 1982; Colonial Poets; Early Australian Children's Stories; and Small Tales of Early Australia).

Many of us are very fortunate to know Victor for not just his professional contribution but also for his charm and passion for all things library, literary and historical.

Victor has been a fabulous contributor to libraries by encouraging research and development of librarians in Canberra for many years. It is wonderful to see his work recognised!

Congratulations to Victor from all in ALIA in the ACT.

Regards

Roxanne Missingham

Baby Josephine a little potential librarian born to Kyle and Tom

2010-02-04T23:31:00.004+11:00

Congratulations to Kylie Moloney and Tom Foley on the birth of their beautiful daughter Josephine. Many will know Kylie and Tom from their wonderful work at the National Library, Josephine was 3.7 kg (8lb 4oz) and 55cm long at birth.

ALIA AGLIN End of year Christmas Party

2010-01-28T12:38:00.010+11:00

A successful end of the year Christmas party was held at University House, Fellows Gardens on 25 November 2009. Many of the ALIA groups joined in with the URLs, Library Techs, ALIAACtive and many fro AGLIN. It was enjoyable to catch up with colleagues across all library sectors to find out what they had been up in their libraries and what was happening in their own lives. Thanks go to Annette McGuiness for arranging this.

St Marks Library Visit

2010-01-28T12:37:00.001+11:00

The ALIAACTive and AGLIN organised an end of year tour of St Marks’ Theological Library. We only got a few participants which as a real pity as the library is an unexpected delight and worth a look. Susan Phillips gave the those of us who attended an in-depth tour of this treasure of a library down on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Barton.

Susan and her staff have done a lot to organize and update the library and its collections for the students and staff that heavily rely on it. Most librarians would empathise with the struggle Susan has had in organizing a growing collection and a tight space in an old building. As St Marks’ is affiliated with the Charles Stuart University (CSU), they have help and technological assistance with all upgrading of their IT infrastructure and the array of electronic full test services that CSU provides access to for the theological students.

However as Susan was showing her library to fellow librarians it was interesting to view the unique collections that are now housed in the St Marks’ library. The missionary society papers are a treasure for anthropologists and other researchers interested in island cultures and the indigenous cultures of Australia. Indigenous Australians have also begun to plum the depths of such resources in an effort to discover their heritage and genealogical roots as well as to uncover the grammars and linguist structures of their languages recorded by the missionaries. For many aboriginal languages, the only formal written version is provided in the missionary papers. Another gem of a collection that interested me in particular was the Bible Society collection of rare and unique bibles that have come to St Mark Library. These include Hebrew, Greek and Latin Vulgate bibles to one of the first translated into English. By viewing these rare resources made me very aware of how important the Bible is to Western culture and informing our literary heritage for a long period of time.

Anyway for the dedicated few who came on the library tour, it was a delight to have St Marks’ Library and its treasures revealed.

ALIAActive Midwinter dinner 2009

2009-08-19T22:24:00.006+10:00

Nicola Cross at the Proactive Dinner

Roxanne Missingham and Trish Milne with her award for Outstanding Contribution

Roxanne Missingham and Trish Milne

Roxanne Missingham awarding Annette McGuiness the Initiative Award

The 2009 Midwinter Dinner was held on 11 August at the Southern Cross Yacht Club. Over forty librarians turn up to the event. This year the dinner was held to commemorate the long fruitful career of Trish Milne, who served as Associate Professor at University of Canberra for 20 years teaching librarianship and knowledge management. Trish has taught many librarians who now staff and manage the many libraries around Canberra.

Karna O’Dea as convenor opened the dinner by welcoming the guests. Helen Roberts who was awarded the Active ALIA Award for Outstanding Contribution award for 2008 came forward to collect her prize for her sustained contribution to ALIA and librarianship and legal librarianship in particular. Helen is now serving as the copyright officer at ALIA so her voluntary work has come full circle.

At mid meal Roxanne Missingham stepped forward to recongise and present the prizes to the recipients for 2009. Annette McGuiness Lewins Library, Australian Catholic University, was given theALIAActive Award for Initiative “Annette is well known to her colleagues in the library world for her energy and professional commitment and contribution. She has been a major contributor to professional activities including the very successful Metadata seminar run in the early days of the web. Annette has been the President and member of the ALIA University and Research Libraries ACT committee for several years. As well as planning and contributing to a comprehensive program of lunchtime events during this time, Annette has been principally responsible for two workshop initiatives – an E-books seminar in June 2008 and the ‘Growing your Career’ workshop in May this year. In spite of her work responsibilities and family commitments to two small girls, Annette makes time for association involvement in a leadership role.”

Trish Milne was award the ACTive ALIA Award for Outstanding Contribution. She is recognized widely throughout he ACT, Australian and international Library and Information Sectors and Knowledge Management community as a key contributor and thinker who has supported the development of the profession. Perhaps most powerfully she is also know for the enormous contribution that she has made in both developing new professionals and her great commitment to sharing and supporting those involved in the sectors and communities for many decades.

Associate Professor Milne has worked at the University of Canberra for more than 20 years, she was appointed as Program Director, Library and Information Studies in 1995 and her career progressed to being appointed as Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor Education in June 2008. In addition to her significant academic contribution she took study leave in 2001 to work at BT Knowledge Management Human Factor Research Group and Knowledge Management Institute UK.

Her greatest contribution to ALIA has been in the field of LIS education. She has exhibited great energy and enthusiasm for the professional aspects of LIS education in the ACT, the Nation and the global community. She also made an outstanding contribution as a key member of a small team that developed a mentoring program for ALIA ACT.

Trish has been a member of the program committee for ALIA conferences and was responsible for the development of a knowledge management stream at the 2000 conference in Canberra. She was the academic representative for assessment for admittance as a professional member of the association from 1995 till 2000.

Trish’s research in the knowledge and information sector led her to supervise a number of research students at the Honours, Masters and PhD level thereby extending and developing the theoretical base for the future of the information sector. Her own research capacity attracted significant industry funded joint research project that include from Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), the National Library of Australia, the Australian Library and Information Association and the One Umbrella Group.

Trish pushed past the academic boundaries of LIS into the emerging knowledge management discipline and established a Master of Knowledge Management in 2002. This highly successful curriculum, with ongoing updates, is still being offered at UC and demonstrates her foresight and innovative thinking.

Trish has fostered an engaged profession and many current librarians and knowledge workers across the nation are grateful for her commitment, energy, insight and dedication. She is also well known to her former students as a very kind person who developed excellent pastoral care for undergraduate and post graduate students who undertook her course and did much to make UC library and knowledge management studies a happy and rewarding experience for her many students.

For those of us who attended the night, it will be remembered as a pleasant night of convivial fellowship.

Who Knows What You’re Reading? Surveillance Technologies, Libraries and Privacy

2009-06-22T23:24:00.002+10:00

As part of the Information Awareness Month, Dr Stuart Ferguson presented a very informative and thought provoking paper entitled “Who Knows What You’re Reading: surveillance technologies, libraries and privacy”.

The presentation centred on an examination of the privacy concerns of using RFID. While RFID is expected to provide many benefits, particularly in supply chain management, there are many legal, ethical and privacy issues that need to be acknowledged and addressed. In particular this can involve intruding on the privacy of citizens without their knowledge, monitoring customer behaviour and the reading of tags from a distance. In relation to libraries in the US, law enforcement agencies are increasingly able to access data held in libraries.

There are three key privacy principles to be noted

a) notice and consent

b) choice – de-activation, i.e. opt in, opt out

c) control – the right to have personal information kept separate from other data

Dr Fergsuon then went on to discuss the benefits of RFID to libraries as well as factors that needed to be considered if considering the implementation of RFID. An important point for libraries is the moral question – “what moral duties do libraries have in the protection of the privacy of patrons?”. Also the questions “What is the obligation of libraries to the user and to the state?” and “Do libraries need a code of ethics?”.

This paper raised a lot of issues which public libraries in particular need to be aware of when considering these surveillance technologies. At a time when RFID is being considered by many libraries, the full implications of its use, in terms of function as well as privacy, moral and legal rights, needs to be understood and addressed before any move towards implementation of this monitoring tool.

This paper will be a contributing paper as part of a series being presented at an International Ethics Conference next month.

Jan Bordoni

Library Manager
Treasury

Information Awareness Month May 2009.

2009-06-22T00:33:00.003+10:00

Information Awareness Month commenced with a launch at the National Archives by Minister John Faulkner well attended by the diverse range of the Information Management professionals in the ACT. The Month is a collaboration between many organisations involved in Information Management including in the ACT: ALIA, AGLIN, RMAA, ACTKM, ASA and the National Archives. The theme for this year was “Diversity” and a wide range of presentations and events were held in the ACT over the month. The closing ACT IAM event was held at the National Portrait Gallery and included a presentation on information management in the new Defence Strategic Command headquarters.

The AGLIN/ALIA event for this month was a presentation at the National Library titled “Using SharePoint for Libraries”. Key speakers were Alison Jones from Meyer Vandenberg Lawyers and Kathy Stapleton from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Alison Jones commenced the session and presented quite a detailed overview of how SharePoint is being used by her law library. Her starting point was an examination of how alerts, or “announcements” as they are called in SharePoint, can be used to facilitate targeted announcements from the library to her users. This is seen as an alternative option to a traditional “Library News” service. In addition, her Library also provides a legal news service created from a compilation of news sources. Quite notably this service can transition any Library away from push technology to pull technology and aids in streamlining information.

Templates are also deployed by Alison to create a wiki and to use as a survey tool. The wiki enables the creation of shared content between the librarian and the users.

Alison has also ambitiously deployed SharePoint as a library catalogue. In this section Alison openly shared her successes and challenges with SharePoint and offered very useful insights into the challenges that searching SharePoint presented.

Most notable in the presentation was Alison’s willingness to impart her experiences, document her journey and share her learnings. It proved a very informative session and her notes should certainly be read by any librarian thinking of starting down the SharePoint path.

Following Alison was a presentation by Kathy Stapleton and the use of Sharepoint in her library. Kathy has only recently worked with SharePoint and her detailed explanation of the advantages and limitations of the systems functionality was very useful. Kathy used screen shots to demonstrate how she has deployed SharePoint. Like Alison, Kathy has used the announcements facility. The survey instrument has been used as the vehicle for client forms. Kathy also pointed out the usefulness of the alerts functionality and a range of options for its use.

Sharepoint also links to TRIM, the electronic document management system and can be used for many other functions such as provision of statistics, use of widgets to make applications such as the search box transportable (see the ppt graphic provided by Jan Bordoni to demonstrate this, apologies for the lack of clarity) and can embed its forms into systems such as an LMS. Kathy is also using SharePoint to manage her electronic documents accessed from the library’s catalogue.

Lastly Kathy suggested these tips:

• It is important to set up a style guide and user’s manual for consistency. It is important that this is done as you go and not retrospectively as there are different ways that functionalities can be deployed

• Look carefully at the functionality and think about what you want to achieve.

- work out what data is required then how to do it

- set user permissions for appropriate access and control.

- while branding is possible, there is a limitation in the use of colours

In addition to the key speakers, Jan Bordoni briefly demonstrated the ability of bringing the Library to the user workspace. As users, teams or groups can have their own space in SharePoint, information specific to them can be selected and exposed. This enables great flexibility in being able to customise information for that user, team or group and to ensure that other “noise” is filtered out. In a very significant way it can transition the future library model to something very different as the library moves away from being the central focus via a single gateway to gaining even greater exposure on the user, team or group SharePoint space and also highlights the increasing importance that provision of value-added services will become to the success of any library.

AGLIN and ALIA Active would like to thank both Alison and Kathy for the very generous volunteering of their time and experiences. Anyone also doing interesting work with SharePoint is also encouraged to share their experiences on the AGLIN discussion list. In addition, anyone interested in becoming involved in an open Libraries’ Innovation Group should contact Jan Bordoni at jan.bordoni@treasury.gov.au or call 02 6263 3182. If you would like to be involved in the 2010 Information Awareness Month committee or activities please contact Kym Holden at Kym.Holden@deewr.gov.au or call 02 6121 9133.

For further details of Alison Jones’ presentation and the Jan Bordoni’s graphic, see the AGLIN wiki at https://wiki.nla.gov.au/display/AGLIN2/Events+and+Training

Jan Bordoni
Library Manager
Treasury

Postgraduate library studies at University of Canberra

2009-06-17T20:37:00.002+10:00

It seems like a few nights ago that I stood as a guest of ALIAActive at its Midwinter dinner, prattling on about the joys of moving to Canberra to take on development of the Librarianship specialisation in University of Canberra’s new online Master of Information Studies; now I’m marking the final assignments of Semester 1. The wonderful thing is I’m still having a great time – the students are essentially doing a fifth year (twelve months full-time equivalence) of tertiary studies and it has been marvellous to work with them.

There has also been the opportunity and support (which is important) to progress a couple of new research projects:

In the field of information ethics, I delivered a seminar during Information Awareness Month at the National Library organised by Jan Bordoni of AGLIN. The presentation, entitled “Who Knows What You’re Reading: Surveillance Technologies, Libraries and Privacy”, was a work-in-progress seminar, based on early findings into a study of the ethical implications of RFIDs in libraries. It is a collaborative project, involving work with Professor Forbes Gibb (University of Strathclyde), Dr Clare Thornley (University College, Dublin) and Professor John Weckert (Charles Sturt University and the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Professional Ethics, based here in Canberra). We’ll shortly be meeting as a group to present a panel discussion at an computer ethics conference in Corfu (http://cepe2009.ionio.gr/), which sadly will mean missing part of the lovely Canberra winter.

Another research project in its early stages is a study into the application of Knowledge Management guides such as the Australian Standard in Australian government and industry. The researchers are Sally Burford (University of Canberra) and I. Knowledge Management is a discipline in which the University of Canberra has a significant history, with its Master of Knowledge Management having commenced in 2002.

Sally Burford’s research is in the area of effective Web Information Architecture and how it is achieved in large organisations,

We offer PhD programs and a Master of Information Studies (Research) so please contact me if you are interested in researching in the Knowledge and/or Information fields of study.

I’ll be course convenor while Sally Burford is on sabbatical in Semester 2 2009 and will be preparing for an ALIA Course Recognition visit in December. Because University of Canberra has formally applied for course recognition, you will now see the course listed on ALIA’s website: http://www.alia.org.au/education/courses/librarianship.html

I’m sure you’ll agree that, after a few years absence, it’s great to see an ACT program listed up there among the country’s Postgraduate Courses!

Stuart Ferguson, University of Canberra

National Archives of Australia and Australian Bureau of Statistics Metadata Seminar 27 May 2009

2009-06-16T20:37:00.007+10:00

Stephen Ellis (NAA), Michael Beahan (ABS), Senator Kate Lundy, Michele Berkhout (SEMA Group)

The National Archives of Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics co‑presented a program, “Sharing Data, Sharing Ideas” as part of Information Awareness Month on 27 May 2009. The aim of the forum was to bring together a diversity of metadata communities to share experiences, collaborate and look to the future.

Senator Lundy, a long-time advocate for metadata and the only parliamentarian to have uttered the word “metadata” in the chambers, opened the program with her perspectives on the digital revolution and the place of metadata in managing the information space. Senator Lundy sees that metadata can be a key enabler for:

making information easily accessible to Australian citizens when and where they need it; and
enabling the development of innovative and robust government policy and programs based on good, timely, open information.

Michele Berkhout, a data professional from the SEMA Group in Queensland, delivered the keynote address and put “sharing data, sharing ideas” into a global context for us all by “using metadata to interpret our world”. Attendees participated in a group exercise SMSing a word or phrase in response to a series of images which were compiled live into a kind of tag cloud at the end of the presentation – a new form of audience participation!

There followed a number of presentations on various Australian web portals, online information systems and web tools utilising metadata:

Joanne Evans, a Research Fellow for the Smart Information Portal Project at Monash University, led a project to develop a consumer portal for breast cancer information, BCKOnline, (http://www.bcna.org.au). While the project was successful, the project team is still grappling with the most efficient means to produce quality metadata.
Vanessa Scott (Information Victoria) is the Content Manager for Victoria Online (http://www.vic.gov.au), a government information portal for Victorian citizens. Vanessa creates all the metadata for Victoria Online and she described how the portal’s flexibility and degree of customisation can be exploited to respond to client needs and current events.
Gary Anderson (Attorney-General’s Department) has been involved in the development of the Emergency Management Metadata Application Profile with XML Syntax (draft) using AGLS Metadata Standard Part 2 as part of the AusDIN (Australian Disaster Information Network) portal project (http://www.ausdin.gov.au).
Mary Jane Stannus (ABC) gave us some interesting insights into the management of content using metadata on their websites and the development of “ABC Core” metadata for key entities produced by the ABC (http://www.abc.net.au).
Barry Thomas spoke about the development of the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS, http://www.necs.gov.au) due to go live in 2011. In this case, metadata was used to solve the problem of data interoperability between parties who would not otherwise be inclined to collaborate.
Ross Wilkinson explained how ANDS (Australian National Data Service, http://ands.org.au) is building a data commons for Australian researchers. Metadata will be used for data citation, to support data re-use, for data management, and for data collections to enable discovery.
Ron Chernich, University of Queensland, is developing metadata tools for e-Research, leveraging IT to assist research data sharing and researcher collaboration (http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch).
Peter Alexander from AGIMO told us why australia.gov.au (http://www.australia.gov.au) doesn’t use AGLS metadata for search: the quality of Australian Government metadata is, with a couple of exceptions, too low to be an effective resource discovery tool.

Some common themes emerging from the presentations were:

Metadata is being utilised for resource discovery and information sharing

In general, good quality metadata is not available for harvesting
Manual metadata creation gives fine control and good quality, but the cost is too high
Automated systems for metadata creation are not yet good enough
Who bears the costs and where do the benefits accrue?

All of the presentations are available from the National Archives of Australia website: http://www.naa.gov.au/whats-on/outreach-and-advocacy/forums/metadata/.

Catherine Brady

HealthInsite Editorial Team

National Library Technicians Day 2009

2009-06-09T01:24:00.005+10:00

L-R Julie-Anne Wolfe, Colleen Gammage, Roxanne Missingham, Trish Olsson , Nicola Cross

The ACT ALIA Libtech Group held their celebration for 'National Library Technicians Day 2009' at 'Functions' located at the Canberra Institute of Technology, with drinks and nibbles. Our guest speaker was Stephen Collins from 'Acidlabs' (http://www.acidlabs.org) who is well known for his work in the areas of Knowledge Management, Web 2.0 and Social Networking. Stephen's speech entitled 'Libraries and social media -

better together' was informative, educational and practical. Stephen spoke about ways of using Web 2.0 and Social networking effectively and encouraged Library Technicians to get out be proactive and promote Web 2.0 technologies in our workplaces. The function was attended by 30 Library Technicians including many current students. Roxanne Missingham our current Parliamentary Librarians and past ALIA president spoke a few words on ALIA's behalf.

Colleen Gammage

Convenor of the ALIA ACT Library Technicians Group

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA)

2009-06-03T20:56:00.000+10:00

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) is a national initiative that is working towards national licensing of electronic resources for Australian libraries. It is the first consortia operation that covers all libraries within Australia and offers all Australian libraries a collaborative purchasing opportunity to provide access to quality online information.
The 2009-2011 Product Panel was recently announced at ERA’s annual Members Forum on 25 March 2009 and the new product offering enables a much wider range of full text resources, including for the first time humanities and social science resources. The full list of products available to Australian libraries through ERA are listed below and you can take a look at the product offerings on the ERA website at http://era.nla.gov.au/product_list/. Free product trials are also available by direct arrangement with the participating vendors.
Libraries can opt-in at any time for either Australian financial or calendar year subscriptions through ERA. Subscriptions can be pro-rated so that you can opt in at any time during the year and your subscription end date will be synchronised to either a financial or calendar year cycle. Note that you can opt in at any stage during the year regardless of whether you completed the product poll - it's never too late to take up an ERA subscription!
By purchasing through ERA you:
· Benefit from prices negotiated for all Australian libraries;
· Benefit from conditions negotiated including remote access for your users, ability to use material for inter-library lending and virtual reference;
· Purchasing through ERA will result in greater discounts from suppliers in future years;
· Are able to participate in setting future directions for nationally negotiated purchasing.
You can even transition your existing subscriptions to ERA, allowing you to realise savings against current expenditure.
Product pricing is based on participation: the more libraries onboard, the better the prices for everyone. This is an opportunity for you to join with other Australian libraries in cross-sectoral collaboration to achieve economies of scale and savings. Key licence terms and conditions (including pricing) have been negotiated on behalf of libraries and are included in Head Deed contracts for each product. This means that libraries can subscribe to these products by quoting the relevant Head Deed in their purchase order arrangments with vendors and don't have to negotiate individually.
2009-2011 Product Panel
‘Australian News & Business Information’
ABI/INFORM Complete™ (ProQuest LLC)
Asian Business & Reference™ (ProQuest LLC)
Informit Business Collection (RMIT Publishing)
ProQuest® Australia & New Zealand Newsstand (ProQuest LLC)
‘General Reference’
Academic Research Library™ (ProQuest LLC)
Britannica Online (Encyclopædia Britannica Australia Pty Ltd) – various editions
eLibrary® Australasia (ProQuest LLC)
Macquarie Dictionary & Thesaurus Online (Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd)
MacquarieNet (Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd)
World Book Web (Forward Learning Pty Ltd) – various editions
‘Health Information’
Health & Medical Complete™ (ProQuest LLC)
Health & Wellness Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Health Reference Center Academic (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Speaking from Experience (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
‘Humanities & Social Sciences’
Australian Public Affairs Full Text (RMIT Publishing)
Bloom's Literary Reference Online (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Global Issues in Context (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Good Reading Magazine Online (Good Reading Magazine Pty Ltd
Informit Humanities & Social Sciences Collection (RMIT Publishing)
Literature Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
‘Science & Technology’
ProQuest Science Journals (ProQuest LLC)
Science Online (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Science Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Today's Science (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Libraries interested in keeping up-to-date on ERA developments can do this by subscribing to the ERA eNewsletter and the ERAlibraries- discussion list online at http://era.nla.gov.au/for_libraries/. Alternatively, for more information, including answers to frequently asked questions, visit the ERA website at http://era.nla.gov.au/, or telephone 1800 182 937 (toll free within Australia), or email era@nla.gov.au.

Regards

Roxanne Missingham
Chair
ERA

Peak Bodies Forum, 22 May 2009:

2009-06-03T20:53:00.002+10:00

I was very fortunate to attend the forum which was a meeting of the key Australian library groups, kindly organised and hosted by the National Library of Australia. In attendance were representatives from National and State Libraries Australasia, Council of Australian University Librarians, Library and Information Studies Educators, Australian Library and Information Association, CSIRO, Australian School Library Association, Association of Parliamentary Libraries of Australasia (APLA), Australian Government Libraries Information Network, Health Libraries Australia, Public Libraries Australia, Australian Law Librarians Association and the National Library of Australia. The Agenda and presentations are available at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/peakbod/PeakBodiesForum2009.html Minutes should be available shortly. A short summary follows:

NSLA Re—imagining project – presentation is online. Some key directions:
One Library
A consistent experience across our libraries
Improved delivery of content and resources
Ability to create, transform, use and share content

Transform our culture
The development of a new organisational design
Capability to deliver the Re-imagining Library Services vision
A culture of innovation and exploration

Accessible Content
Improved access to our content
Increased efficiencies through collaborative collection development
Increased amounts of digital content
Improved management of digital and physical content

NSLA Report - presentation is online. Covered initiatives including social inclusion and digital products and services.

CAIRSS: CAUL Australian Institutional Repository Support Service - presentation is online. It has been running for seven weeks now and is to offer support for Repository Managers in the higher education sector in Australia.

Effect of the global economic crisis on library resource budgets- presentation is online. Key points were that overall budgets are shrinking and prices are rising. ICOLC, on which CEIRC (CAUL) is represented, has proposed that:
Flexible pricing that offers customers real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be most successful.
It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licences to remain as intact as possible without major content or access reductions.

Impact of GEC is significant.
CAUL plan a Think Tank on the GEC in August 2009 with publisher and content providers.

ALIA
· suggested that we didn’t know all the library associations (including regional and subject groups). Discussion occurred on the level and areas of collaboration needed.
· Public libraries summit (focused on federal stakeholders) to be held in July

Education/LIS workforce Much discussion and different points of view. Maureen Henninger provided a paper. Too many courses? The right graduates? Agreed Peak bodies would meet with Educators at a future meeting.

Libraries Australia and its relationship with libraries in Australia – demonstrated beta of service from the NLA which integrates all resource discovery services. You can see it online at http://sbdsproto.nla.gov.au/

ANPLAN – newspaper digitisation report from the NLA. See http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/about and http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/

Workflow efficiency improvements: the GetWise Project – using technology for greater productivity including tracker to acquire original materials. See http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/gateways/issues/95/story05.html

New Standards for bibliographic description – RDA to undergo three months of testing at LC, then a 3 month analysis. If all goes well NLA would implement in 2010 – will be training.

IFLA 2010 – general progress report – dates are 14-18 August 2010.

Roxanne Misssingham
Parliamentary Librarian

Latest about RDA

2008-12-19T14:43:00.001+11:00

Latest about RDA

RDA, which stands for Resource Description and Access, is the new international descriptive cataloguing standard that will replace AACR2 in 2009.

The full draft of RDA is currently available for review and comment on the JSC website. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rdafulldraft.html
RDA is expected to be released in 2009, with implementation occurring during 2010.

The Australian Committee on Cataloguing (ACOC) has established a section about RDA on their website, which provides a range of information about RDA implementation in Australia, such as FAQs, information about scheduled training courses, and links to relevant articles. http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/rda.html

An Australian email discussion list on RDA, hosted by the National Library of Australia, provides Australian libraries with a mechanism for asking questions about the RDA draft as well as implementation issues. Information about subscribing to the list is also available on the ACOC website.

Catherine Argus, NLA

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade -New H V Evatt Library space

2008-12-19T10:24:00.000+11:00

On 6 November, the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Michael L’Estrange AO, officially opened the new H V Evatt Library space in the R G Casey Building in Canberra. For the past two years, library services were temporarily relocated to a smaller facility within the Department and the emphasis of library services adjusted to highlight on-line resources.

The library’s services and functions were also reviewed during this time and the library’s role in the future operations of the Department given careful consideration. A review of client needs indicated that, even in the digital age, there was a need for a physical library space, where officers could browse for information, access it in the most appropriate format, be it print, digital or audiovisual and read into issues in more depth when required, away from the immediate demands of their desk environment. The new library space meets these needs.

When opening the new library space, the Secretary emphasised the continuing relevance of the library to the goals and operations of the Department.

Mr L’Estrange noted that the specialist knowledge of the Department’s library staff ensured that the library would continue to deliver a service which would serve the specific needs of the Department in the digital age. The new library, he said, would be an important attribute for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in years to come. It would offer DFAT officers services to meet their working needs in the twenty first century.
The new space is the start of the revitalisation of the library. Our newly created brand is used in the new space and also features on our new borrowers cards and promotional coasters in use throughout the Department and at overseas posts. In addition the intranet site is being totally revamped. We are exited about the library’s evolution and look forward to a positive future.

ALIAActive Midwinter dinner

2008-10-03T00:21:00.000+10:00

This years Midwinter dinner actually occurred in early spring at the Canberra Institute of Technology restaurant on 19 September. We had a good turnout of about 50-60 librarians gathered to celebrate the years achievements and to enjoy congenial fellowship with their colleagues from all sectors. The food was good and the company pleasant.

Our keynote speaker was Stuart Ferguson who has recently taken up the post of Senior Lecturer in Librarianship at the University of Canberra. Stuart spoke of his experiences as professional librarian across three countries, Scotland, South Africa and Australia working in a variety of libraries from public to academic. Stuart moved on to speak about the structure of the new postgraduate course in librarianship. He said that the purpose of the course is to nurture future librarian managers and related professionals so they can best serve their career needs and those of their parent organisations.

Review of Masters in Library and Information Course at Charles Sturt University : Progress report

2008-09-04T13:53:00.000+10:00

I was very fortunate to be a member of the Course Advisory Committee of the Masters in Library and Information Course at Charles Sturt University (CSU) last year. I am delighted to advise that while the committee challenged CSU to not just have timely quality courses for students , but also to evolve course content very quickly, particularly to ensure that students were au fait with Web 2.0, CSU have responded to these challenges very positively.

Dr Philip Hider has recently advised the Course committee that:

"We did have a meeting last July to discuss the recommendations made in last year's report on the MASLIM course, but the inception of the School Review shortly afterwards meant that we had to defer the broader plan of action, as it was likely that the Review's outcomes would have overarching implications for the course. Whilst these outcomes have yet to be finalised, it does look as though this will indeed be the case.

Nevertheless, some of the more detailed recommendations provided in the report have been implemented. For instance, regarding 'information infrastructure' and IT elements, a thorough revision to the subject INF413, IT in Libraries, has been undertaken (it has also been moved online), and also a major revision of INF439, Online Information Environment, in which new IT elements have been introduced (such as Web 2.0 type software)."

In INF410, Information Seeking in Context, there is now greater emphasis on user-centred services and on use of virtual reference services. The treatment of user education more directly, however, is likely to be reserved for a dedicated Information Literacy subject, either in terms of a revised ETL412 or a new subject.

The management subjects underwent an extensive overhaul last year, with the three subjects INF415 (stage 1), INF514 (stage 2) and INF515 (stage 2), now covering the topics proposed both under 'contemporary workplace issues' and in the 'intensive business focussed' area.

The subject INF429, Introduction to Information Society, has also undergone a major revision, and been moved online. Addressing a specific recommendation, there is now a segment on user-generated content, the re-use of digital content and the idea of ‘free culture’ (i.e. more flexible usage around copyright).

I would like to congratulate CSU on both providing excellent graduates for the Canberra region and also for their great engagement with employers in many sectors including public, university, tafe and special, to ensure that their course meet our needs.

If anyone would like to discuss the course review with me please do not hesitate to contact me.

Roxanne Missingham
Parliamentarian Librarian

What's new on the ABS website?

2008-09-01T16:58:00.000+10:00

Catch up with recent changes to the ABS website:

You can now ask for help or submit questions to the Australian Bureau of Statistics via an online form.

(Or call our free information service for assistance on 1300 135 070).

Every page on the ABS website now includes a Bookmark button .You can automatically bookmark a page to your Favourites/Bookmarks on your browser or your preferred service. There are over 30 options including Delicious, Facebook, Twitter and Furl. Find local area data via the National Regional Profile. These have been updated with a new look, extra help and more data. Use these profiles to find data not elsewhere available on the ABS website.

An online tutorial for accessing Basic Community Profile data is now available. This is the first in a series of tutorials designed to assist in navigating and understanding Census data and information. The 2008 edition of Australian Social Trends has been released. This publication provides information on a wide range of current social issues. Also included are sets of summary tables of key social indicators providing an overview of social change over the past decade.

Nicola Cross
Information Skills Program
Australian Bureau of Statistics

Information Awareness Month (IAM) - Gala Dinner

2008-06-23T20:24:00.000+10:00

Information Awareness Month (IAM), Gala Dinner was held on the 29 May 2008.

This year's events for IAM saw a record number of ACT events for Information Awareness Month. A Gala Dinner hosted by the ACT IAM Committee was held at the Canberra Club on 29 May to close IAM 2008.

IAM is a collaborative event between like bodies within the records, archives, library and information management community and this commonality of purpose reflects the fact that the various bodies are recognised as some of the most widely respected professional bodies in the information management community.

The Guest Speaker was Brand Hoff the founder of Tower Software who spoke of his experiences during many years in the Information management community. A number of companies such as Iron Mountain, Recall, Oraicle and Icognition sponsored tables and Tower Software provided drinks for the dinner. Organisations such as ALIA, NAA, AGLIN and ASA also hosted tables at the dinner.

The dinner provided an opportunity to network with colleagues, clients and be part of the closing event for another successful Information Awareness Month. A good time was had by all and the
event is sure to be on the ACT IAM calendar for 2009.

Kym Holden
DEEWR Library Manager

ACT ALIA and AGLIN groups information event - CSU: Developments in learning commons

2008-06-23T20:11:00.000+10:00

Learning commons-developments at Charles Sturt University

Shirley Oake, University Librarian at Charles Sturt University gave a marvellous presentation to the ACT ALIA and AGLIN groups onWednesday 28 May.

She covered the many issues involved in establishing physical and online learning commons which are spaces that enable students to interact with each other and the learning spaces using technology to provide support. It evolved from "Information commons" which started out more likeextensions of computer laboratories and responds to:* Changes in the way students behave* Changes in the way they learn* Changes in the way they are taughtA very interesting concept paper can be found online at http://www.csu.edu.au/division/library/about/commons/ and the implementations in Bathurst and Albury (Thurgoona) have led to significantly increased use of the spaces and online resources.

Roxanne Missingham
Parliamentarian Librarian

Information Awareness Month Opening Night 2008

2008-06-03T00:33:00.000+10:00

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.

How many library people in your suburb?

2008-05-22T18:20:00.000+10:00

Are you curious to know how many librarians, library assistants, or library technicians were recorded as living in your local suburb during the 2006 Census?

Find out using the Census Tables product on the ABS website: www.abs.gov.au/census

5 Easy Steps:
1. select 'View Census Tables by Topic'
2. choose the topic 'Occupation'
3. select the option 'Occupation by Sex - 2006 ANZSCO Alternative View: Culture and Leisure Occupations'
4. click the 'Select Location' button and type your suburb name into the search box
5. click the 'View Census Tables' button and open the Excel table under the 'Details' tab.

Information Awareness Month

2008-05-21T17:47:00.000+10:00

May is Information Awareness Month:

the purpose of Information Awareness Month (IAM) is to increase public awareness of the breadth of the information industry through a series of events all through the month of May.

Information Awareness Month has grown into a collaborative event between various bodies within the records/archiving/information management community. ALIA is one of the contributing organisations.

IAM 2008 was launched at the National Archives of Australia by the Director-General of the NAA, Ross Gibbs, on the 1 May. Since then many & varied events have been taking place around Canberra, including breakfasts, seminars, world cafe discussions, and more. Check the events listing for next week's upcoming activities.

Farewell to Sandra Henderson

2008-04-30T13:56:00.000+10:00

Sandra Henderson retires in mid-April after more than 30 years service with the National Library. During this time Sandra’s career has moved through many phases. From a beginning in the Library’s then specialist science section, Sandra has worked across a broad range of functions and leaves the Library a much valued member of staff.

After completing a Bachelor of Science at the Australian National University and a Graduate Diploma in Librarianship at the Canberra College of Advanced Education, Sandra started at the National Library in early 1977 as a science reference librarian. In 1978 she moved to the Life Sciences Section, which provided a MEDLARS search service for Australian health professionals, and participated in the development of the Australian MEDLINE Network. This was real ‘pioneer’ work and Sandra’s strong IT capabilities came to the fore at this stage.

As the MEDLINE Network expanded, Sandra took on roles in training, customer helpdesk support, indexing and newsletter editing, and became the Principal Librarian of the section in 1983. In the following years APAIS and ANB were added to the Section’s responsibilities and in the early 1990s the focus shifted to the production of APAIS and AMI. It was during this time that Sandra acquired significant expertise in indexing and she remains an active member of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers.

Soon after the indexing services moved to the Library’s Collections Management Division in 2000, Sandra moved to a position in the Coordination Support Branch within the Executive area of the Library, where her responsibilities included national and international liaison, for example providing support for bodies such as the Australian Library Collections Task Force and the Conference of Directors of National Libraries. In recognition of her dedicated work in this area, Sandra was awarded a National Library staff Australia Day Award in 2006. More recently, she has organised a number of Australian and international conferences held at the Library, managed the Libraries of Asia Pacific website and been the project manager for the initial stages of the Library’s rights management project.

Sandra will be greatly missed when she retires. Over the years she has acquired an in-depth knowledge of Library activities and is able to turn her hand to any task. She embodies the word 'professional', and those outside the Library who have worked on conferences, seminars, visits and many other things besides, attest to her abilities through their letters and emails of thanks.
In retirement Sandra will pursue her interests in birdwatching, indexing and gardening.

Jasmine Cameron Assistant Director-General, Executive & Coordination Support – NLA

(This article was published in, Gateways, Number 92, April 2008)

Accessing ABS Information

2008-04-29T12:04:00.000+10:00

Libraries often need to respond to statistical queries and locate data for clients. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has a vast range of data available free on its website: http://www.abs.gov.au/, but it can be difficult to locate the information you need.

There is a range of help available for library and information staff:

the ABS offers free introductory sessions. The latest Accessing ABS Information seminar at ABS House in Belconnen on the 2nd April 2008 was attended by over 60 people from a range of sectors. A hands-on workshop will be offered in the coming months, details will be posted to the ABS Training Calendar soon.
the ABS Services for Libraries webpages provide more information and resources for library staff (access via the 'Services we provide' link on the homepage)
keep up-to-date with the latest ABS information and tips for finding data via the ABS blog for librarians: Statistically Speaking
if you can't find what you need on the website: contact the free National Information and Referral Service for assistance - phone 1300 135 070.

For any further information contact Nicola Cross: nicola.cross@abs.gov.au

Information Sharing Forums

2008-04-29T11:41:00.000+10:00

ALIA / AGLIN Information Sharing Forums are a great way to learn about new initiatives in other libraries, share knowledge, and maintain your professional development. The forums are organised jointly by ALIA and AGLIN (the Australian Government Libraries Information Network) and usually held at the National Library. ISFs are presented on a diverse range of topics, and are an excellent opportunity to meet and network with a wide range of people in the ACT library & information sector. Everyone is welcome.

The next forum promises to be a highly interesting session, with Shirley Oakley, the Executive Director of Library Services at Charles Sturt University giving a talk on 'Meeting the needs of the 21st Century learner: the learning commons concept at Charles Sturt University'. This forum will be held 4.30pm, Wednesday 28th May, at the National Library Conference Room. For further information check the AGLIN Events & Training page.

Nicola Cross, Information Sharing Forums Contact Officer:
a bit about me: I currently work at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as part of the ABS Information Skills Program (which incorporates the Library Extension Program). I am a member of the AGLIN Training & Development taskforce and have previously also worked at the University of Canberra Library and Canberra Institute of Technology. If you have any questions about upcoming ISFs, or suggestions for speakers or topics please get in touch with me: nicola.cross@abs.gov.au

Vale Peter Sinfield (1950 – 2008)

2008-04-28T19:35:00.000+10:00

Peter Sinfield (1950 – 2008)

Peter, who passed away from cancer on 25 March 2008, had worked as a librarian at the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) for 13 years prior to his retirement at the end of 2006.

Peter was born in Melbourne on 27 February 1950. At the tender age of 15 he joined the Royal Australian Navy as a radio apprentice. He served in a number of ships, including the HMAS Sydney in its role as the Vung Tau Ferry on supply visits to Vietnam, and HMAS Hobart, his sentimental favourite. His naval service also saw him in Darwin helping the clean-up after Cyclone Tracey. During his naval career he became a qualified teacher and he was an instructor at HMAS Leeuwin, and later a recruitment officer. He reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Prior to retiring from the Navy, Peter studied librarianship at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now the University of Canberra), obtaining a Graduate Diploma in 1989. He then commenced a career as a librarian, working in a variety of government libraries in Canberra. He started at the Department of Health, Housing and Community Services, moving to ATSIC and then the Australian Customs Service, before commencing at the ANAO in 1993, followed by some short stints at the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Peter and I became work colleagues when I commenced at the ANAO in 1994 as a cataloguer and systems librarian – he was by then a well respected and knowledgeable reference librarian.

In 1997, Peter was acting Library Manager when the ANAO library underwent a major review and restructure in 1997. He oversaw the implementation of the review’s recommendations, which saw the library change its name (to the Information Research Centre), location (from the 3^rd to the 2^nd floor) and focus (from traditional collection based services to more research-oriented services utilising electronic resources). The library review also saw the abolition of the library manager position and a change in our roles, with both of us providing research services and co-managing the library. Peter generously shared with me his corporate knowledge and reference skills, and helped me to morph from a cataloguer and systems librarian into a “research librarian”. His professionalism and amiability also ensured our unorthodox partnership endured until his retirement.

Outside of the ANAO, Peter was active in the Australian Government Libraries Information Network, and the Military History Society of Australia. He helped produce the Society’s journal Sabretache for many years, and also organised the annual HMAS Canberra memorial service.

In his younger years, his transport of choice was motorbikes. As a responsible family man he had stopped riding, but the yearning remained. In his mid fifties he purchased a motorbike and joined the Ulysses Club. His wife supported him in this aim to “grow old disgracefully” and bought a large motor scooter to join him on the road.

Towards the end of 2005 he started to plan for, and look forward, to his retirement, giving himself and the ANAO a year’s notice. Things went slightly awry in February 2006, when on a regular weekend ride Peter uncharacteristically came off his motorbike on a gravel road. Medical investigations revealed that he was suffering from something more serious than just abrasions and cracked ribs. After a major operation for cancer, he spent several months convalescing at home before returning to work and seeing out his plan to retire in December 2006.

Unfortunately 2007 saw a recurrence of the cancer, and Peter had little opportunity to enjoy his retirement or motorbike, between medical appointments and further treatments.

He is survived by his mother and brother, wife Sylvia, daughter Patricia and son Andrew.

Vale Peter! A great librarian and human being.

Christine Herrmann

Research Librarian

A Quick look at the Innovative Ideas Forum

2008-04-24T14:58:00.000+10:00

Innovative Ideas Forum, National Library, 10 April, 2008.

Last week I attended the Innovative Ideas forum, for 2008, held at the NLA. The theme for this year was Web Archiving and there were a number of interesting and sometimes fun presentations. I thought I would give a very brief overview of the day, and provide a few URLs for people to follow up, if they wish.

The first talk was by Professor Gerard Goggin, from University of NSW, talking about the creation of history of the internet and the mobile phone. It is amazing to think that people are starting to write histories of these applications already. This presentation was highly academic, but it was one of the few which addressed the mobile phone issue. Kris Carpenter Negulescu discussed the Internet Archive in the US, discussing what they do and their holdings, currently running at 4 petabytes of information (2 x50 bytes or 10x15 bytes) , taking 6 million downloads per day. They hold 110 billion URLs, including 380 thousand books, images, moving images, open audio, and NASA images, and 1 million YouTube items. They are identifying the existing and emerging trends on the visible web, not including the hidden web and cyber scholarship .The hidden web refers to university libraries, university websites, government organisation websites, non- government organisation websites and academic and scholarly websites, which are not readily available on search engines such as Google. The URL for the Internet Archive is below.

Richard Walis gave an entertaining and professional presentation entitled Beyond Web 2.0 discussing the global semantic web platform, covering 2000-2010, which has developed a set of attributes eg, wikkis, RSS, blogs, social networking , and tagging- who knows what new developments there will be in the next few years? (The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. From Wikipedia) .
He predicts there will be more interactive sites, participative sites and more mashups- machine talking to machine interaction. He noted that Google’s success over other search engines lay in its ability to use the network effect, site 1 points to site 2 etc, a hierarchy of sites and importance of sites which register more hits.
According to Walis, the way to break down silos on the web is to use the semantic web, which allows you to query across separate silos and use networks. This will enable massive social and economic shifts.

National Archives of Australia ex- staff member, David Pearson, and his colleague Douglas Elford, from the NLA , gave a presentation on the Mediapedia, which has been designed to identify various types of media and evaluate it, as to whether not to keep it. It’s usage is internal at this stage, for the use of the NLA digital preservation and collection areas. Classification systems they have used in its development have included Dublin Core & AACR 2 . They use the following classes _ genre, process, carrier, and name. For more information, see digitalpres@nal.gov.au

Stewart Wallace gave a brief overview of a project currently underway in Sydney, called The Dictionary of Sydney. This project is building a digital repository of text and multimedia related to Sydney’s history. The repository is designed to facilitate a variety of attributes including web, mobile, and RSS. In seeking the best method of connecting these resources to Sydney’s urban history, the dictionary project team is developing an accompanying semantic model of terms to create an extensible web of digital connections.
See http://www.dictionary/ of Sydney.org for more project details.

The next speaker, Julien Masanes, is the director of the European Archive Foundation . He spoke on the Next generation web archiving methods. The library holds his book, listed below, Web archiving.
He discussed the Living Web Archives project, which has been funded by the European Union. This project will carry web archiving into the next generation of the web, and will develop a range of services and technology for cultural institutions. It provides weekly snapshots of websites, simple client view archiving, abstract storage /identification, browsing and basic searching, and institution - centric access.
The archive looks at a site from the client’s view using the spider/crawler, capturing the site page by page. It stores items in containers, which have proved to be efficient and compressible. Searching is simple, by URL. The problem they have identified is that this paradigm doesn’t make a memory of the web, it is a frozen snapshot, and it doesn’t yet capture the interactive nature of the web. http://www.liwa-project.eu/

This brings us to the final presentation, which was a lot of fun and quite exciting.
Gordon Mohr from the Internet Archive addressed the challenges of future archiving of the web, looking at spam, malware, desktop Web 2.0, social networks, and virtual worlds. For a detailed analysis of the effects of malware, see the paper by Peter Gutmann , from the University of Auckland, who gloomily comments that as malware develops all you can do is “kiss your *** goodbye”… Google however does provide safe browsing lists which are reliable.

To attempt to archive social networks, Mohr suggests that to gain access to these previously open activities which are moving into private areas and friend networks, we could use an android harvester or android assistant to go in and ask to be a friend, and then be able to archive interaction with permission.

To archive virtual worlds is a challenge, particularly since these activities are replacing other communications (in his opinion), and are very popular, replacing popular and children’s literature. You could use the trusty android to go “in- world” into 2nd Life.
Another quandary flagged was the access conditions if you want to archive personal correspondence on interactive sites, eg Face Book or other social networking sites.
See the Internet Archive at : http://www.archive.org/index.php
To find out what some of this techno babble means, see the following books:

Masanes, Julien, Web archiving, 2006, 005.7 WEB
Jones, Dennis, How to do everything with the internet, 2001 004.678 JON
Henniger, Maureen, The hidden web , 2003 004.678 HEN

By, Beth Rogers, NAA

Innovative Ideas Forum

2008-04-24T14:47:00.000+10:00

Innovative Ideas Forum

On 10 April the National Library hosted its third Innovative Ideas Forum. This year the Forum coincided with the meeting in the Library of the International Internet Preservation Consortium. This presented the opportunity to invite some IIPC members to make presentations to the Forum.

The program for the event, with links to powerpoint and audio files from the day, is online at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/InnovativeIdeas2008program.html.

Professor Gerard Goggin from the University of New South Wales, spoke on the Internet and mobile phone, and the phenomenon of mobile technology. Kris Carpenter, from the Internet Archive, gave a very interesting presentation on the work of the Archive and the future of digital services.

Richard Wallis, from TALIS in the UK, entertained greatly with his lively presentation style. He said there is still some way to go in fully utilising web technologies in libraries, and a number of the following presenters referred back to his discussion of the semantic web.

Several National Library speakers gave short presentations on some rapid prototyping projects underway at the Library. Comments from delegates after the event indicated that they particularly enjoyed the presentation by Mark Triggs and Steve McPhillips, who gave a non-librarian perspective on a catalogue redevelopment they’ve been working on using VuFind. One of the delegates commented by email afterwards that “we need more honest reflection like this from OUTSIDE the profession and median age group - such cool insight and a model for us to think about”. If you want to try out the prototype Mark and Steve have been working on, go to the NLA catalogue and select the beta catalogue from the box at the top.

Stewart Wallace from the Dictionary of Sydney project outlined some of the ways information is being collected for this undertaking.

The final two speakers, like Kris Carpenter, were from the IIPC. Julien Masanès spoke about a European project, the Living Web Archives, which is working on ensuring the viability of web archiving into the future. Gordon Mohr of the Internet Archive addressed the challenges being faced by organisations such as the Internet Archive.

If you did not get a chance to attend, or you want to revisit the various presentations, please go to the web page above.

Sandra Henderson, National Library

AGLIN and ALIA working together - MOU

2008-03-10T17:46:00.000+11:00

In March 2007, Mary Teague, as Executive Convenor, AGLIN and Sue Hutley as Executive Director ALIA signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations. The MoU will be reiewed after 2 years of operation and sees AGLIN and ALIA working together to advance the cause of government libraries and information services in Australia and to benefit government library and information sector and the people working in it.

AGLIN and ALIA will form an a alliance to work co-operatively and to collaborate in areas that –
· Are of mutual benefit and interest
· Focus on the value of library services in general, and government libraries and information services in particular
· Focus on advocacy for the role and development of government libraries and information services in the Australian government.

The two organisations will also investigate reciprocity for membership of e-lists and e-newsletters, collaborate in lobbying, advocacy and profile raising and in the development of services and products that benefit the members of both organisations as well as offering reciprocal member rates for professional development programs and conferences.

Beth Rogers, Convener for ACT OPALS

2008-03-10T17:38:00.000+11:00

I have been the convenor for the ACT OPALS for a couple of years now. In my library career, have always worked in small, one person libraries,and enjoy it mostly, for the flexibility and autonomy which it gives you. I like getting my own systems in place and running an efficient, personal and high profile library. I have always enjoyed excellent support from my directors and principals in my library positions.

As a one person librarian, I know that networking with colleagues isabsolutely vital. Previously, as a teacher librarian, I participated in various networking groups in Sydney and in Canberra and found it vital in discussing technology, and other operational issues, as well asmany other work related issues. Once I was established in my library here, I realised that I needed to be able to network with similar colleagues in government libraries, so went about starting a group, with the assistance of the Group's coordinators at ALIA.

I certainly appreciate the support I receive frommy ALIA colleagues and AGLIN colleagues, and I continue to make aneffort to keep the OPALS rolling along, to fill that networking and friendship need we have, since most of us work in organizations where weare the only ones, so no-one else really has any idea of what we do, orour daily issues. I hope to have a least one guest speaker this year, and am always on thelook out for events we can participate in.

Introducing Karna O'Dea, aliaACTive Convenor 2008

2008-01-27T20:15:00.000+11:00

It was suggested to me that I should introduce myself as I am now taking over the role of aliaACTive convenor from Sherrey Quinn. Most of you already know of me from my role of the AGLIN Information Sharing Officer for the past 3 years. This function has now in the capable hands of Nicola Cross.

I currently work in the Metadata team at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I have been involved with ALIA as an active member for the past 15 years. I believe you get out of an organisation what you put into it and decided to practice what I preach in this role. I have a very hard act to follow after Sherrey Quinn who kept aliaACTive going over a great number of years. I have asked Sherrey to stay on the ALIAActive committee to contribute her experience and commonsense approach and appreciate the efforts of all other committee members such as Dianne Walton-Sonda, Gaik Khong.

We have a full programme of Information Sharing Forums (ISFs) for you in the next six months and really value your suggestions for others. However I will leave it for Nicola to expand on this. I look forward to seeing more of you at our ISFs and other joint ventures. My philosophy for the aliaACTive convenor role is the African proverb, "if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with people.

Karna O'Dea
aliaACTive Convenor

Changes to ALIA ACT Executive

2008-01-24T17:56:00.000+11:00

Changes to ALIA ACT executive:

A special thanks to Sherrey Quinn. While Sherrey will be continuing to work for the ACT ALIA group as a committee member and ALIA ACTive Awards Sub-Committee member, I thought it would be timely to note her outstanding and extensive service. Sherrey has been convenor of the ACT group for the past 2 years, taking up the role with gusto, following several years as secretary and treasurer. Sherrey is a quiet achiever, who has kept everything flowing in the background and, perhaps more importantly, has ensured that we have had a wide range of opportunities for ACT library staff to mingle, develop and to celebrate our achievements.Sherrey has made so many events work well for us in the ACT. She has made the annual dinner the place to be, has kept our contribution tonational ALIA planning alive through organising and contributing to NAC meetings and has passed the baton on to a younger generation (including the wonderful proactive editors). The time she has devoted to ALIA, particularly considering that she is in the private sector, istremendous.Sherrey has a wonderful range of skills which has made the ACT group hum along - her enthusiasm, ability to motivate her colleagues and herability to keep an eye on what needs to be done are outstanding. This year Sherrey's work was recognised with an ALIA fellowship, a very welldeserved reward.Sherrey thanks for everyone in the ACT and even more thanks for agreeing to keep contributing.RegardsRoxanne