Information Awareness Month (IAM) - Gala Dinner

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

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

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.