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
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