ALIAActive Midwinter dinner 2009

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.