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
