Winter Dinner July 2013

The Winter dinner was held on  4 July 2013 at the Scholar Restaurant in Dickson. For a winter night we had a good turnout of 25. This dinner gathers librarians across all industry sectors and ALIA groups in the ACT region and judging by the buzz of chatter, all enjoyed catching up with colleagues and friends. For many of us it is the only opportunity to see others from beyond our usual field of work. The food was  delicious too.  

Three awards were presented on the night.

The ACTive  ALIA award for sustained contribution was presented to Gaik Khong for her many years of dedicated volunteering for ALIA and the library profession. Gaik is a quiet achiever who has contributed to ALIA both locally and nationally. Gaik has been the ACTive ALIA treasurer for over five years and has drafted budgets to ALIA headquarters on time with excellent documentation. Gaik has also been involved in organising events and seminars for our local group. 

Gaik was a member of the ALIA Special Libraries Advisory Committee which worked successfully  to improve the visibility of special libraries within the broader ALIA community.  This committee collaborated with the Australian Government Library and Information Network (AGLIN) in a joint exercise to provide a Special Libraries stream for the ALIA 2010 Conference in Brisbane. Gaik played an important role in the planning, implementation and management of this stream program for the conference.  She has also been involved in arranging a variety of joint AGLIN/ALIA seminars in Canberra for librarians and others across all sectors. Gaik was awarded a certificate and a book. 

Catherine Jordan, librarian at the Australian Botanic Gardens, was voted most popular librarian of the ACT as part of the National Year of Reading 2012. Catherine was nominated over ten times, with all of her nominators discussing her extensive knowledge of her specialist library collection and the amazing service she provides for everyone who enters her library. Catherine was presented with a book to mark this achievement. Her winning poll does much to bring the work of dedicated librarians to the notice of the public and colleagues.

Karna O’Dea was presented with a Silver Pin for five years’ service to ALIA committees.  Karna has been an outstanding contributor to ALIA over many years, the ACT Group Convenor for more than five years and she has worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to ensure a range of programs are offered to meet the needs of members.  Karna is a passionate advocate for the profession, sharing information and ideas.  She was a major force behind the Value of Libraries symposium in 2012 as well as library visits, meetings and publicity.  She manages the ALIA ACTive blog, taking us into social media with gusto.

All who attended enjoyed the  fellowship and conviviality of the evening.  We thank Roxanne Missingham and Vanessa Little for presenting the awards, and the National Library for donating the books presented:  A steady hand; Governor Hunter and his First Fleet sketchbook, by Linda Groom (National Library of Australia 2012), and Collecting ladies; Ferdinand von Mueller and women botanical artists, by Penny Olsen (NLA Publishing, 2013). 

Our next social event will be an end of the year gathering at the new Arboretum.

Silver Pin presentation:

Award winners, Catherine, Karna and Gaik,  standing and at right:

Libraries and Ebooks Summary

On the 3 July 2013, 45 librarians from the Canberra region met at Gungahlin Library to discuss the current limitations around ebooks. The two presenters were Margarita Moreno (NLA) and Vanessa Little (Libraries ACT), who also led the discussions.  

The session began with Vanessa speaking passionately about how libraries are at a crossroads in regards to epublications.  Vanessa stated that we need to fight publishers to provide our customers with the access and flexibility they expect as well as being able to receive any epublication we feel belongs in our library’s collections.   Vanessa went into more detail with “Setting the scene: the E-book landscape” - a presentation from Margaret Allen.  (http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/advocacy/Margaret%20Allen%20ALIA%20ebooks%20think%20tank%2028%20May%202013.pdf).  Afterwards everyone briefly introduced themselves and broke into smaller groups to discuss their ebook experiences and issues that arose in their libraries (http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860054/Collated-notes-from-Libraries-and-Ebooks-03-07-2013-docx - pages 1-3).

The second presentation, from Margarita, looked at Inter Library Loans (ILL), Document Delivery (DD) and ebooks (http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860419/E-books-and-ILL-July-2013-ppt).  This was followed by a second discussion session where the focus was on ALIA’s draft principles (http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/advocacy/ALIAebooksandelendingposition130522.pdf 
and collated notes at http://www.scribd.com/doc/152860054/Collated-notes-from-Libraries-and-Ebooks-03-07-2013-docx - pages 4-5).

In between the two presentations attendees had the opportunity to see behind the scenes at Gungahlin Library and visit the Digital Hub.

Thank you once again to Vanessa Little for leading the discussion and Margarita Moreno for her presentation on the ILL and DD perspective.

Also a big thank you to all the Libraries ACT staff who helped make this afternoon possible – Sharon, Adrian, Shruti, Billie, Halina, Matthew and Debbie.

Additional resources:

http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy-and-campaigns/advocacy-campaigns/ebooks-and-elending

http://m.digitaltrends.com/mobile/e-book-library-lending-broken-difficult/

http://www.ifla.org/e-lending

http://www.plconnect.slq.qld.gov.au/manage/21st-century-public-libraries/ebooks

http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/a4le

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/14/pay-us-for-library-ebook-loans

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/05/technology/ebooks/overdrive-and-sourcebooks-to-launch-ambitious-ebook-data-experiment/

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/10/opinion/random-house-says-libraries-own-their-ebooks-lj-insider/

http://www.infodocket.com/2012/12/20/ebooks-e-approval-plans-in-research-libraries-preprint/

http://ebookadvocacy.wordpress.com/

Libraries and Ebooks seminar Wednesday, July 3, 2013 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM (Gungahlin, ACT

Libraries and Ebooks
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7130875641/efblike
If you haven’t managed to make it to the forums in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth or are interested in discussing the future of ebooks, ACTive ALIA invites you join other librarians in a discussion about ebooks lead by Vanessa Little and with Margarita Morano talking about the ILL perspective....

Libraries and Ebooks

www.eventbrite.com

If you haven’t managed to make it to the forums in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth or are interested in discussing the future of ebooks, ACTive ALIA invites you join other librarians in a 

Impressions of the tour of the National Computational Infrastructure 31 May 2013

Tour of the  National Computational Infrastructure

On the last day of Information Awareness month (31 May), a number of us (both librarians and IT professionals)  toured the  National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) centre  on the Australian National University Campus. It was a fitting finale to the end of this  month that had successfully promoted an increased awareness of  information management amongst both practioneers and  the wider community.

Professor Lindsay Botten kindly gave up his  Friday afternoon to give us a very informative tour of the ‘super-computer’ that crunches massive data (140 petaflops at peak performance) on  topics such as climate change and medical research. Partners drawn from  the university and government sector work together with massive data assets to visualise and model data in areas of real significance to Australia (and beyond: national water management and earth system science being another two areas. At the moment, Professor Botten advised the major contribution that research from NCI is making towards analysing the patterns of the Earth’s energy distribution in the Southern ocean. Combining this research with other analysis being undertaken in the area of climate-science, the research work and analysis will make a significant contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Climate Change due later this year.

The architecture of the building looks very 21^st century – part of this because it encompasses several elements of modern super-computing. Personally I found it very exciting to actually learn how the entire closed system works. Massive cooling mechanisms are in place as the super computer generates great heat. We could feel the heat of the systems walking through the centre of the installation. The cooling plant reminded me of the pictures of the  Snowy Mountain hydroelectric stations – it was on a larger scale than you would think! I drew the analogy of the Star Trek movie centred around the spaceship of the aliens ‘the Borg’ when we entered the computer itself: I felt I had become part of ‘the colony’. Several others were thinking of Skynet in the Terminator series. While you may have one or two processor cores in your computer at home or work, the NCI has 57,500! A few gigabytes of memory may allow your computer to do enough processing – the NCI has 160 terabytes – and 10 petabytes of disk. As well as the storage, a lot of data is cycled onto tape and backed up as well, allowing the computer to focus on current tasks. While these figures sound like it will be able to cope forever, the pace of change is a major challenge – the computer will need substantial updating in three or four years to meet the rapid pace of change we are in the midst of! It was fascinating to see how far the technology has progressed and was a real privilege to have a look at such a facility in Canberra.

There was no doubt in the minds of anyone who participated that concepts being bandied about in the press (such as “Big Data”) are already upon us – in an almost mind-blowing way. And the NCI is an example of partnerships coming together to help Australia stay at the forefront and make a big contribution in high-impact research. Thanks to Professor Botten for  giving us the guided tour.

Here is some background for the perplexed amongst us:

The National Computational Infrastructure, Australia’s national high-end computing service, is an initiative of the Australian Government, hosted by the Australian National University. NCI’s mission, to foster ambitious and aspirational research objectives, and to enable their realisation through world-class high-end computing services. The cutting-edge infrastructure and internationally renowned expert support allow this, the only supercomputer of Australia, to be an integral part of world-best research. Professor Brian Schmidt (Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 2011) is undertaking a mapping project that could change understanding of astronomy in the near-future!

NCI’s advanced computing infrastructure, comprising a petascale HPC system, a large-scale compute cloud (primarily for data-intensive services), and multi-petabyte high-performance storage, is funded through programs of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, while its operations are sustained through the substantial co-investment by a number of partner organisations including ANU, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia, a number of Australia’s research-intensive universities, and the Australian Research Council.

If you’re interested in the NCI and what they are up to, be sure to look at their website http://nci.org.au/ for more background and information.

Karna O'Dea and Sean Wright

active ALIA Winter dinner is on 4 July 2013

The active ALIA Winter dinner  is on 4 July 2013 at the Scholar restaurant in  Woolley Street Dickson at 7.30pm. It Is usually a very convivial night.

We are presenting the  two achievement awards, which recognise contribution to the local ACT ALIA groups and the library profession.

The ACTive ALIA Awards recognise and promote the work of members of the association. The awards are open to personal financial members of ALIA.

Two awards are available:

·                  Outstanding Contribution Award

·                  Initiative Award

http://proactiveblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/active-alia-awards-active-alia-is.html

We are also hoping that Catherine Jordan ( Australian National Botanic Gardens) the local favourite librarian of the Act will be present to accept the admiration of her ACT colleagues

http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy-and-campaigns/advocacy-campaigns/australias-favourite-librarian-0/australias-favourite-librarian-2013-winners

RSVPs

saquinn1@gmail.com

Catherine Jordan, the Librarian at the Australian National Botanic Garden, ACT winner of the ALIA Australia’s Favourite Librarian campaign.

Congratulations to Catherine Jordan, the Librarian at the Australian National Botanic Garden, who is the ACT winner of the ALIA Australia’s Favourite Librarian campaign.

Catherine is a fabulous librarian –enthusiastic, knowledgeable, dedicated with a great sense of humour.

I would particularly like to congratulate Catherine as I’ve had the great pleasure of working with her.  She truly is a font of knowledge who is an integral member of the Australian National Botanic Garden working closely with all her colleagues. She is passionate about service and support – going out of her way to understand the needs of her users and provide information. I recall her heading down to a Library conference and detouring on the way to see rare trees – a true botanic librarian!  You can see a lovely photo of Catherine with a fabulous Celia Rosser volume she is displaying to the Friends of the ANBG at http://www.friendsanbg.org.au/infolinks.

Botanic gardens staff and volunteers strongly supported her nomination and are just delighted to see her so well recognised.

More at

http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy-and-campaigns/advocacy-campaigns/australias-favourite-librarian-0/australias-favourite-librarian-2013-winners

To see the Library’s website go to http://www.anbg.gov.au/library/ - Catherine on behalf of all ACT library staff and ALIA members congratulations – and expect a request for a visit as part of the ALIA program soon!

Roxanne Missingham

ANU Librarian

ACTive ALIA Awards

ACTive ALIA Awards

ACTive ALIA is calling for nominations for its achievement awards, which recognise contribution to the local ACT ALIA groups and the library profession.

The ACTive ALIA Awards recognise and promote the work of members of the association. The awards are open to personal financial members of ALIA.

Two awards are available:

• Outstanding Contribution Award
• Initiative Award

Outstanding Contribution Award

Criteria:

1. The member has made a sustained contribution to activities of ALIA in the ACT
2. The member has provided inspiration and leadership to library staff in the ACT
3. The member may have been contributed to a single committee, group or activity or a range of ALIA committees and groups
4. The member has made a sustained personal commitment and contribution to ALIA.

Initiative Award

Criteria:

1. The member has contributed to activities of ALIA in the ACT.
2. The member has provided energy and enthusiasm in contributing to the development of library staff in the ACT
3. The member may have contributed to a single committee, group or activity or a number of ALIA committees and groups
4. The member has a personal commitment to ALIA and has demonstrated support of ALIA.

ALIA members who wish to be considered for the award or to nominate someone else should follow the procedures below:

• Each nomination should name the candidate, indicate which award the nomination is for, and present a brief supporting statement which addresses the relevant criteria (above).
• Each submission should give the names and ALIA membership numbers of a nominator and a seconder who are each personal financial members of ALIA.
• Nominations are to be submitted by email to the Awards Sub-committee of ACTive ALIA group, to  saquinn1@gmail.com
• Closing date for nominations is 14 June 2013.

The ACTive ALIA Awards selection committee for 2013 is Roxanne Missingham and Sherrey Quinn. 

The awards will be presented at the ACTive ALIA midwinter dinner (4 July 2013, at The Scholar Restaurant, Dickson).

The successful recipient(s) of the awards will be required to:

1. attend the presentation, if possible;
2. write a brief article for ProACTive on their experiences as an ALIA member.