16 March 1999

In this aliaNEWS broadcast...

ALIA's copyright service

Australian Library Week Oration

The Dunn & Wilson Scholarship

General Council meeting

More ALIAnet e-list news

What's new on ALIAnet?

What's coming soon on ALIAnet?

Feedback requested

ALIA's copyright service
Want to know more about copyright and how it affects the library and the information sector? As a service to members, we have constructed a whole new area of ALIAnet devoted to the Association's new range of copyright services. Here you will find ALIA's copyright FAQ series, links to copyright-related websites, copyright conferences, seminars, events and more. http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/copyright/

Australian Library Week Oration
Australian Library Week 1999 (17-23 May) is getting closer by the day. Exciting news to hand is that Warren Horton, director-general of the National Library of Australia, has agreed to present the 1999 Oration on Thursday 13 May. More details of the venue and other information will be forthcoming in the next issue of aliaNEWS. http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/alw/

The Dunn & Wilson Scholarship
The Dunn & Wilson Scholarship is a biennial award (presented at the biennial Library Technicians Conference) and provides the recipient with an opportunity to investigate a particular project relating to the practice of library technicians which will increase the recipient's professional occupational experience. Open to practicing library technician members of the Association - deadline for nominations: 1 April. Contact: ALIA National Office. http://www.alia.org.au/awards/dunn.wilson/

General Council meeting
The next full meeting of ALIA General Council will be held in Canberra from 9 to 10 April. Online documentation is being prepared for viewing on ALIAnet - today is the deadline for submission of all agenda papers. http://archive.alia.org.au/gc/online/

More ALIAnet e-list news
Two important issues here - the first is the announcement of the creation of a list for the NSW Specials, aliaNSWSPEC (hot on the heels of aliaQLDSPEC); the second is a reminder that if you send in e-mail address changes to ALIA National Office, you will need to resubscribe to aliaNEWS if you wish to continue receiving these updates - it is not performed automatically (although you will automatically be dropped off the list if your address becomes non-existent). http://www.alia.org.au/alianet/e-lists/

What's new on ALIAnet?
At last! We have a new search engine! And it is terrific. Not only is it fast, but it offers contextual information surrounding the search text string it finds, and the user can sort according to relevancy, title and date. We love it - and we hope you do too! We will be refining it further as time goes on (at the moment it incorporates 'fuzzy' logic to find similar word strings, but it isn't quite perfect). http://www.alia.org.au/search/

Additionally, Mac OS 8.5 users who have tried the plug-ins that ALIA systems and publishing manager Ivan Trundle has been developing will be pleased to find that they, too, have been enhanced significantly. If they don't download automatically, get the latest from the address shown here: http://www.alia.org.au/search/

The Australian dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations (4th edition) is still being offered at a discounted price for a limited time only: members $15, non-members $20. Get your copy now... http://www.alia.org.au/publishing/adaa/

aliaNEWS is, of course, online at http://www.alia.org.au/alianet/e-lists/alianews/ and offers the full text of each broadcast (and in a format that your e-mail client can read - sorry about the March 1999 issue...) along with details on how to subscribe and unsubscribe to this list. With the volume of subscribers, each broadcast generates a lot of work in tracking down correct e-mail addresses - so please make sure that you let ALIA National Office know when your address changes, and remember to resubscribe to this list if you move!

What's coming soon on ALIAnet?
Vital link Online is in its final developmental stages and we are pretty pleased with what it is capable of serving up in the way of ALIA office-bearer contact information. There is still some more work to do on the creation of a format that offers the right quantity of information without giving the searcher the opportunity to download a database for future use (or more precisely, abuse). Until the launch of this service (and indeed even after the launch), individual divisional pages will and do offer the latest contact details.

Also in the pipeline is a tool that will allow any ALIAnet user to search for ALL web page updates made in the past week (or any other defined time) across the site. We are already using it locally amongst the web development team to check for updates, and it won't take much to make it presentable for regular users.

Feedback requested
As mentioned previously, aliaNEWS is a flexible delivery mechanism able to respond to subscriber demands. We would like to know your thoughts on what you would like to see in this broadcast, and how you would like to see it. We are already getting some very useful and supportive feedback. Keep it up!

Send your comments to Ivan Trundle, manager, communications and publishing (please remove the '.nospam' from address).

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