1 July 2000

In this aliaNEWS broadcast...

Fellowships

Digital Agenda Bill

GST and membership fees

Salary scales

nine.msn

May Board of Directors Meeting

National Policy Congress

Telecommunications Service Inquiry

Remember to tick the box for CPD!

Teleworking taskforce

Legal and policy officer position

ALIA2000 capitalising on knowledge

ILL voucher denominations

Handling fee on books of vouchers

GST on ILL transactions

Feedback

Fellowships
Congratulations to John Shipp and Dagmar Schmidmaier who were awarded Fellowships by the ALIA Board of Directors at their May meeting.

Digital Agenda Bill
The Digital Agenda Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on 28 June. Since the government and the ALP have both agreed and the House has passed the Bill with these provisions, this is how the Copyright Act is most likely to be shaped. The Bill now goes to the Senate in August, and when passed, it must then be signed by the governor-general. There is then a six-month delay before the Bill comes into effect.
http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/copyright/digital.agenda/

GST and membership fees
Some members have asked whether they can claim the GST component of their membership subscription in the tax return. You can if you are an individual and not registered for the GST, as this is a real cost to you which you are not able to claim back through the GST reporting process. A revamp of our GST pages on ALIAnet is in progress to reflect the raft of changes that have been effected.

Salary scales
ALIA's National Office has recently completed a new survey of wage levels applying to library workers across Australia who are covered by registered awards and industrial agreements. The booklet, Salary scales 2000/01, is available free of charge to all members from ALIA National Office. Its contents will also appear [in August] on ALIA's website at http://www.alia.org.au/employment/salary.scales/. A critical part of effective individual negotiation of wage levels is use of benchmarks to establish what is a generally-accepted rate for the work undertaken. This publication can be used productively to that end. We have also included sections dealing with casual work and recommended minimum salary rates for non-award work.

nine.msn
Have you seen those ads on television? The Association has written to nine.msn pointing out the reality of electronic access in libraries and information services and what a good job their advertising was doing in alienating one of their biggest target markets - our sector. We have suggested that given the demographics and usage rates of library and information services, that they are missing a good marketing approach - and that we would be happy to provide sponsorship and promotion opportunities for them.

May Board of Directors Meeting
The report on the meeting is published in the July issue of inCite and on ALIAnet, and the draft agenda will be appearing in a link from the ALIAnet home page in the next week.
http://incite.alia.org.au/2000/07/optimism.html

National Policy Congress
Congress representatives have commented on the draft recommendations and these are now being finalised for submission to the Board of Directors meeting of 21-22 July. The July issue of inCite includes a brief report on the Congress. The report, and more pictures are available at http://incite.alia.org.au/2000/07/npc.html.

Telecommunications Service Inquiry
The Association's submission is at http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/submissions/.

Remember to tick the box for CPD!
It is membership renewal time again. If you are an Associate or Technician member and you would like to get your continuing professional development recognised by your Association, please remember to complete the registration form on the back of your renewal form. If you respond quickly, you can take advantage of having a full twelve months to complete your first year's reporting requirements.
http://www.alia.org.au/education/cpd/guidelines.html

Teleworking taskforce
ALIA has completed negotiations with the International Labour Organisation [ILIO] and the European Union's teleworking taskforce on use of its research data in Australia. The EU have granted copyright clearance for use by ALIA of all findings, materials and recommendations in developing guidelines for members on new forms of work, including teleworking. While some ALIA members are already involved, wholesale use of teleworking is still in its infancy in Australia. ALIA will therefore be carefully developing guidelines over the medium-term.
http://incite.alia.org.au/2000/06/workwatch.html

Legal and policy officer position
If you or someone you know would be interested in joining the ALIA National Office team to develop our copyright services, monitor government legislation and policy initiatives and provide advice on the implications for library and information services, and assist in our compliance with Corporations Law then please contact Jennefer Nicholson on 1800 020 071 or 02 6215 8222.
http://www.alia.org.au/employment/

ALIA2000 capitalising on knowledge
The ALIA2000 Biennial Conference will be held in Canberra from 23-27 October. The umbrella theme - Capitalising on knowledge: the information profession in the 21st century - will provide national and international speakers opportunity to examine who will be the information providers as this new century unfolds. Key speakers confirmed to date include: Prof Trevor Barr - Dr Chris Batt - Susan Blackwell - Prof Mairéad Browne - Jo Bryson - Dawn Casey - Tom Cochrane - Jan Fullerton - June Garcia - Libby Gleeson - Dr Jose-Marie Griffiths - Marion Halligan - Dr Brian Hawkins - Geoff Huston - Jay Jordan - Brewster Kahle - Donald W King - Senator Kate Lundy - Hon Peter McGauran - Sir Anthony Mason - Chris Puplick - Ann Symons - Dr Paul Twomey. Look for the conference registration brochure, which should be in your mailbox this week.
http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2000/

ILL voucher denominations
Voucher denominations of $1.20 and $0.30 are available for purchase to add to the standard $1, $3, $6, $9 and $12 vouchers. This should allow voucher users to cover the GST component of the most likely range of charges, (eg. $13.20 or $19.80) and depending how you are required by your institution to account for the GST, could be used for the loans from those government departments required to pass on a 1.6% saving - for example, the standard $12 charge increased to $13 inclusive of GST.
http://www.alia.org.au/interlibrary.lending/

Handling fee on books of vouchers
Our document on The New Tax System advised members that the GST would be payable on the handling fee for the issue (including redemption) of voucher books but not on the purchase value of the book. In considering a related matter, the Tax Office reviewed that interpretation and provided oral advice that the GST did not apply to the handling fee. This advice coincided with the issue of the membership renewal statements - so as a precaution and in anticipation of written advice, we did not include the GST on the handling fee.

The ATO has now reverted to our original position, so could all members ordering books of vouchers please note that the GST-inclusive price for each book of $12, $9, $6, $3, $1 and $1.20 vouchers is $16.50 per book; for a book of $0.30 vouchers is $5.50; and where a book of $1.20 is purchased with a book of $12 vouchers the handling fee of $16.50 includes both books. We will be reviewing the demand for a $13.20 book and other denominations in the future.

GST on ILL transactions
As advised in our New Tax System document, the GST applies to each ILL transaction for which there is a charge. In the June inCite, we advised that ALIA was seeking a ruling from the Tax Office that GST would not be payable on those co-operative resource-sharing arrangements within the sector where there has not been a charge for interlibrary lending. We always anticipated that there would be difficulties in obtaining a general ruling applying to the sector - and this has been the case. However, we are now optimistic that there is support within the Tax Office for such a ruling, but it is unlikely that written advice on the ruling will be received within the next week. We will broadcast the decision as soon as we are made aware of the ruling.

In the meantime, it may be prudent to keep a record of such loans in case our application is rejected, or if you wish to proceed with obtaining your own ruling for your network you may do so by stating your case in an e-mail to: replyin5@ato.gov.au. Rulings are based on the information provided, so it is important that it be factual and to the point and indicates that the service is provided free of charge. The original intention of replyin5 was a reply within five days - but you need to be aware when making a submission that the 'five' is now closer to weeks rahter than days.

A number of libraries have provided us with an outline of how they are managing the GST and ILL. These will be added to our website very soon.

Feedback
We have been thrilled by the response to aliaNEWS from subscribers. It is gratifying to know that we are providing a useful and timely information, and in a format that is easy to read. We now have countless supportive and constructive compliments (but are always eager for more!). As always, though, 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.

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

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