3 May 2001

In this aliaNEWS broadcast...

aliaNEWS resurfaces!

Library and Information Week 2001

Sent a LIW webcard yet?

LIW reports needed for inCite

New directors

2001 Annual General Meeting

Conferences in 2001

Board of Directors meeting

ABC library and archives services

SA Classification (Publications, films, and computer games) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Back issues anyone?

Website developments #1

Website developments #2

Website developments #3

Feedback

aliaNEWS resurfaces!
Welcome back to aliaNEWS, after an extended absence. It is not that we have had nothing to report, but rather that we have not had the resources to distribute the message to almost 6000 subscribers. This issue is the first in a series of near-monthly broadcasts, which we will be sending at regular intervals through our list server and replicated on our website.
http://www.alia.org.au/alianet/e-lists/alianews/

Library and Information Week 2001
Just a few days to go and LIW2001 promises to be the biggest and best ever. We are still keen to hear about special events and activities planned for the week, and how you will be celebrating the special days during LIW2001. An LIW Events kit, sponsored by rowecom Australia, has been distributed to all public libraries and to ALIA institutional members - and is also available on ALIAnet. For a full update on what is happening through all of LIW2001, please visit our website.
http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/alw/

Sent a LIW webcard yet?
With LIW2001 only weeks away, now is the time to personalise your message to those you wish to influence (or amuse). Build a webcard on ALIAnet and let it send an automated e-mail to the person of your choice. A card that they can view without any special software (other than a web browser) will be awaiting them on our website - they are private and confidential, and have attracted a good deal of interest (thousands have been created since their inception). http://www.alia.org.au/alianet/webcards/

LIW reports needed for inCite
Tell the world how your library celebrated Library and Information Week 2001. inCite welcomes articles and pictures of your celebrations. Contact the inCite editor for information on how to submit your article. The deadline for articles is 1 June.
http://incite.alia.org.au/

New directors
Congratulations to Moyra McAllister and Kevin Dudeney. The Australian Electoral Commission has declared Moyra elected with 796 general membership votes, and Kevin elected with 18 National Policy Congress representative votes. Their terms of two years will commence from the Association's annual general meeting on 10 May 2001.
http://www.alia.org.au/governance/

2001 Annual General Meeting
The 2001 AGM will be held on 10 May at Baillieu Library, Ground Floor Tutorial and Committee Rooms, University of Melbourne. Proxies must be received by the executive director by 5:00 pm on 8 May 2001. A form is available from ALIA National Office or on ALIAnet.
[http://www.alia.org.au/governance/meetings/agm/2001.proxy.html]

The agenda has been published in the April issue of inCite and is also available online.
http://www.alia.org.au/governance/meetings/

Conferences in 2001
Registration brochures will be distributed very soon for the 11th National Library Technicians conference, 21-24 August 2001 in Hobart and the 9th Special, Health and Law Libraries conference, 26-29 August in Melbourne. In the meantime, ALIAnet conference pages are continually being updated with the latest information on these and all other ALIA conferences.
http://www.alia.org.au/conferences/2000-2001.html

Board of Directors meeting
Just a week away - 10 May 2001, in Melbourne. The agenda for this meeting is at http://www.alia.org.au/governance/board/meetings.html.

ABC library and archives services
The Association wrote to the managing director of the ABC on 23 April stating that "we find it exceedingly difficult to reconcile the ABC's expressed desire to make its archive and library service 'more efficient' with such significant staffing reductions ... and the apparent lack of clear information on both the background to the proposal and the anticipated revised arrangements which will result from it", and have asked that details be provided to us as a matter of urgency. The Association is also liaising with the union involved.

SA Classification (Publications, films, and computer games) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill
We have been watching out for this bill for some time as it is the model for picking up in the states/territories on the federal Broadcasting Services (Amendment) Act (i.e. regulating online content). ALIA National Office has written to the attorney-general expressing concerns about possible unintended consequences in the draft legislation, particularly regarding some classification issues, and the ALIA South Australian Branch is responding with more specific detail regarding the draft legislation and library and information services in South Australia.

Back issues anyone?
A stocktake of the ALIA library has identified the following gaps in our collection. If you have one of the missing volumes that you could donate to the Association's library, please contact Emma Davis-Bell via e-mail. Cataloguing Australia: 1987 v13 n4; and 1989 v15 n1 and also ELIS:A: 1990 v7 n2 and 3; 1995 v12 n1-3; and 1996 v13 n2.

Website developments #1
Many of you have already used the recently-implemented chat server - it is proving especially useful to our cpd members, but in fact is being used by a variety of people for a variety of activities. You'll find a link posted from our home page for a while to come.
http://www.alia.org.au/alianet/chat/

Website developments #2
Planning is underway to improve the bandwidth available to our website, and to upgrade the hardware (which celebrated its 5th birthday a few months ago - our server is now the proud owner of a seniors card). An explosion in broadband access in the Canberra region is imminent, and whilst it would be a bit premature to embrace the options available at this early stage, the Association will be looking at the most cost-effective and most useful method of upgrading our services in this area after broadband services have become established.

Website developments #3
Link-checking software has been deployed across the 8700 pages of the Association's website over the past few days. More than 1,650,000 links have been checked and corrected, and the number of errors that appear in our log files will be much reduced over the next few months. Our log files indicate that there are some persistent offenders, but in many instances the offending link is found on an external website, or comes from a mistyped URL taken from a written publication. Overall, there should be noticeable improvements to the speed of access to the website since the server will spend less time looking for non-existent pages or images.

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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