ALIA Board Blog

Working through the paperwork covering my desk I happened upon an article I’d set aside to blog about:

“Conferences, I love them. The wonderful buzz as you approach the registration desk, find your name, check which sessions or speakers have been changed. Then the introductions as you wander coffee in hand catching an eye here, straining to read a name tag there. is that woman in green someone you should know, or is she just looking friendly and lost like you?”  - that’s what Tricia Genat wrote about conferences in the Autumn edition of  ALS Newsline.

It must be the conference season! IFLA, ALIA Library Technicians, ASLA, Top End Symposium, PLA/QPLA,  LIANZA with  Public Libraries NSW - Metropolitan coming up in a few weeks, yes siree we’re bang smack in the middle of the Conference Season (and they’re just the ones I’ve been to or been invited to!).

Tricia’s right; the buzz at the registration desk is palpable with the organising committee being able to witness the realisation of all of their hard work and delegates anticipating the professional and personal benefits of the days ahead - great keynote speakers, opportunities to sit back and expand your thinking and discussions to be had with vendors.

If you’re off to a conference I would encourage you to act on Tricia’s words and extend the hand of friendship, don’t be a wallflower and don’t let anyone else be either. I judge any conference by the clutch of business cards and promises of things to send and receive I have on my return home. Librarians can be stars at collaboration, make sure you’re firmly in the galaxy!

Cheers

Jan

Jan Richards

ALIA President

Spring in Canberra and the blossoms are out at ALIA House.

How time (and the travel kilometres) flies past.   The IFLA Milan Congress turned out to be a busy week of meetings and sessions for all the Aussies who attended.  The thing I like, is that even though you can’t be in many places at once, between all the 2.0 and other links from IFLA,  Flickr, Twitter and Facebook friends photos, I can piece together lots of the conference sessions that I missed out on.  

Over the past few months Dr Gill Hallam (acting as Chair of the Panels), Dianne Walton-Sonda (ALIA Education Manager) and a number of library technician practitioners have visited all nineteen Institutions and RTO’s delivering the Diploma in Library and Information Studies to undertake course recognition site visits for the first time in 10 years.  This has been one of our big projects over the past 18 months.  While the site visits have concluded, the reports are still being put together.  A representative from all institutions will attend the ALIA Annual Library Technician Educators’ meeting in Canberra in October to share best practice examples and talk more about ALIA Course Recognition processes.

Library technicians and significant others around Australia are planning their suitcase packing with only a few days until the ALIA Library and Information Technicians Conference in Adelaide.  Thanks in advance to the conference committee ‘Team Adelaide’, for their hours and hours of effort coming to fruition in the coming days.  It just seemed like yesterday that the committee and ALIA staff were having a drink in the bar across the road from the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne after the last conference two years ago, to start the enthusiasm and planning for Adelaide.   This year there will be abit of a theme at the dinner which should be fun –  “ It is 30 years since the first Library and Information Technicians Conference, so celebrate in style by wearing your favourite outfit from the past 30 years. A prize will be awarded for the best outfit!”   and keep up with things at http://twitter.com/LibTecsConf09

Over the past few weeks we have taken a slight breath after the ALIA Public Libraries Summit and have begun the basics of a plan for the next few months.  We will keep in touch with news to public libraries through our ALIA PLAssoc e-list (some of you would be getting the forwarded messages) as well as on the Summit website and blog and we will be meeting many public librarians at the PLA Conference in Townsville in October.

Two newer ALIA Projects also continue their important work :  The Living Libraries Australia website got transferred to ALIA this week, and the ALIA Disaster Recovery Project is getting ready for Rebuilding with Books - helping Black Saturday families.

I hope many of you are planning to attend a National Advisory Congress meeting near you – or why not join us on the phone if you can’t make it in person for whatever reason.  It is a great opportunity to have your voice heard as to how the Association can improve in the area of Lobbying and Advocacy (rated in our Membership survey as high importance).

With it being the 9^th month of 2009, here is a list of 9 things to remember to do this month  :

1. Attend the 2009 ALIA Library and Information Technicians Conference (yes, you can still register at the last minute), or put it in your diary to keep up with the papers and blogging and tweets from 15^th-18^th September.
2. Renew your ALIA membership ( if you haven’t renewed in 09 yet, your access to Members’ Only areas and the online journals has now been stopped).  Even better - encourage nine colleagues to join as new ALIA members this month to help us make a strong library association.
3. Put in your diary to attend one of the (more than nine) ALIA NAC meetings near you, or comment on the papers or join one of the teleconferences.  (Adelaide and Brisbane are on on 09/09/09 b.t.w.)
4. Catch up on any missed episodes of the ABC TV The Librarians II series shows  - and watching it at 9pm on 9^th September (with lots of Victorian librarians featured tonight in this last episode).
5. Make sure you have registered for other library events happening around the country – ALIA Top End Syposium09 in Darwin, ALIA Acquisitions Seminar in Adelaide,  and ASLA09 in Perth, PLA09 in Townsville, CAVAL09 in Melbourne, PLM09 in Sydney.
6. Borrow nine items from your local public library this month – librarians are sometimes the best and worst library borrowers J
7. Brush up on your internet searching  skills to find a few more suggestions for how to celebrate on 09/09/09
8. Do a quick Benchmarking exercise -  your library service against nine others that might be similar – check out what they are doing and compare innovations, spaces, services, staffing.   Think of nine new things you would like to do @ your library.
9. Get back in touch with nine library colleagues you haven’t talked to lately – networking and sharing stories and experiences is a key part of our collaborative profession.

SueHutley,  ALIA Executive Director, sue.hutley@alia.org.au 

Dear Colleagues

The ALIA Library National Library Technicians conference was a tremendous and positive experience for all who attended.  Derek has reported below on the educators day in particular so here are some comments on the conference.The program and information about the conference is available online at http://www.alia07.com/.

I have recently attended the second annual ALIA Library Technician Educators’ Forum, held in Melbourne on Monday. About 25 people from TAFEs around Australia got together, and the whole thing was organised and run by Professor Gill Hallam (QUT) and Dr Paul Genoni (Curtin).

There are in fact 16 TAFE locations and one private provider, in every state and territory, where you can study to become a library technician.  There were a little over 2000 enrolments in library technician courses in 2005, down from 3000 in 1995. My role at the event was definitely to observe - I went in knowing very little about library technicians’ education, and came out knowing slightly more. There are lots of things to know, and lots of concerns amongst those who teach.

The forum was held in the week of the Library Technicians Conference, which is now in full swing in Melbourne, at the Grand Hyatt and, last night, at the Melbourne Aquarium. The Conference concludes today (Friday), and so far my participation has been limited to registering, and attending the dinner. The dinner was great - the fish watching us eat certainly contributed to the ambience, and several hundred people had a lot of fun.

Naturally, all of this will feed into the Library Workforce Summit on 28 March next year.