ALIA Board Blog

If I asked you what was the first day of the week would you reply Sunday or Monday? The reason for my question lies in this week’s ‘big’ project, my involvement in A Day in the Life of a Library Worker. The commencement day for this week long expose of what I get up to as President of ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association) is Monday, which I guess is fair enough as it’s the beginning of the working week. 

Call me old fashioned but I have always thought of Sunday as the 1st day of the week and it was only just before Christmas when in my ‘real’ job I was working with our graphic designers on a calendar to celebrate 150 years of local government here in Orange, NSW, Australia that the concept that it could be otherwise hit home. Opinion is mixed with Wikipedia recording it can be either depending on religion or location. As a chronic procrastinator I like this answer as  it gives me 2 days which I can describe as ‘the start of the week’ when avoiding deadlines.

So what deadlines do I have this week (and more truthfully, what am I procrastinating about)? The lovely Kate, editor of ALIA’s monthly magazine inCite is on my case about my introduction for the 2009 Annual Report with my Frontline column for the March edition not far behind. That girl can nag in the nicest possible way :-)!

The latter is easy peasy as the theme for the March edition if inCite is reading, something I’m passionate about from a professional and personal point of view. ALIA is excited to be working with our partners towards a National Year of Reading in 2012, something we’ve wanted to do for some time. We’ll be announcing details soon. As for the Annual Report that should be a piece of cake but all the great things we did last year far outnumber the  word limit I’ve been allocated (I admit it, I’m hopeless at Twitter!). 

One of the challenges of being the head of any professional association is the juggling act of ‘real’ vs ‘honorary’ job. In the real (read paid) job my estimates for the 2010/2011 financial year are due. In the changing environment in which we work looking ahead for even 12 months can be a challenge with emerging technologies and new products jostling for attention. There’s also the chance of golden opportunities which need to be embraced when they arise. This requires a flexible approach and an informed and skilled workforce - attributes which can be developed through engagement with initiatives such as ALIA’s PD scheme. Which reminds me (and you) to include ALIA membership as a ‘must’ in the budget.

I can put it off no longer, the dreaded Excel spreadsheet calls!  Cheers.

Jan

Jan Richards, ALIA President.

librarydayinthelife

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.