ALIA Board Blog

LITERACY

It’s International Literacy Day today, and a good time to remind everyone about a startling Australian statistic :  That around half of the Australian population still struggles with literacy skills  -  more here http://love2read.org.au/library/files/Flyer280510generic.pdf 

For many of us who are lucky enough to have had a quality education and lots of opportunities, and are completely connected with reading, books, literature and online material, the statistic quoted above seems unreal (”That can’t be true” comes to mind).   But it is, and it’s affecting our communities and our quality of life.  That’s why Australian Library Associations and Libraries are going to be leading the National Year of Reading in 2012.  There will be thousands of events, initiatives and activities organised during the year and we also seek the support of the Australian Government to make significant improvements to our national literacy statistics.

DIGITAL LITERACY & 5 minutes on the NBN

In my previous blog post I was waiting for an election outcome …. took abit longer than we thought to find out who would form the government, but at least we can get on with it all now.  Last night after the eventual election result was announced I needed a cab ride to my Sydney hotel after meetings, and the taxi driver had the political talkback on the radio.  I was engrosed in my iPhone and #ausvotes twitter news still as we started chatting about the result and things in general.  A colleague once commented to me that he believed that cab drivers are the true political ‘wick’ of the nation  (ask a Cab Driver who will win an election, and they will probably be right)  My cabbie then asked me “So why do we need this NBN thing??” “Why is it so important?” he comments.  Ironic, I thought, seeing as I was sitting there utilising such technology.  Trying to explain the NBN in 5 minutes to a layperson who is not ‘internet connected’ was my challenge.  There had been a great analogy made during the day for the NBN and national infrastructure - ” What if the Hume Highway had never been built? Where would we be? ” and I tried in a number of quick and simple ways to describe how the NBN will work.

In his 7 September announcement Tony Windsor noted that Broadband was possibly one of the most critical issues  - for regional Australians “to engage with the infrastructure of this century”. 

Rob Oakeshott mentioned education and the NBN in his (lengthy) in the ”eyes of my children” decision.  Digital literacy will be a critical skill for all Australians to be able to truly engage with the NBN.   We hope that Mr Oakeshott will continue to learn from his involvement with, and the submissions and hearings of the House of Representatives Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians about just one part of the future of creating Australian Digital Citizens, and increasing regional education opportunities.  All sectors of the Australian library community are also already delivering services and skill development in these areas.

ALIA’s NBN comments are found at  http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/broadband.html 

So I challenge you to try out an elevator pitch to a cabbie about why the NBN is important from your perspective.  Perhaps that’s why our Independents commented on it in their speeches yesterday - lots of people talking about it in the taxi cabs of Australia.

Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director

Well, it’s nearly a year to the day since the idea of a National Year of Reading was talked about at the ALIA Public Libraries Summit.      At that event, there was a consensus in the room that it was something libraries needed to do, not only to help tackle Australia’s poor literacy performance, but also to show government that public libraries and library associations across Australia could truly unite behind a national priority and make a significant difference. As a result, eleven founding partners, including ALIA, have got together to produce the National Year of Reading 2012.  We’re pleased to be working with Public Libraries Australia; ACT Library and Information Service; five state-based public library associations in New South Wales (Country), South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, and the State Libraries of the Northern Territory, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia. 

This campaign gives libraries the opportunity to be the lead agency in a high-profile, national initiative which can help improve the lives of thousands of Australians.  Astonishingly, 46% of Australians lack the prose literacy skills required for normal everyday life and work.  Things like reading a recipe, the instructions on a medicine bottle, a newspaper, or job description are beyond them. (have you seen the flyer on the front inside page of this month’s inCite magazine?)

You can find out all about the National Year of Reading on the newly-launched website at www.love2read.org.au.  This is the start of a very busy 18 months.  It sounds a long lead-in, but the time to plan is actually quite short.  At ALIA, we’ve already started thinking about what we’ll be doing for our members during 2012.  

There will be some major national programs, but there is also the opportunity to create your own local initiatives.  We’d love to hear what you’d like us to do in 2012 and about your ideas for your own projects.  Send your thoughts to advocacy@alia.org.au

You can also use the #Love2Read hashtag to tweet about your creative ideas and suggestions.

Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director

Today was the first day of public hearings for the Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians.  Submissions are to be made publicly available on the website soon.

ASLA presented in Sydney this morning and more info and comments can be found here http://aslaonline.ning.com/

Other state-based TL groups, the Australian Society of Authors, the Hub, and representatives from the NSW Education Department also gave their statements and answered questions from the committee.

Presenters indicated that a school library is the centre of the school, a safe haven and hub for students.  One TL commented that she would like the government to recognise that libraries and TL’s “are an asset, rather than a cost”.

The committee engaged with the witnesses with keen questions, demonstrating that they are thinking of other ways that the school community (including parents, children and teachers and principals) can engage with school library staff and the library industry to improve the situation.

Witnesses told of their passion for their profession, described the experiences of being a TL and how they contribute to the vitality and educational outcomes of their schools.  They also told of their innovative situations and their best practice examples showed how an enthusiastic and resourced teacher librarian can create a wonderfully rich learning environment for students.

The Australian Society of Authors representative also reminded the committee that “Librarians can inspire a love of books and reading”.

A committee member commented on the demographics of our aging profession and expressed the challenges that the shortage of teacher librarians will present.  Then further questioning asked the TL’s how is the best way to promote and market the career of teacher librarianship.  

ALIA will be presenting at 10am on Thursday morning in Melbourne and this session will also be webcast.  More at http://www.alia.org.au/schoollibraries and http://asla.org.au/schoollibraries/

And some other related links from today’s questions that came up :

ALIA Library Salary Scales - http://www.alia.org.au/employment/salary.scales/ 

ALIA Career Links - http://www.alia.org.au/education/qualifications/careers/ (and organisations can order a library career promotional pack here)  & the http://destinationlibrary.pbworks.com/

Electronic Resources Australia -  http://era.nla.gov.au/ - national electronic resources for all Australians 

Public Libraries info - http://www.alia.org.au/publiclibraries/ (public library vs school library resourcing)

Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director

Many of our members know our current Board of Directors - you can see their photos and biographies here.  We have received quite a few positive comments about our ‘Future of Reading’ edition of  inCite (have you read it?)  so I thought I would ask what some of our Board members are reading at the moment - here are their snippets …..

PHILLIP KEANE  — I have just finished rereading ‘A Year in Provence‘ by Peter Mayle.  It was prompted by some of my family having various trips to France last year and this year.  It was a delight to read it again, partly imagining the author as played by John Thaw in the TV series.  I’ve just started reading ‘An Infinity of Things : how Sir Henry Wellcome collected the world‘.  Wellcome was famous as the cofounder of the Burroughs Wellcome & Co., now part of GlaxoSmithKline.  He was perhaps more famous for the Wellcome Trust, now one of the largest private biomedical charities. I’m finding it fascinating how this man collected over a million artefacts for his Museum of Man, some parts of which took over 40 years after his death to put in order, though much of his collections were dispersed to various museums after his death.  There seem to be many parallels with the life of David Scott Mitchell and his passion to own everything he could pertaining to Australia, Antarctica and the Pacific.  His collection was bequested to the State Library NSW as the basis of the Mitchell Library.

MICHELLE BRENNAND –     The three books I have ‘on the go’ are :  The Mighty Toddler,  the latest Harvard Business Review , and Sense and Sensibility   -  pretty much reflecting the three components of my life – mother, manager and me.

HELEN PARTRIDGE    — At the moment I am enjoying Book 3 in the Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  I can never just read one book at a time, so I am also reading Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. This is my fun reading.   My work reading is Learning to be Professionals by Gloria Dall’Alba.

KATE SINCLAIR   — Working in an academic library, we have just plunged into the chaos of first semester, so most of my reading is done at the end of the day, on the couch with a nice glass of wine! Here’s just a selection from my bedside table & RSS Reader…

• Bite-Sized Marketing: realistic solutions for the overworked librarian Don’t you just love that title? This is a fantastic little book and the best thing about it is that it can be read in “bite-sized” chunks.  It has a great chapter on  using Web 2.0 tools to make your marketing life easier…and also a whole section on the importance of “telling a good story” when advocating for your library resources & services.  It’s full of practical tips and examples of easy, simple marketing ideas that work. My favourite quote: “Marketing goes beyond trying to get people to use your library; it is a concerted effort to articulate your value.  It is that plain and simple.”
• Text Patterns Alan Jacobs is an English professor who blogs at The New Atlantis about technologies, reading, writing, research & everything in between.  I can always open up a new post here and find something to contemplate, question or reassess.  Lately he’s been talking about ebooks (isn’t everyone!), the Google Books settlement, Chatroulette, Google Buzz and what an email application actually is:  “It’s three things, it seems to me: it’s a text editor, it’s a database, and it’s a file manager. The problem is that there is no email client that fulfils all these functions really well.”  Fascinating stuff!
• Smitten Kitchen This is one of my favourite food blogs, great for those days when you aspire to be a domestic goddess (or just when you are on the couch with a glass of wine & a toasted cheese sandwich)!  Deb cooks in a tiny NY kitchen and serves up her simple take on fancy recipes with passion, humour, and some amazing food photography.  (And even better for those of us who care about such things, she has a great recipe index and search engine).

GILLIAN HALLAM  –  I am working on a literature review at the moment, so I have read and read and read – on topics like current directions in government administration, trends in government libraries in Australia and internationally, issues in contemporary special libraries, and the skills and competencies of special librarians.  Beyond that, I am reading all the abstracts for the IFLA-ALISE-EUCLID satellite meeting in Boras, Sweden, and am blind reviewing a paper on ePortfolio research in the UK and Europe.  I am reading widely to identify case studies about good practice in library associations around the world as part of the work I am doing for IFLA…  and in my spare time I am analysing the data coming in from the neXus3 study…There is a novel by the bed “The Children’s Book” by Antonia S Byatt , but am not making fast progress there.  Finally, I get to flick through The Australian – but I think ‘read’ might be an ambitious term there.

JAN RICHARDS  — I’m currently reading:   Alice I have been by Melanie Benjamin. This novel blends together fact and fiction to tell the story of the real Alice in Wonderland, Alice Liddell. It’s a book which is guaranteed to make you re-examine this much loved children’s book and the mythology surrounding its creator. Publishers Weekly describes it as ‘bookclub gold‘ and I can only but agree. When you’ve finished Alice I have been I’d suggest you read (or re-read) Still she haunts me  by Katie Rophie - and then perhaps make a visit to the movies to see the new Disney version of Alice starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

(and me) SUE HUTLEY –   As per my Directline in inCite,  I have now finished ‘Lunch in Paris‘ and I am now aiming to cook some of the recipes from the book.

All the board members are also reading ALIA Board Papers this weekend - as we have a meeting in Canberra tomorrow.  We will also be welcoming our incoming board members as observers this week to the meeting, to begin their ALIA Board induction.

I hope you enjoy reading whatever is on your list this weekend !

Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director