ALIA Board Blog

We have just made available, on the ALIA web site, the responses of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Coalition, to the questions we asked them. There is good news and bad news, and this is a personal approach to just one aspect of the statements, and some other recent policy statements - the free flow of information, the heart of who we are.

The ALP has said two things about the free flow of information. On one hand, on 26 October the ALP made what looks like a very strong commitment to open government. As reported in The Australian under the heading “Free Speech”, Labor has promised to

• abolish conclusive cerificates (by which a minister may avoid release of information by declaring that it is not in the public interest)
• appoint an Information Commissioner, which would be an independent statutory office
• provide better protection to journalists who refuse to name their sources
• abolish the fee for appealing a decision of government
• reform whistleblowers’ legislation
• work with the states to prevent court suppression orders being abused

The policy was praised by the Right to Know coalition, which represents Australia’s large media organisations and is campaigning on issues of freedom of the press and the public’s access to information.

On the other hand, the ALP has a very strong pro-filtering stance, and its statement on the ALIA website demonstrates this. In a reply to a question by ALIA about their position on Internet filtering and libraries, the ALP said “ISP filtering under a Rudd Labor government will be applied to all households (unless they choose to opt-out), schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as libraries.”

What will ISPs (internet service providers) be obliged to filter? It does appear from Kim Beazley’s original statement in March 2006 that ISPs will be obliged to filter out some material which it is legal to view, and it appears that they will take instructions on what to filter from ACMA (the Australian Communications and Media Authority). There are other problems with the policy, too, and many are highlighted in the interesting 36-page critique by EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia).

What does the Coalition say on these issues? In response to the ALIA questionnaire, they pointed to the Prime Minister’s announcement on 20 August 2007 of the $189 million Protecting Australian Families Online initiative. The statement on filtering in libraries was much more nuanced. At this stage the Coalition is not in favour of ISP-level filtering, and it is suggested that “The use of filters in libraries needs to be tailored to the circumstances and client profiles of different libraries . . .” Moreover, while libraries are encouraged to work with the Government to install PC-based filters, it is recognised that “legislating the use of content filters by librarians would be a blunt approach that would not be effective, particularly as the regulation of public libraries is generally a matter for state, territory and local governments.”

On the issue of media freedom and the free flow of information, we await a formal statement from the Coalition. There was an interesting piece in Crikey.com on the topic, pointing out some indications of reforms which may possibly be proposed by the Coalition as the election campaign unfolds. Or not, as the case may be.

There is lots more in the statements of the two parties, and others will no doubt take them up in this blog.

Anyone interested in the history of our profession and association should read ALIA’s new book, Uniting a profession by Jean Whyte and David Jones Launched on 27 September, it traces the quite sensational history of the formation of the Australian national library association. Celebrating it’s 70th anniversary in 2007, ALIA was first truly nationally established at the Australian Institute of Librarians.The insights of both authors are remarkable—and both also contributed to the association for many years. The book covers the period 1937-1949, to the formation of the Library Association of Australia. It contains marvellous appendices including short biographies of the major characters (over 120), information about office bearers and statistics. For more details see http://shop.alia.org.au/ProductMoreInfo.aspx?S=37RegardsRoxanne

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/.

It was with great excitement this morning I logged on to my bloglines account to see that Michael Stephens (Tame the Web) is coming to speak in Australia early 2008 as part of a CAVAL course.

While I am a big fan of a number of witty library technology blogs and often have monthly favourites that I get a kick out of reading, Michael’s blog would have to be my all-time favourite which I read religiously every morning.

So if I sound a bit like an over-enthused fan in this post - that’s because I am

If you are into practical ‘2.0′ work, driven by user need and free of fads for the sake of technology, I urge all ALIA members to try to see Michael while he is in Australia. He is the bomb.

I am going to email him now to see if he has any spare time on his trip over to meet with ALIA members (with my Director hat on and my biggest fan in Australia hat off - I don’t want to scare him) 

Katy
ALIA Director

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.

CHASS held its annual general meeting yesterday. CHASS is the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and ALIA is a member, so I went along to represent ALIA, the meeting being in Melbourne. CHASS has been around for only three years, and seems to represent a wide range of university-based members, and a sprinkling of others. “CHASS has negotiated its infancy in fine style”, the President said, and I guess that having turned three, CHASS is as ful of confidence as any three year old. The President is Professor Stuart Cunningham, of QUT, and the Executive Director is the memorable Mr Toss Gascoigne. They seemed remarkably cheerful for a group which exists because, as they say “Too often the skills and expertise in the sector are overlooked in setting national policies, and too often the needs of the sector are overlooked when it comes to funding.”

The Aurora Scholarship has been announced on the ALIA website.

The Aurora Institute aims to assist future leaders in the library and associated cultural and information industry to maximise leadership skills and potential. 
ALIA member Clare Glanville provided an overview of her Aurora experience in inCite May 2005.

 The 11th Aurora Leadership Institute will be held at Thredbo from 14-19 Feb 2008. Applications are open from 4 September-22 October 2007. Application guidelines are available via the Aurora website.

To help meet associated costs, funds of up to $4 000 are available via the ALIA Aurora Scholarship each year to support attendance by an ALIA member at the Aurora Leadership Institute. The purpose of the scholarship is to enable an ALIA member to attend the Institute where this would otherwise be difficult due to the financial commitment required. The scholarship is open to personal financial members of ALIA who meet criteria outlined on the ALIA website.

Have you considered applying for the Aurora Institute ALIA scholarship?

Hello everyone, it has taken me awhile to get back into blogging. I’ll now try and get back ‘into the swing’ of it again.

This weekend is a big one at ALIA National Office. We are conducting a major upgrade of our computer servers and Microsoft software. Our email system is getting a major overhaul so do bear with us. Members are asked to limit their email contact with the ALIA staff this weekend, but we should all be back on deck by Monday afternoon 24th September 2007. See our notifications on the website and our messages to listowners etc.

The ALIA IT guys will be plied with pizza, diet coke and coffee as they sit by their noisy servers and pour over the code and conduct test after test. All the ALIA staff are excited with the anticipation of a more robust system to keep us going into the future !!

Staff are also volunteering this Saturday to pack the thousands of items into Summer Reading Club packs for 2007. This is the first year that ALIA has organised SRC and libraries around the country will be joining in from 1 December 2007 to 31 January 2008. We will be packaging up poster, wristbands, stickers and bookmarks for all the libraries involved. Find out more information at http://www.alia.org.au/src . The new website will be located at www.summerreadingclub.org.au and will be launched soon.

Sue Hutley

ALIA Executive Director

The Australian Law Reform Commission has recently completed its deliberations on changes to Australian privacy legislation. The Australian had a news article on the report on Wednesday (September 12), headed “Ruddock pans privacy push.” I must say, although it is not something I always say, that I strongly agree with the Attorney General, at least on the face of it.

The report is of such a size that it almost precludes the involvement of anyone in the process other than privacy professionals, whoever they are. The Executive Summary alone is 34 pages. There are 301 recommendations, ranging from highly technical legislative change, to simple measures (like abolishing the fee for a silent telephone number), to quite far-reaching changes (such as creating a new statutory right to sue people who publish private information). An example given is “when filmmakers captured everyday situations involving people in public spaces.” Responses to the report are sought, and are due by 7 December.

There are clear implications here for the strong commitment that libraries have towards the free flow of information, and the Press Council has already expressed its scepticism about the proposed new right. This seems to be an issue on which Australian library interests will want to get together. How will we balance our strong commitment to the free flow of information with emerging ideas of a right to privacy? Let us know what you think. Feel free to volunteer, too.

A big thank-you to all participants in the Rockhampton NAC. It was a fabulous forum with 14 participants from a number of library and information services sectors in the Central Queensland Region. Central Queensland University Library were kind enough to offer a venue and Claudia Davies (QLD ALIA LLO) provided tasty treats to munch on throughout the discussions.
The evening progressed in an informal round table discussion with views from library students to library managers and employers shared. It was of particular interest to hear the Rockhampton regional specific issues - and will be interesting to see if these are similar to other regional NAC comments.
A report on the Rockhampton NAC will soon be available via the ALIA NAC web page.
Jo Kelleher, an inspiring ALIA New Graduate volunteered to be the Rockhampton meeting representative at the NAC meeting in October.

In regards to ‘Celebrating Success’ at the 2007 NAC meetings, Rockhampton has had a number of ALIA Success Stories in the past 12 months. This includes 2 Aurora participants, a number of ‘first time’ presenters of peer-reviewed ALIA conference papers, an active CQ New Graduates Group, a large 70th Birthday celebration, and 3 ALIA Gold Medal Mentors noted by New Grads at the Perth Conference.

For those ALIA members from Regional areas unable to make it to an NAC meeting, remember there is the NAC teleconference of rural and regional members on the 18th September to participate in. Details available on the ALIA NAC web page.