ALIA Board Blog

At a seminar during my recent visit to England (I promise I’ll try and make this the last mention of said trip!) I met the Public Library Manager whose area included a major royal residence. “Are any of them members of your library?” I asked. He smiled (guess he’d been asked this sort of inane question before, but when your job title is “Library Manager, Royal Borough of … what do you expect); before answering that one of the older royals had until her relatively recent death been a member of the home library service. Warming to the topic he detailed how the Library Management System had to be adjusted to include the title “Princess”.

I immediately had visions of my own staff all changing their records to Princess Ros, Princess Bronwyn, Princess Peter … and he admitted that there had been that temptation in the Royal Borough workforce. It set me wondering to what particularly Australian titles we could include for our clients. It’s the detail that makes each of our libraries different but attention to detail that makes our clients feel cherished.

Cheers and keep out of the wind

Jan

Jan Richards, ALIA President

Well you would be dreaming of summer when the temperature has dropped below 10 degrees again and everything is covered with a fine layer of red dust following the wild winds last night!

In the world of libraries summer can be a quiet period as our major client groups go on holidays. However in the public library sector it’s time to rev up for the Summer Reading Club! This year’s theme “Read on the Wild Side” has enormous possibilities for our ever enthusiastic and creative children’s librarians. Without having even spoken to them I know that my collegaues up the highway at Macquarie Regional Library will be planning something in conjunction with the Western Plains Zoo - I think it’s the monkey on the web site that inspires this confidence!

Together with Library Lovers’ Day, Australian Library and Information Week and National Simultaneous Storytime the Summer Reading Club is one of ALIA’s major campaigns. but do these campaigns count as advocacy? That’s one of the questions we’re posing at this years National Advisory Congress. Mylee Joseph has written an thought provoking submission on this topic which I would encourage you to read. If the NAC roadshow hasn’t yet reached your town there’s still time to participate. 

Love it or hate it there is no doubt in my mind that the Summer Reading Club has real impact at a local level positioning the public library as a major player in the “summer fun” sphere. Combine this with the media exposure that a news slow period provides and you have the makings of an awareness campaign.

My recent visit to England coincided with the wind up of Quest Seekers, the 2009 Summer Reading Challenge. It had an amazing fantasy theme where participants were in search of the “golden” book, at their local library. One of the requirements for a read to be “recorded’ was for participants to talk about the books they’d read to a member of library staff. I can almost sense your reaction “how much time would that take!”, as it was my first thought too. However having spoken to my UK colleagues about the benefits of this approach, and seeing first hand the delight that my neice Lily had in telling the Librarian at her local library about the books she’d read I changed my mind. Some of the larger services were using volunteers to assist and one library I visited had a special “Quest Lounge” where you could wait - a bit like the Drs but a whole lot more fun, which is what reading’s all about.

Cheers

Jan Richards

ALIA President

I’m in the process of packing my suitcases after a month away from home; first at IFLA in Milan and more recently visiting libraries in the UK. The floor of the bedroom I’ve been sharing with my niece Lily, age 6, is strewn with clothes, shopping and the reams of printed material I’ve picked up along the way. I think a quick trip down to the post office may be in order to lighten my load, that’s of course after I’ve done a huge cull.

My particular focus has been looking at libraries which are converged with other cultural institutions, especially museums and archives and my travels have taken me to some wonderful places - you’ll read more about it in a future edition of inCite. But what has really struck me is the kindness and generosity of “strangers” to show me their libraries and share their experiences, warts and all. This hospitality also reached out into  the communities I found myself in where residents, seeing me puzzling over a map, insisted on walking me to my destination.  It was a salient reminder to always be a gracious host or to use one of my Mum’s favourite sayings “Do as you would be done by”.

Along the way I often wished I could teleport some of my Australian colleagues into some of the places I found myself; in part so they too could experience some of the new developments I was observing, but in part so that they could see how we are leaders in our own right. I was always a Very Proud President (note the caps) when my UK colleagues would talk about an initiative they were implementing where the inspiration came from Australia!  

Yesterday I attended an Executive Briefing at CILIP “Silos of the LAMs” (Libraries, Archives Museums) and our museums too received much praise for the work they’re doing in the area of Web 2.0. It was great to be able to hold my head high, especially given all the cricket asides I’ve been subjected too.

I’ve also had the chance to meet with the CILIP Executive and discuss a raft of issues relating to our two associations and how we can cherry pick from each others offerings to the  mutual benefit of our members. Which leads me back to my packing dilemma, I think I picked up every piece of paper CILIP has ever produced. Do I really need to take it home? Oh well back to the sorting.

Stay safe

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 ALIA members,

Buongiorno from Milan.  The chair of this morning’s first section session has noted that Milan is finally coming to life after most Milanese have been on Summer holidays.  Over 3000 library representatives at the IFLA Congress from around the world are also making the city a livelier place this week and are identifiable by their bright orange satchels.  The programme for IFLA is extensive, not just for the sessions but for the other events, meetings, social gatherings and networking.  Last night there was a special performance at the spectacular La Scala that resulted in an encore performance from the orchestra.

There are quite a few Aussies here this week (about 40 from the looks of the attendance list) and looking around the room we’re currently in, we can spot a few. Unfortunately,  many have been unable to attend due to financial constraints and last minute happenings and the whole issue of the Economic Crisis and its impact on our sector will form the basis of separate discussions here in Milan.

Many colleagues have expressed their disappointment to the (outgoing) Australian National Committee members at the moving of the 2010 conference.   The matter was discussed at a number of Standing Committee meetings held on Saturday, including the Management of Library Associations Section and the Asia and Oceania Caucus.  We have been able to meet our colleagues in Sweden who are taking on the challenge instead and it has been a great opportunity to wish them all the best in person.

How the IFLA programme works is that each of the sections has a two-hour timeslot to present papers.  Many sections combine to create a longer session e.g. for the morning, usually on a theme, decided by the section standing committee members at the previous conference.

This morning we’ve heard from the Public Libraries and Metropolitan Libraries Sections about the mid year meeting  that was held by these sections in Brisbane and South-east Queensland in May 2009, as well as developments in the public library sector around the world. It was great to have some Australian innovations and best practice showcased including the new ideas of city/library poppies concept at the SLQ (at The Edge).   An Australian statistic that is also included in our Little Book of Public Libraries on the amount (or lack thereof) of public library funding in Australia was also mentioned. There were also presentations from ‘The Library of the Year’ - Queens Library, Gold Coast City Libraries and Vancouver. 

IFLA provides a wonderful opportunity to think outside the square and attend sessions that are not necessarily in your area of expertise. The delights of meeting colleagues from other countries and sectors can’t be overemphasised. Business cards with things to follow up are squirreled away to follow up at a later date. Every meal, including breakfast, every walk to the convention centre  gives you the chance to meet new people to learn, and to share.  You can also keep up with what’s happening from anywhere in the world via twitter at #ifla2009.

It’s easy to see how people become IFLA Junkies!

Ciao

Jan and Sue

I just thought I’d provide a quick update as where we are with planning for an ALIA 2010 event. We’re aiming to hold a 2 day event in

Consequently our timelines are short and by necessity they need to be tight. Due to the shortness of our timelines this won’t be your regular biennial ALIA conference, in fact it’s the event you have when you’re not having a biennial conference. Many of you will have realised we sought member input into the shape of the event via a wiki. We have taken on board a number of the suggestions as to the overall shape of the event however the content of the event will be driven by members.

Very soon we’ll be calling for expressions of interest from groups and advisory committees to hold simultaneous half, 1 or 2 day events over 2 and 3 September. The structure and content of each event will up to the organising group. So if your group wants to try something different now is your opportunity

Now before you get too excited you need to be mindful of a few of things. Firstly, by necessity ALIA is the overarching body responsible, underwriting, and coordinating the event. Consequently, all groups participating in the event will need to closely liaise with the organising committee and agree to comply with the appropriate items of the ALIA Conference Manual. Secondly, we are restricted to five simultaneous streams due to venue limitations. Thirdly, we probably will need standard times for breaks.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me or Jane Hardy from ALIA HQ. The deadline for expressions of interest will be short so now is the time to get your group’s creative juices going.

Graham Black

ALIA Vice President & 2010 Event Convenor

Well, what a month at ALIA.       We of course received word from the IFLA Governing Board that IFLA2010 will now be in Goteborg, Sweden.  <see Jan’s post>   There were many and varied discussions on library e-lists   - questions understanding the complexity of the Congress arrangements and agreements <Graham’s post explains more> and how the GFC is affecting all budgets, tourism and government funding, (e.g  AustnUniLib examples  )  and just a general feeling of disappointment.  While the National Committee, ALIA Board and staff were also all disappointed too, we agree with the IFLA GB that it was a difficult, but necessary and financially sound decision to ensure the long-term viability of the International Association.   We still need to operate as businesses to survive - I was also fortunate to be with a group of Not-for-Profits this July, and we considered trying to rename the sector “Not-for-Loss” as our sustainability in the long term depends on good financial decisions in order to support the communities, groups or professions we serve.  ALIA submitted to the Productivity Commission’s Not-for-Profit review and we hope to engage further with this review.

ALIA heard the response too from members about ‘what next?’ for a 2010 event of some sort - and quickly established the ALIA2010 wiki which has seen some excellent comments and ideas and suggestions.  Other phone calls, teleconferences and emails have also gathered ideas which will be presented to the ALIA Board.   It is Board Meeting time again - and if you ever wonder what the agenda’s look like you can view them here  and get summaries of the meetings here on the website.

Then the 30,000 copies of The Little Book of Public Libraries arrived just before the Summit and filled the ALIA House Conference room before all the staff helped shipped them out to all those who have ordered.  Again, we received a variety of comments, but mostly people have appreciated the ‘different’ and bright cover and the subtle clear title on the cover.  You can also get tips on what to do with the little book and how to use it as a great Advocacy tool on the website. 

We met with the Public Libraries Associations in Parkes in late June to prepare and discuss the ALIA Public Libraries Summit.  Thank you to our State Associations for their financial contribution to the day and also their support, including facilitating discussion groups on the main topics.  Our thanks also to FOLA for their support.  The ALIA Public Libraries Advisory Committee (PLAC) have provided great advice and input over the year of planning for the summit.

Jan Richards, Summit leader, ALIA President and public librarian was able to bring her experience and passion to the day.  It was also the breadth of participants and enthusiasm from the invited guests that completed the day.  We have only just started the work and further conversations that will result out of the Summit - there’s lots to be followed up on. The major recommendations from the day will continue to be reported on the Summit website.

We hope that more public librarians consider nominating for the ALIA Board of Directors - check out our Boardroom Bound page and we are also running another BB session at the upcoming ALIA Library and Information Technicians Conference coming up soon from 15-18 September in Adelaide.

Jan Richards and I presented to the Select Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network at Parliament House on 20th July and the transcript will be available here.  The Senators opened their copy of The Little Book of Public Libraries with enthusiasm ( abit different to the examples of fibre cables and boxes with splitters shown around during the previous presentation at the Committee).

The Summit, Little Book, Ambassadors, Submissions, Senate presentations and related media interviews have all contributed to ALIA’s Advocacy for libraries this month.

Membership renewals are flooding in - thank you to all that have renewed so far.  You can use the online payment system or give us a call on 1800 020071 to arrange your payment.

Our Web2.0/socialmedia extended to twittering, especially during Summit Day #Summit09 and #ALIA2010, Facebooking, blogging and wiki-ing. 

Sue Hutley, Executive Director

The Public Libraries Summit tomorrow pulls together a number of different threads that we’ve been working on over the last few months.  There will be an important announcement about Public Library Standards; the first outing for the Little Book of Public Libraries, and the national launch of the Public Library Ambassadors campaign.  In advance of the latter, ALIA has assisted local library services with a few pilot projects and you can see the first ambassadors on our new Flickr site - www.flickr.com/photos/aliapubliclibraries.  We’re delighted to have such a good spread of personalities, across three states, but this is only the start.  Why not use the toolkit at http://www.alia.org.au/governance/committees/public.libraries/summit09/public.library.ambassadors.html to recruit your own library ambassador and start generating those news headlines for your library service?

Jan Richards

ALIA President

Well, only three days to go until the Public Libraries Summit and we have a fantastic line-up of guests, including top level representatives from state/territory and federal government departments.  We have reached our target of 50 politicians, advisers and senior members of the library world, and there are still a few more organisations who have yet to put a name to the ticket, but have said they are keen to reserve a place.

I have to say a big thank you to Senator Ursula Stephens’ office for all their help and advice in the run up to the event.  And we’re all looking forward to the Senator’s opening address.  As Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector, who better to set the scene for the day? 

Jan Fullerton and her team at the National Library have also been incredibly helpful; the submissions on a range of subjects from early literacy through to services for the aging population, have been invaluable in shaping the program and providing advance information for delegates, and of course everyone at ALIA House has been run off their feet in the last week, putting together Summit papers and handling all those last minute arrangements. 

So much effort, so much preparation, and such big hopes for the outcome of Thursday’s Summit.  Of course, we have grand, over-arching ideas, but at the very least, we want those politicians to walk out of that room having learnt something positive about public libraries, having considered how they might fit with their agenda, and having thought “we can work with these people”.  If we achieve that, we have been successful in starting up the kind of conversation we need to have with government at all levels - and that’s what this Summit is all about.

Fingers crossed

Jan Richards

ALIA President

As Jan mentioned in her blog submission the decision to relocate IFLA2010 from Brisbane to Gotheborg was extremely difficult. Like Jan, it was my first time in being involved in anything as complex. Organizing an IFLA congress is a very complex affair. On the surface and to many it may appear to be a conference for IFLA but organized by ALIA - well far from it.

There are a number of parties necessarily involved in the organisation of an IFLA congress. In our case, obviously there was IFLA itself, and of course ALIA as the host national association. IFLA also had its appointed conference organizer, Congrex, working on the Congress. You also need to bear in mind that IFLA and Congrex were on the other side of the world.

The National Committee was the group coordinating the event. This group was chaired by Keith Webster from the University of Queensland and included Sue Hutley, Jan Richards and (belatedly) myself from ALIA, Jan Fullerton from the National Library, Lea Giles-Peters from the State Library of Queensland, Sharan Harvey from Brisbane City Council, and Moira Fraser from the NZ Parliamentary Library. Alex Byrne from UTS, former President of ALIA and IFLA, also participated in the discussions. The group also had involvement from venue and marketing organizations in Brisbane, and other people at a state and national level. The organizations involved in the event were all reputable, and the individuals were all experienced and extremely well connected. 

As you can see ALIA was a significant, but not the only organisation involved in organizing the event.

The IFLA press release included the following,

With the uncertainty around the world economic crisis combined with very limited opportunity for government and local financial support the Governing Board has agreed that it cannot risk a potential significant financial loss for IFLA. (http://www.ifla.org/en/news/ifla-regretfully-cancels-the-2010-ifla-world-library-and-information-congress-in-brisbane-austr)

An enormous amount of effort was invested by the group to obtain the necessary funding. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the National Committee the necessary funding wasn’t guaranteed. IFLA was advised of the likely scenario of the Congress not meeting budget, and subsequently decided in its wisdom to relocate the Congress to a location where it felt it would be a viable event. To blame ALIA for having the event cancelled is unreasonable and inaccurate. The National Committee provided IFLA with an assessment, and IFLA ultimately made the final determination.

Unfortunately IFLA, ALIA and the organizations represented on the National Committee do not have financial magic puddings for budgets.  In the era of the GEC/GFC risks need to be minimized. Notwithstanding the financial situation, IFLA and National Committee were confident that the 2010 Congress would be a well run, professionally organized, intellectually stimulating, and enjoyable event.

It is extremely pleasing and heartening to see the response from the Australian Library community. I think the sentiment could be generally summed up as disappointed but looking forward to replace IFLA with a stimulating and innovative event.

Its not surprising that there are a few brickbats in the blogosphere and the email traffic - possibly well deserved, possibly not. One in particular, drew comparisons with the 2010 IFLA Congress and Australia’s tilt at securing the 2018 or 2022 Football World Cup. I’m sure if the National Committee, like the World Cup bid, had been able to secure the support of one of Australia’s richest men, we wouldn’t be having the discussions we are now.

What’s done is done and perhaps we now need to look forward to replacing IFLA with a national event.  Regardless of whether the IFLA event is replaced or not there are still significant events on the horizon. Next week we have the ALIA Public Libraries Summit which is sponsored by the National and State Libraries of Australasia, Public Libraries Australia and Friends of Libraries Australia.  Senator the Hon Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and Parliamentary Secretary for the Voluntary Sector will open the summit and has expressed her commitment to the event. In terms of the influencing the national agenda this one day event could be very important.

In September we have National Library and Information Technicians Conference to be held in Adelaide. In the last quarter of the year we have the National Advisory Congress where members will be able to discuss issues with ALIA Board members. The theme for this year’s NAC is ‘Lobbying and Advocacy’. Given the events of the past week and the results of the ALIA member survey its a very pertinent theme.

A few years ago I attended a leadership workshop. The catch cry at the workshop was ‘chin up’. I think its time for us all to keep our chins up and look forward, rather than looking down or backwards, or thinking about what could have been.