From exhilartion to deflation in 12 hours flat!
You might have guessed from my last post that I’m in Melbourne, always a treat, especially when there’s the prospect of a days R&R (read shopping) on Saturday. I’m here for the Australian Government’s Social Inclusion Conference , billed as an ‘opportunity to join a national conversation about effective and innovative social inclusion policy and practice’.
As we all know libraries, and by their very nature public libraries, are key contributors to social inclusion. So much so that ALIA formed our inaugural Public Libraries Summit in July 2009 around the topic with Senator the Hon Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and Parliamentary Secretary for the Voluntary Sector as our keynote speaker. In her address Senator Stephens talked about public libraries as ‘hubs of community life’, neutral spaces for learning, access to the internet and e-learning. She said, ‘They will remain a vital part of the future … a neutral third place, with the capacity to connect people with the outside world.’
Imagine then the delight of the public library attendees at this weeks event (Karen, Sue, Anna and me) when in his keynote address Professor Sir Michael Marmot visiting from London spoke about the difference reading to children from birth makes in their future development and the importance of the local public library in this and other social inclusion initiatives. The facilitator assured us this wasn’t the last we’d hear about libraries! I can tell you there was real cause for air punching over morning tea and this continued when pioneer of the Hume Learning Village Concept, Frank McGuire managed (after several attempts) to get the microphone during question time.
As the day progressed the anticipated inclusion of libraries and how they can contribute to the government’s agenda didn’t eventuate, or at least not in any of the sessions I participated in and after conversations with colleagues who went to different streams I think the zero approach was pretty widespread. Anna asked ‘why aren’t there any library speakers or case studies demonstrating what we do, everyone else seems to be represented?’ I had no answer.
Following afternoon tea Hon Julia Gillard MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Social Inclusion launched A Stronger Fairer Australia the Australian Government’s statement setting out their plan for acheiving a vision of social inclusion. I can only applaud such a development and the obvious work that has gone into its development.
When I got back to the hotel I sat down with a glass of wine to read through the document and see where we fit into the jigsaw. After the direction of the day I guess I wasn’t surprised to find no mention of the word ‘library’, disappointed yes, but not surprised. Hey I’m realistic enough to be able to slot us into ‘other agencies’ and demonstrate by success how we slot in.
What I found much, much more distressing was the lack of recognition of the role of reading in the priority ‘Improving the Life Chances of Children at Greatest Risk of long Term Disadvantage’. Yes, we can doubtless build it into some of the other initiatives which are included in this policy but when will our governments get it - literacy can be addressed from birth by the simple intervention of reading to your child. I’d be happy to be proved wrong, to have someone say to me ‘look, here it is on page …’ because after all it was my first read and I was getting fairly tetchy towards the end.
We’ll work through this and with our partners begin to align ourselves with this policy. But right now my response is ‘why does it always have to be so #$%&^ hard!’
Jan
Jan Richards, ALIA President
librarydayinthelife
January 30th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Jan,
I hope your overall impression of the Conference was that the government has a very purposeful social inclusion agenda. You know that I believe in the pivotal role of libraries in communities - I refer to them as essential social infrastructure - so don’t be disheartened that libraries per se don’t jump out of the Fair Australia document.
And of course, reading to children from birth has been proven, as Sir Michael said, to improve their life chances significantly. Our challenge ( both the government and ALIA) is to continue to hammer the message that literacy is the key to learning, to a productive and healthy life, to a world beyond our borders, to transformational thinking, to opportunities to grow, to learn, to engage and to have a voice.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:57 am
Ursula, Thank you for taking the time to comment on the ALIA blog As you could tell, there were high hopes in the library world that this report would recognise our role in social inclusion and give it greater prominence – which is why we all felt a little crushed when we flicked through page after page with hardly a mention of libraries.
Your message has definitely taken the heat out of our reaction to the Fair Australia report and we’re all feeling heartened by your continued support.
As you can see from our media release http://www.alia.org.au/media.room/2010.02.01.html, we were still very much in favour of the findings in the report and you can be assured of libraries continuing to give it their all in the community.