Report of the Board of Directors meeting 10 August 2001

Career-long education for the profession has been on the Board's agenda over a number of meetings this year. At its August meeting, the Board agreed to jointly develop, with stakeholders in the library and information services industry, an agreed education and professional development strategy to ensure the longer-term viability of the profession with its unique skills and knowledge base. The Board of Directors believes that it as vital that this a strategy is developed in partnership with educators and employers.

Achieving an agreed strategy is an important and major undertaking for the profession as a whole. As a first step, the Board has invited Professor Mairéad Browne, ALIA's past president and a recently-retired educator, to convene a small working group to identify the issues, outline the consultative process and develop mechanisms for establishing a plan of action based on and encompassing partnership for dealing with education and professional development.

In November, the Association will convene a national forum on career-long education for the profession with key stakeholders, including representatives from key employing and educational institutions, and possibly allied professions. The forum will be one of the steps in what is expected to be a year-long consultative and development process. The issue will also be discussed at the National Policy Congress in December.

The recent debate in the Australian Library Journal and inCite about education standards will also contribute to the steering group.

ALIA is developing a career-long education and training program and is recruiting for a professional development services officer.

National Policy Congress

Cohesion will be the theme of the National Policy Congress to be held in Canberra on 7 and 8 December. The Board of Directors has decided to invite Ian McCallum to facilitate the congress once. The congress will focus initially on progress made since last year's changes to the Association, after which the focus iwll make onto the issues of career-long education and services for personal and institutional members. Through the group structure, the Board will ask members to identify key issues of significance within these two areas which they would like addressed. Practical issues relating to the groups will be dealt with through a consultative working group to be established by ALIA National Office, rather than at the Congress.

Policy statements

The Association's revised foundation statements and a new code of conduct are to be discussed at the National Policy Congress. The Board is asking for member comments and suggestions for related documents by 30 September. See the September 2001 inCite where some related documents are also reproduced.

Research

The Board has commissioned User Insite to undertake research which will assist the Association to develop services that meet the diverse and changing needs of members. Issues of communication and the most effective use of information technology in the provision of services will be the primary focus for the research.

National privacy principles

The Board adopted enthusiastically the National Privacy Principles described in the August 2001 Directline. The Principles follow international best-practice and foster confidence in the use of new information and communication technologies. The National Privacy Principles will come in to effect from December 2001. The principles can be found at http://www.privacy.gov.au.

ALIA committees

Following calls for nominations in aliaNEWS on 4 July, the Board made appointments to the ALIA online content and regulation reference group and the ALIA by-laws advisory group. The Board decided to postpone appointments to the ALIA/ASLA policy advisory group and the ALIA/ALA joint issues taskforce until the nominations of ASLA are known, thereby ensuring broadest possible coverage.

The call for nominations for the ALIA publishing and editorial reference group has been extended until 30 September. Terms of reference and other information can be found by following the links from committees.