Archive for July, 2009

Today’s the day!!

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

As I type this, and probably as you read this, the Public Libraries Summit is underway!

It has been a very exciting year for the Public Libraries Advisory Committee (PLAC). My time on the committee beginning with the ‘Library Stars’ event at last year’s biennial conference, ongoing evaluation of ALIA policies, submissions to government organisations, the library ambassadors program, the little book of public libraries and, of course, now the summit.

Regular updates from the summit are being tweeted by @ALIANational with the keyword #Summit09 and include summaries of who is saying what, photographs and more information about the summit.

I think now is the time to say ‘Thank you’ to my colleagues on PLAC who have worked very hard getting these projects underway. You may think that being on an ALIA Committee is all consuming – but it’s not! We all hold down full-time positions outside of PLAC and have the extremely satisfying benefit of seeing the results of our efforts being well supported by ALIA members and interested stakeholders.

Kathryn Cass

ALIA Public Libraries Advisory Committee Member

P.S. Don’t forget to follow what’s happening at the summit via Twitter at http://twitter.com/ALIANational

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Tomorrow is only a day away!

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
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

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3 Days and Counting!

Monday, July 13th, 2009
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

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