2003 National Policy Congress background paper

Issues of critical importance

Summary of reports from regional meetings

For the LIS sector

Information policy/information society

Development of policies to progress ideas such as Knowledge Nation, Smart Australia: that LIS is critical to the information society. Beyond the intellectual infrastructure, there is also there a key role to play in terms of social good. Libraries are an essential ingredient. National information plan/strategy - still believe in having one.

Information access, copyright and equity

Visibility in playing a leadership role in terms of digital rights management, copyright, open source initiatives etc, to ensure that legislative issues are well managed in this country. Scholarly publishing: taxpayers fund research in this country; research published in peer review journals which are then accessed via subscription, again at taxpayers' expense. Essential to develop initiatives which support the common good as opposed to commercial gain - cf Public Library of Science, PubMed, open archives etc. Driving the momentum to attain national site licenses to reflect the significance of aiming for a smart Australia. Australian content: what is happening to the WebSpirs databases managed by NLA? Equity in providing access to information, particularly in non-metropolitan areas. Need to pressure the Government that this is critical to a successful nation. Lobbying for national electronic environments eg. Canada where there is nationally paid access to databases across the country. Have hospitals, national, state etc. on the grid and need to lobby for united access. Copyright issues halting the ability to access information.

Information literacy

Information literacy across all LIS sectors: need for the development of relevant standards and kits. Also IL skills for professionals (doctors, lawyers) and for information professionals themselves. Continuing to highlight the importance of literacy and information literacy in the Australian community and the role of the library and information services sector in developing and supporting a literate and information-literate Australian community. Information literacy, particularly concerns about the teacher-librarian course no longer being taught in South Australia and university students not as IT-literate as expected.

LIS workforce and succession planning

Ageing profile of the workforce and the crunch that will come when we have a shortage of professionals. Need funding of training positions in educational institutions. Succession planning and the ageing workforce.

LIS education

LIS schools: quality programs. LIS schools being reduced.

Promotion of the sector and the profession

Image of profession. Promotion of library and librarians to the public.

Recognition and remuneration

Recognition of increased skills by employer. Recognition of professional expertise that would provide financial remuneration commensurate with the professional qualifications and experience of librarians. Equity of salary levels in relation to other professions. Promoting to industry the skills of librarians/library technicians which are relevant in non-library information environments.

For ALIA

Membership recruitment and retention

Effective recruitment and retention strategies for membership base, especially with aging membership which will result in reduced income in 5-10 years. Management of new members: need to have new members automatically added to e-lists for groups they elect to join and a central state e-list eg aliaQLD. New members must tick the box to not be added to the list. Essential to encourage engaged professionals. New members assume they will be added to an e-list, should be push, not pull technology. Also, option for weekly digests of postings to the e-lists. It appears that ALIA membership has stabilised but has not built up to pre-restructure levels. ALIA must continue to work to attract new, young members, lapsed members and those who have been working in the field for many years yet never joined.

Increasing and maintaining membership

Feedback to the regional branches of registration of new members. Encouraging and maintaining membership of ALIA among those librarians/library technicians who work outside libraries in information roles. 'How can we get these people back into the fold?' Convincing employers to value ALIA membership, so that they expect their recruits and employees to belong, and actively support and encourage membership of ALIA. ALIA engaging non-members of the profession including managers and employers to value membership. Attracting younger members. Attracting managers. Attracting educators (library schools).

Marketing the profession and LIS careers

Tied in with marketing the profession as a dynamic exciting career to encourage the 'right' people to consider LIS careers. Need to communicate the 'success stories' beyond the insiders. ALIA website issues linked to promoting and marketing the profession and the association itself to 'non-believers'. QUILL as example of dramatic reduction of access as it is in members-only area. Conflict with: Object 1 of ALIA - free flow of information Object 2: To promote and improve the services provided by all kinds of library and information agencies Object 3: to foster professional interests and aspirations Object 5: to encourage support and membership of the Association. Succession planning continues to be a major issue for institutional members. More work needs to be done to promote careers in the library and information services sector to young people who are making their career choices. While the recent emphasis on new graduates through ALIA's New Generation initiative is an important step forward we need to put more emphasis on attracting young people to the profession in the first instance so that we have potential new, young members for ALIA's New Generation!

Value and benefits of membership

Lack of value for money as a personal member, particularly in WA. ALIA profile - have to push yourself to be a member. $200 too much for new graduates. $150 for first years. People won't pay full price until they can earn money. Can they structure the fees in a different way other than by wages. Value of joining as a personal member vs corporate member needs to be defined and sold to people. Different markets and need to market aggressively to both. Needs to be spelled out in a marketing document as to why join both organisation and self.

Communication within the Association

Collaboration. More national collaboration. Difficult to find out what's happening. Need to be able to get links. ALIA website to put sectors together instead of alphabetically. Communication between ALIA national office and groups needs to be clearer. Severing of ties between the Board and a constituency seen as a problem. Definitely need to address this: ideas mooted include getting each member of the Board to have a portfolio role so they can act as contact point for a particular sector. Base portfolios on broad categories: public libraries, special and one-person libraries etc. Agree e-lists should operate on a non-commercial basis. Note using the internet and e-mail to communicate is okay, but it doesn't bring people together to do things. Means don't have access to new faces so co-opting new people increasingly difficult - much easier to identify interests and persuade in person. Sense that 'are not getting the information' but after discussion agree instead that problem lies in the way information is presented. Agree e-mail useful for quick, short messages and for items that require action. Not good for things that are lengthy and require thinking/deliberation. Some ALIA staff would probably benefit from a chance to get out and meet groups and find out a bit more about what they do and why ... particularly those who are involved in organising events and input from groups. Agree can't communicate in just one way. Consider issuing an annual or biannual 'ALIA Healthcard' reporting on progress matched to plan, or perhaps even matched to sector? Consider a very regular e-newsletter with pointers to what's happening by sector and gossip. Since going into a monthly mag, inCite no longer fulfils this role. People are learning about things from ALN L, when really their Association should be the source of their info. Information Online Group concerned about continued access to the group's discussion list for non-ALIA members that have been traditionally members of and contributors to the discussion list. Groups generally think that participation in e-lists is an excellent link into ALIA and good ground for potential memberships.

Groups

OPALs - Maintaining a group identity within limited financial means and geographical distance and isolation is our biggest challenge. We want to see the continuation of conferences that are directed to specialised groups. It is difficult to justify attendance to our managers when conferences are broadly based and generalist in content. This type of conference would suit our managements who are not librarians but we need to attend events that tell us how others do their day-to-day work. It is difficult in a one-person environment to justify involvement in ALIA activities such as taking positions although it is also important to give a voice to our group's concerns. This is a difficulty that we must address with ALIA's help. OPALS - We preferred the previous group structure model with the autonomy we enjoyed in managing our own financial affairs. We are aware that GST has altered a great deal in the management of money but we believe it was fair that a small proportion of membership fees was returned to groups to use as the group decided. New groups structure: working or not? Absence of focus and reporting lines and responsibilities seen as very problematic. Current arrangement described as 'splintering versus focus'. Informal nature of groups and short lifespans means groups are having to spent a lot of time on the processes of renewing/restating/rethinking rather than the rolling momentum of an ongoing group. How to go prospecting for members on the cusp of activity rather than chasing the inactive, e-mail not very effective for this. National groups report that there is a perception of lack of local activity. Recognise that size of nation is an issue. HLA an example - currently looking for local co-ordinators to help alleviate this, as is Information Online and Next Generation. CYS says the new groups structure has had minimal impact on their own group in NSW but they have found themselves being national by default - the e-list has expanded their membership nationwide. Finance - Incentive to run activities is low when have to return all money to ALIA National Office and apply annually for funding. Happy for money to sit at ALIA National Office, but not happy with the 'one pot' approach. All groups want to retain some of their profits, say on 60/40 or 50/50 basis, as 'carry forward' in budget justification process. Model for Online Conference is a precedent for this. Sponsorship - Want guidelines or general recommendations that detail what things might be suitable for sponsorship, including a 'cheat sheet' on how to prepare a draft brief for sponsors. Want tips on how to identify potential sponsors and access to a central list of sponsors/supporters of the industry, indicating what they support. Recognise should not say dollar amount, but would be useful to see patterns of sponsorship to help avoid mismatching competitors and excessive requests. Want confirmation that sponsorship dollars are used only for the identified purpose and do not go into general revenue, even when money is given for more than one year. Noted that CYS has asked for ALIA National Office help in identifying and approaching sponsors for its two awards (Bess Thomas and Marjorie Cotton). Updating of group website has been slow in the past.

Data and research for the sector

Developing an information source for key data relevant to service development and marketing to stakeholders, eg statistics, value of libraries, role in the community etc. One-stop shop for reliable data.

Research

Promoting, supporting and facilitating research by, for and about health library and information professionals.

Remuneration and pay equity

Further progression of the successful equity pay case in NSW. What further developments? What support from ALIA to move beyond the one case? Need to drive wage parity across Australia.

Partnerships and relationships

Need to open up dialogue with peers, for example: records managers, archivists. Need a peak body. Scattered approach to information management as a profession. Medical Records sections have empathy with health librarians. Health information management. Would be a selling point for members. Establishing effective links across the health libraries sector.

Identifying member needs

Send a survey out with membership renewals as to what people want out of ALIA.

Access to member-only services

Standards for libraries: buildings, staffing, services etc members only access to the website has locked out too many options.

Industrial services

Phil Teece a really valuable role. Need to sell his services more.

Needs of members in rural/remote areas

More support for members in rural communities eg. On web, teleconference. Association member only initiatives are city/southern-based.

Lobbying and advocacy

Continuing national lobbying of government by ALIA to ensure the role of the library and information services sector is fully understood. Lobbying the funding sector. Importance of ALIA being a vehicle to lobby appropriate government and business leaders to raise profile of librarians locally and nationally. Influence national health information policy.

Marketing and promotion of the Association

Image of association.

Policy development within the Association

Who is doing the policy work of the organisation now? Requests for input by members individually does not work as effectively as previous groups structure, which forced people to address issues from multiple perspectives. Hard to make aggregated response because not meeting to thrash out issues.

Conferences

Serious area of contention. Strong sense that the issue of conferences has not been 'solved'. Concern about longevity of the structure: how will the biennial be shifted around without branches? Will people begin to think about organising events far enough in advance if there ceases to be a natural rotation and timeline for such considerations? Want to revisit biennial structure: Can the biennial legitimately take on an umbrella role? Lots of support for this, but also recognition that the need for some specialist conferences or symposia will continue. Want public acknowledgement that proposals for conferences will be considered on merit and encouragement for groups to put special cases forward. Recognise need to revisit opportunities for getting trade information around the industry. The same strategies not suitable for all events. The New Librarians Symposium, for example, offered trade reps small slots in their program , as 'introduction to XYZ' - very effective for new graduates.

Person power and volunteer effort

Not enough people on the committee to do the work! A common lament.

Continuing professional development

Provision and recognition of CPD. Professional development for health/biomedical library and information services practitioners in Australia, including development of a competency-based framework and enhancing the role of the profession in evidence-based practice.