The ALIA National Advisory Congress 2005

ALIA NAC 2005 Sydney report

Selected representative to attend Canberra NAC

Name: Claire Hill.

Celebrating success

NSW Library Technicians Group: Matthew Griffiths. neXt 2005 Conference, 600 people, delegates, exhibitors, volunteers and TAFE students attended the conference. Feedback has been good regarding the exhibition, sponsorship, speakers and library tours.

Alysan Dalby: Alysan is the librarian at the History of Medicine Library. She has commenced a lecture series relating to the library's specialisation. The lecture series has been a success, opening the library up to new people.

NSW Mentoring Group: Claire Hill. There are two aspects to the NSW Mentoring Group. The first being the formal mentoring scheme of partnering mentors and protégés. The second being the Library folk in the pub meetings. These monthly pub meetings have been a success over the months attracting both ALIA and non ALIA members.

ALIA stars program

In some cases the current stars are not known to the wider community. Their achievements should be communicated using inCite and online. The stars should be used to promote ALIA membership, making presentations to the various sectors.

Recognition should also go to people from outside the sector, e.g. copyright.

It was suggested that NSW could nominate and promote three stars.

The following is a suggestion on how to use the ALIA stars program:

Externally: main stream and community media (newspapers and radio), e.g. TV programs and presenters, Enough rope and George Negus.

Employment sections of newspapers, e.g. Radar and My Career.

The target market should be: ALIA members, staff in library and associated fields and the community.

Election of directors

It was stated that the proposed method of election of directors would provide for greater equity.

The meeting unanimously agreed with the proposal to amend the method of the election of directors.

Workforce planning and education

It has been predicted that due to the aging of the library workforce many job opportunities would become available due to retirements. However, due to organisational restructures and library staff extending their careers, this has not been the case.

Succession planning occurs in some organisations and is the role of senior management to implement. However, there is usually nothing in writing and is often dependant upon management at the time and can have budget implications.

It was noted that there are many more non traditional library jobs that utilise the skills of librarians or library technicians.

Many library staff are taking on studies in different fields, e.g. computers and marketing and other short courses. Employers are usually supportive of staff doing these courses but they have to be sourced by the staff themselves.

The promotion of library and information courses was another aspect considered. Information should be provided to schools about how good a profession it is to belong to, diversity of types of libraries and education requirements. A similar type of promotion should be designed for universities and TAFEs. The ALIA stars program could be used in the promotion.

Research awards

All present were encouraged to consider applying or encouraging others to apply for a research award.

The ALIA e-prints depository was also discussed.

Questions

Question: Criteria for national groups being invited to the NAC in Canberra, therefore limiting input to the NAC and board of directors.

Answer: The two national groups that were selected were: ALIA Health Libraries Australia and ALIA Information Online Group. Both these groups are working on national projects. The other groups invited are policy advisory groups.

It is not possible to invite all national groups to the NAC. A consideration for future NACs is to invite the national groups on a rotational basis. There has to be a clearer selection process and better communication to the membership regarding this process.

Question: Does the location of ALIA activities, e.g. NAC and ALIA NSW meetings, impact upon attendances?

Answer: Location can be a significant factor. Meetings held in the city might not attract people in the suburbs. Conversely, meetings held in various suburban locales may not attract people from other suburbs and the city.

There should be better marketing of the NAC to attract more members.