The ALIA National Advisory Congress 2006

Canberra regional meeting report

1. Attendance

Roxanne Missingham (BOD presenter), Helen Roberts, Ian McCallum, Sherrey Quinn, Jill Buckley Smith, Beth Clary, Jan Gordon, Anita Maher Crotty, Robyn Ellard (minutes), Georgina Dale (for 1st part of the meeting).

2. Selected representative to attend the national meeting of the NAC

Name: Jill Buckley Smith
ALIA membership no: 14233

3. Celebrating success

ACT Library Service boosts usage through technology & engagement with the community

The new Kippax library in Western Canberra is a major success story. Opening last year with a substantial injection of new material, loans, visits and Internet bookings have increased by more than 120 percent. Remarkably, this increase in usage has been sustained for the past 12 months.

In other initiatives the Library Service has stepped up its involvement with indigenous and emerging communities by publishing readers in Tongan, providing multi-lingual resources in languages such as Amharic and Mon, and working with the Winnunga Nimmitijah Aboriginal Health Service to support adult literacy, diabetes and prenatal programs.

Responding to the growing popularity of PDAs, e-books and e-audio books can now be downloaded from the Library's Web site.

4. Planning - achievements in 2006, forward planning for 2007

Roxanne gave a powerpoint presentation to the group which highlighted that the key objectives for the Board of Directors would remain the same, but that there are some areas the Board wishes members to comment on. She stated that the BOD wished to 'drive the agenda for change' and that specifically were looking at the below issues:

• Proposed changes to governance - single 2 year elections for BOD and the ensuing issues for President and Vice-president, ED becoming a voting member of the board, the BOD being able to co-opt expert individuals from outside the library sector and give them equal powers
• Key strategic areas of Board of Directors and standing committees
• Membership and groups - decision to employ a Groups Liaison Officer to support groups and the achievement in the association's increase and retention of membership
• Professional Development
• Education and workforce planning
• ALIA's financial sustainability

Group Discussion:

• Roxanne talked about ALIA's financial sustainability and the members asked about engaging / co-branding with training providers to generate income. Roxanne advised that Ann Ritchie is leading the Conferences and PD Standing Committee, which will be reviewing some of these issues.
  Roxanne also mentioned to the members about the Board of Directors investigating long-term plans about the Association's finances including investments and leasing of ALIA house.
• Members discussed PD in relation to workplace and individual responsibilities as well as the need for the Association to expect its members to continue learning if they want to be considered quality employees in our industry (for example, PD is expected for accountants if they wish to work). It was discussed that the Association should support employers in providing PD for staff and to encourage middle managers to support PD for their staff. Roxanne agreed and stated that this is part of engaging employers in workplace sustainability and planning - another area of Ann Ritchie's.
• Members agreed with many of the proposals to change governance arrangements:
  • Members agreed to have the President, Vice President and five elected Directors elected for two year terms in a single election
  • Members want to keep the same election model of President and Vice President being elected separately
  • Members agreed that if the new election model of two year terms in a single election is voted in, that the President and Vice President be elected for two years, with the suggested change that the Vice President is no longer the President elect, and will need to stand again if they wish to take on the President position for another two year term
  • Members agreed that the Board be allowed to co-opt individuals, who may not be members, to fill up to two additional Director positions and thus add additional skills, knowledge and experience. These two positions will have equal rights to the rest of the Board of Directors
  • Members are happy to have all Director positions be elected by all personal members
  • There was some discussion about the Executive Director becoming a voting member of the Board. The discussion centred around possible conflict of interest and the historical aspects of the Executive Director not having voting rights on the Board of Directors. Roxanne suggested if we, and the Board, expect the Executive Director to implement decisions made by the Board, then having the ED part of the decision-making process means the ED is more committed and involved. In the end the members agreed to allow the Executive Director to become a voting member of the Board as long as there was a policy put in place to review this every few years or with every new ED.
• Roxanne talked about the NAC and asked the question 'do we have too many questions for members to consider every year?'. Members decided that it would be better for the NAC to be focussed on one or a few major Association agenda points eg a governance proposal or focus on a specific area of workplace planning, rather than broad questions such as how can we encourage participation from members in groups.
• The members also discussed and agreed that the NAC could follow the governance proposal of the Board of Directors elected for two year terms in a single election and have the NAC every 2 years with focussed discussion
• The ALIA Biennial Conference was discussed with members focussing on a framework for the conference programme and a model for the conference and satellite events. It was agreed that Biennial is very important for ALIA as it's part of ALIA's intellectual presence. Members made several suggestions regarding Biennial:
  • All papers and presentations should be peer-reviewed, with a poster session for non-review.
  • Biennial be modelled on the US style where Biennial is the umbrella for a group of conferences and symposia. A suggestion is for Biennial to use keynote speakers to bring together delegates and broad industry topics in the morning, while in the afternoon delegates separate and attend sessions organised by their sector/area eg specials, law, HR, public libraries etc. It was agreed that in this model, the Association would have to offer much more support to local organisers, and that policies and a framework organised to assist them. Local organisers could be responsible for venue, catering, AV etc while the Association have a national body of members organising keynote programme and select groups organising the part of the programme relevant to their speciality (eg public libraries group to organise a programme for public librarians etc).
  • Each Biennial conference needs to have a theme that reflects the same theme for each NAC

5. Local issues

In this NAC members focussed their discussion on national issues and very few local issues were raised. Any that were discussed are in the section for success stories

6. Evaluation

Attached - comments were generally positive and the NAC rated well. Most common comments were about more promotion of the event to attract more attendees.

7. Any other comments from the meeting?

None