The ALIA National Advisory Congress 2006

ALIA Perth Regional NAC Meeting Report 2006

1. Attendance:

See signed form.

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

Name: Alison Sutherland

3. Celebrating success

The WALT group held a Bus Tour which was extremely successful with around 20 people attending.

Curtin University Library School numbers have increased by almost 100% since 2001. Demand for places in the course is increasing. Morale amongst students is also much higher and many students are positive about the need to have Librarians and Information Professionals in society. There has also been an increase in the number of Year 10 and 11 students interested in Library and Information Studies as a career option when presented with the option at career talks.

There was also interest by a Secondary School for a professional to visit, and do a careers talk to Year 11 students on the Certificate II Library Studies course.

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

Governance - Proposed Changes
President, VP and five elected Directors elected for two years terms in a single election
Comments:
What happens after the two years? Is everyone completely new to the Board? Will there be no historical Board members / staff / President? If every two years everyone changes this means that there is no continuation at all.

Is two years the right term length?

Wording of the proposal needs to be clarified to avoid any ambiguity.

President and Vice President be either elected separately or from an alternative model from within the existing seven elected Board Directors.
Comments:
Will there be seven Directors, this is not clear and needs to be clarified?

Executive Director become a voting member of the Board
Comments:
Not a popular idea; no support in the room for this change.

Board to be given the ability 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.
Comments:
The majority were for this notion.

One concern was that we are able to acquire expertise anyway, from presentations by professionals and by employing specialists. They do not need to be on the Board.

Adds expertise. There is a perceived worrying gap with skills for example: legal skills. Do not always have the knowledge of repercussions if you are signing something.

However, it does need to be strictly managed, terms defined and also voting rights defined.

ALIA needs to talk about why this was proposed and what is the benefit.

ALIA would need to openly discuss voting rights.

It was also mentioned that ALIA can still commission advice from other professionals if need be.

All Director positions be elected by all members
Comments:
Yes, in general

ALIA needs to clarify how the voting and this would work. How does the counting, checking work. How many votes does an Institutional member get?

Transition to the new model be based on either...,
Comments:
This presumes points 1-5 are passed.

ALIA needs to clearly state the benefits of either model.

Membership Growth
Comments:
The 90% retention rate was set 3-4 years ago and is perhaps not seen as realistic now.

Is this target actually achievable or are we setting ourselves an impossible task? With an aging workforce there is a 'blip' coming with these figures.

ALIA needs to look at the wording again.

How do we make it more attractive to new members? Membership rates too expensive.

Education and Workforce Planning
Comments:
The recognition of courses is a big problem. The $3000.00 per year for a seven year process of accreditation ($21,000.00) is a huge problem with very little hope of getting this funding.

ALIA needs to make a formal announcement about this problem of accreditation and address the issue properly.

This issue needs to come out into the open and not be hidden. There needs to be a breakdown of exactly how and why ALIA reached these figures and some justification of them.

5. Local issues

ALIA West - where to from here?
A where to discussion on the future of ALIA West occurred with the decision made that a brainstorming meeting would be held after the ALIA conference with interested people to work out how to reinvigorate this group. One thought put forward was that it might become a more informal structure.

6. Evaluation

Posted separately

7. Any other comments from the meeting?

No other comments

Natarsha Larment
ALIA Local Liaison Officer
Western Australia
31 August 2006