proACTive

Number 219: December 2001

ACTive ALIA convenor's column

Helen Roberts has to send her apologies to everybody this month; she wishes you all a very Merry Christmas on behalf of the ACTive ALIA group. She is looking forward to seeing you at the Group's Christmas event-a special tour of the National Library's Treasures Exhibition with the curator Margaret Dent, on Wednesday 12 December.

This is a very special exhibition celebrating the treasures in the world's great libraries and also the contribution made to civilisation by all libraries. The special tour will give ALIA members all the insider information and insights and be an opportunity for us to celebrate libraries as a whole-not just talk about digital issues! Don't forget to RSVP to Julie Ward on 02 6262 1316, jward@nla.gov.au, for the event and the Christmas refreshments after.

Another important forthcoming event for ACT ALIA members is the Second National Policy Congress. Jan Gordon has been appointed as the ACTive representative to the congress and is keen to have your views-contact her at j-gordon@adfa.edu.au

Some of the issues on the program for the 2-day congress (7-8 December 2001) are:

Review of progress from National Policy Congress 2000;
ALIA's Action Plan for 2002;
Career-long education for the knowledge age;
ALIA Awards framework;
Core value statement - and how it may link to ALIA's foundation statements.

One important issue to be discussed is the organisation and extent of ALIA conferences in the future. A new model has been proposed, which would reduce the number of sectoral/separate ALIA conferences. ACTive considered the proposal at its recent meeting and developed some principles to take to the National Policy Congress:

conferences are critical to continuing professional development;
sectoral conferences are very important to enable development opportunities and also to obtain information;
there is a need to share information that is of direct assistance to members and libraries though conferences, case studies and real life situations as well as theory;
we acknowledge that budgets are shrinking and stretched but that there is still a need for a range of conferences to suit the needs of different sectors and library areas;
ALIA needs to establish a cross sectoral role by supporting a range of conferences the future of conferences needs discussion and consultation.

Next year will again be a bumper year of activities for ALIA in the ACT. The group is planning to cover interesting issues with speakers, seminars and dinners. The preliminary plan for 2002 activities includes:

February: Tom Ruthven will report on the ILL benchmarking study;
March: Nick Smith and Helen Roberts on copyright;
May: Australian Library Week;
June/July: Electronic products workshop;
August: our midwinter dinner;
September: Looking at the future-guest speaker.

Keep the second Wednesday of each month free to attend these activities!

And a very Merry Christmas to you all.

Roxanne Missingham
for Helen Roberts
ACTive ALIA convenor

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