proACTive

Number 224: June 2002

Congratulations to Belle Alderman
At the end of last year, the Council of the University of Canberra appointed Belle Alderman Australia's first full Professor of Children's Literature. Belle's contribution to the study and teaching of Australian children's literature has achieved national and international recognition. She has also contributed enormously to the University and her School of Information Management and Tourism, the Children's Book Council of Australia, the Lu Rees Archives, and to generations of students and parents.

Peter Clayton

ALIA 2002 wash-up: a personal view
If understanding our present is a pre-requisite for powering our future, then for the 500 people present, plus several hundred e-delegates, ALIA 2002 in Sydney last week was a resounding success. There were many distinguished contributions to the information agenda.

It might not have been. Devising a conference addressed for the most part in a single stream and by people from 'outside' libraries was a dangerous distance from our comfortable format of parallel streams addressed by largely local library luminaries.

The available papers are now accessible at: http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2002/papers.html

For me, three papers stood out:
The first was Alan Bundy's quite brief outgoing Presidential Address entitled 'Only connect...' Alan discussed the need for greater connection within the profession, with those who might be our allies, and with our values. He used a wonderful analogy of geese in flight: '... as each goose flaps its wings it creates an uplift for the birds that follow. By flying in a V-formation, the whole flock adds 71 per cent greater flying range than if the birds flew alone.'

Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social commentator, described the fundamental shifts in the way we live our lives:

The divorce rate is the highest in our history (each weekend, half a million kids move between custodial and non-custodial parents)
The birth rate is the lowest in our history
The marriage rate is the lowest for 100 years
Households are shrinking. 30 per cent of people now live alone
We are living through the period of greatest inequality in income, and the highest level of personal debt, and under the 'dark shadow' of a doubled youth suicide rate.

Hugh used these words and phrases to capture the current mood: 'Disengagement. Reform fatigue. Issues fatigue. People re-focus on themselves. We get interested in the things we can control. Obsession with tending our own patch. Means politicians can get away with murder. People are less compassionate. Prejudices re-emerge.'

He also saw the signs of 'libraries on the threshold of a new golden age' as people yearn to be connected, to be part of 'communities that feel like communities.'

Fragmentation, rather than connection was the theme of Ann Harding's (National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling) graphic presentation on our increasingly divided society. She used trend data to underline the growing divisions between work rich and work poor, employed and unemployed, rich and poor, wealthy suburbs and poor places. Ann saw an increasingly divided society, with an ageing population (and generational tensions) and serious inequalities in access to information: and a role for libraries in identifying and addressing the needs of fragmented user populations.

In their closing remarks, first Neil McLean and then Joyce Kirk pointed out that incremental change is no longer enough, that transformational change will be needed to secure sustainability for the library sector. Building bridges with natural partners outside our profession, is now imperative...and well and truly on the information agenda.

It was a challenging, confronting conference. What we do with what we learned is obviously up to us. Joyce may well prove prescient in her suspicion that ALIA 2002 will in hindsight be seen as a watershed.

Ian McCallum

Health First: the ACT health call centre
Judy Martin, client services manager, McKesson Asia-Pacific, spoke about Health First to local members of Health Libraries Australia and guests on 22 May. Health First is a 24-hour, 7 days a week phone service operated by McKesson for the ACT Government. It is staffed by registered nurses.

There are three types of service:

Triage, which is an assessment of a patient's symptoms so as decide whether to call an ambulance; advise the person to seek care from the emergency department or GP urgently; advise the person to seek care from their GP soon; or provide self-care advice.
Providing information about the location and availability of health and community services, particularly after-hours availability.
Providing general information about health conditions. The same decision support process and information database is used by all staff so that advice is consistent.

Some key points about the triage service:

3000-4000 calls per month.
Most calls are answered within 20 seconds.
The biggest patient groups are children aged 1-4 and females aged 26-35.
Peak periods are early evening (parents wondering whether to put a sick child to bed) and late evening (parents ready for bed themselves but worried about a sick child).
The top reasons for calling: a child vomiting, a child with a rash, abdominal pain in adults.
About a third of callers are routed to self care advice: in some cases this gives reassurance where a person was not sure whether to go to their GP.
Importantly, some seriously ill patients who might have battled on by themselves are routed quickly to emergency care.
There is still a need for after-hours care services in addition to the hospital emergency department.

What role do libraries have? The information provided by Health First about diseases and disorders is at a very broad level. Health, public and school libraries have a role in providing additional health information to the public whether in print or online.

Health First is available in the ACT region on ph 02 6207 7777. The website is at http://www.healthfirst.net.au.

Prue Deacon

Libraries Change Lives!
Choosing the winners in the joint ACTLIS and ACTive ALIA story competition wasn't easy, with many wonderful stories to choose from. The winners in each category were: Primary, Harrison Cross of Curtin; Secondary: Courtney Lewis of Rivett; Open: Leslie Chan of Manuka. An additional prize, Highly Commended, was awarded to Marion Wilson of Chifley. In this issue of proACTive we feature the winning story in the Open category. We hope to feature other stories in future issues.

Jan Gordon (on behalf of all the judges)

Leslie Chan of Manuka (Winner, Open category)
For as long as I can remember, going to the library, browsing the shelves and borrowing a stack of books has been a weekly habit. Everywhere I've lived, an essential part of settling in has been to become a member of the local library. I have used libraries in the ACT, New York, Hong Kong and Rome. Not withstanding the excellence of these libraries, the library service I treasure most was the tiny Cocos (Keeling) Island Library.

Cocos is an Australian Territory in the Indian Ocean, closer to Indonesia than Australia. In the mid-1980s, life on Cocos was quite isolated from the Australian mainland. Every fortnight, there was one flight from Perth bringing in fresh food and mail, and every few months, there was a supply ship. About thirty Australian families lived on an island six kilometres long and one kilometre wide. There was no television, shops, cinema, restaurants or other facilities we take for granted in Canberra.

The library was a vital source of entertainment. It occupied a small room of the old communications shack. From the window I could see the waves crashing onto the reef. The ceiling fan groaned as the blades slowly rotated, keeping the humid air moving to prevent mildew forming on the books.

The books were supplied by the ACT Library Service. Every six months, librarians thousands of miles away filled a crate with books and sent them to Cocos, replacing the previous shipment. In such a small collection, every book was precious. It was not unusual to go through almost every book within the six months.

I discovered authors I had never heard of and would not have read if I had had a bigger collection at my disposal. I also ended up reading about archaeology, coin collecting, philosophy, the American Civil War, and other subjects that never interested me before. This tiny library on an isolated island opened up a wonderful world of discovery that epitomises the magic of libraries.

Wanted
Old records, photos, papers and other interesting items from the ACT ALIA Branch.

We are gathering items to form an archive of the ACT ALIA Branch, now ACTive ALIA. We are interested in documents such as Branch minutes, correspondence, newsletters-especially pre-1990. If you have taken photos at any ALIA activities we would like to see them. Even if you can't remember all the details, maybe we can find a member who can.

Has the branch ever produced T-towels, T-shirts or T-spoons? Have you received an ACT ALIA award or certificate you would be happy to present to the archive?

Please contact Judy Brooker (local presence officer) ph 02 6230 2266, or judith.brooker@alianet.alia.org.au, to discuss whatever you have of potential interest.

Judy Brooker

A new RTO in the ACT!
DocMatrix, known to librarians and library students as a publisher of training materials, is now also a Registered Training Organisation. It is already busy delivering on-the-job recognition, training and assessment, filling the gap left in the ACT when AIMA ceased operating last year.

AIMA was the only RTO in Canberra able to offer an avenue for library workers to gain qualifications in their library.

The trend towards on-the-job assessment and training, to complement the off-the-job training offered by TAFEs and universities, should bring career enrichment to the many people who have worked for years in libraries but have not been able to study formally. However, this strategy depends on the existence of RTOs, and their ability to navigate the bureaucratic reefs and shallows.

Certification and the annual hurdles of accountability have to be negotiated separately for each state and territory. Then employers must be shown where training funds may be found and how to access them.

DocMatrix has now been certified and looks forward to delivering services in New South Wales as well as the ACT. A broader route to career development for library staff is once again open, and everyone is welcome to join the celebrations: see Events for details of the program launch at the NLA on 6 June.

Mary Mortimer

Jennefer Nicholson to speak at ACTive ALIA's June meeting
It's been almost a year since ALIA's new structure took effect. Come along on Wednesday 12 June (NLA 4th Floor Conference Room at 5:30pm) to hear ALIA Executive Director, Jennefer Nicholson tell us about the many issues confronting ALIA and particularly the newly formed groups. For example, what's the future for newsletters such as proACTive? It's also an opportunity to ask questions and offer feedback on what you'd like ALIA and/or ALIA groups to be doing. Networking and refreshments provided!

ACT Technicians
Seven participants from the ACT attended the Rivers of Opportunity II weekend workshop in Albury on 20-21 April, meeting their colleagues from NSW, Victoria, SA, WA and NT. The program included presentations from Picture Australia (NLA), EBSCO online, Copyright and the digital environment (ALIA), Buddy (a University of Melbourne initiative) and ProQuest. On Saturday afternoon some hands on practical work was put to the test with mini-workshops on internet searching, genealogy, résumé and interview skills, leaflets and fliers. These all proved to be very popular. And a lot of fun was had by all!

Beth Clary

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