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ACTive ALIAproACTiveNumber 228: September 2002University of Canberra Awards | Doreen Goodman Award 2002 | Database indexing workshops
University of Canberra Awards John Balnaves Award for best student in the subject information retrieval: Laurel Paton. John Balnaves was the founding academic in the library and information studies program at the University of Canberra. Nancy Lane Award for academic excellence and professionalism. This award is given to the student who demonstrates a potential for a high level of performance as a new professional. It was presented to Sarah Young, one of the first to graduate from the double degree, Bachelor of Information Technology/Bachelor of Communication (Information). The Doreen Goodman Award was given to Merrilee Pigram, the business manager, ACT Library and Information Services, Special Library Services.
Dr Trish Milne
Doreen Goodman Award 2002 The Doreen Goodman Award recognises significant and special service to the library and information studies program at the University of Canberra. It is named after one of the founding academics of one of the oldest library schools in Australia, the University of Canberra 's thirty two year old program. Merrilee has had along and close involvement with our program, and has made a significant contribution to librarianship in the ACT generally. Merrilee has a passionate commitment to public libraries as a core component of local communities. One of Merrilee's concerns is that the right people are attracted to work in this branch of the profession. Merrilee introduces first year students to the breadth and depth of public library service and shows that, above everything else, public librarianship is about caring about people and about serving their information and recreation needs. Merrilee was one of the first library managers to make her library available to host a student from the Partners in Learning Internship (PAL). She encouraged members of her staff to become mentors in the program, promoted it across the ACT Public Library Service, and always got to know the students individually. The Professional Opportunity Program, a formal link with the university, was initiated by Merrilee in 2000. The Public Library Service makes an entry-level professional position available each year to a University of Canberra graduate for a period of 12 months. This scheme is the capstone opportunity of a process which began in the students' first year when Merrilee first talked to them about public libraries. Last year Merrilee convened a 'think tank' to discuss challenges facing school and public libraries. As a result, the university now offers an undergraduate degree in either primary or secondary education with a teacher-librarianship specialisation. Another outcome is a collaborative research project between the University, ALIA, the National Library and the One Umbrella Group, aimed at changing the perceptions of senior high school and college students and career advisers about what a career as an information professional now offers. The grant funded a locally-produced video which showcased information professionals working in diverse and interesting areas. Merrilee is a highly effective advocate for public libraries. She also has a unique ability to share her passionate commitment with students who are inspired by her message and example. We are grateful for the support she has given to us and to our students over a number of years and we hope that she will accept this award as a small token of our appreciation. (This is an edited version of a speech by Dr Trish Milne)
Database Indexing workshops The first session, on the basics of electronic indexing, was presented by Lynn Farkas. Lynn described the components and characteristics of common indexing tasks, including database indexing, current awareness, document and web page indexing and metadata, and discussed examples of each together with the skills required. Interesting exercises in bibliographic description, abstracting and assigning subject headings and descriptors from thesauri followed. Lynn also commented on the difficulty of maintaining consistency and quality control in any thesaurus or database over time, and answered questions on the practicalities of working in indexing. The afternoon session was conducted by Sandra Henderson and focussed on the history and structure of the hierarchical Medical Subject Headings thesaurus (MeSH). MeSH is used for medical databases such as Medline and the Australian Medical Index, as well as for cataloguing in medical libraries. The thesaurus has 20 000 headings and over 250 000 'see' references, as well as 100 000 entries in the supplementary drug and chemical listings. The structure of MeSH can be explored at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html. Sandra gave a comprehensive introduction to using the MeSH thesaurus and provided another set of excellent practical exercises which proved to be quite humbling. In conclusion, Prue Deacon explained how MeSH had been modified to create a thesaurus for use by the Department of Health and Ageing. Changes include Australian spelling, common usage rather than specialist medical terminology, and natural language order, as well as a reduction in the number of preferred terms and the inclusion of terms needed for Departmental use. The thesaurus is also used to create metadata for the Healthlnsite gateway. Sally Goodenough |
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