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ACTive ALIAproACTiveNumber 236: July 2003[Wanted: Local presence person | What is propaganda in times of war? | PEARLS | Children's and Young Adult Group | AIATSIS Library tour and talk | Five years ago] Wanted: Local presence person
A local presence person is needed to assist ALIA's ACT groups for the equivalent of three days a month, following the resignation of Judith Brooker, our first ACT local presence person. The work to be undertaken will support ACTive ALIA's objectives and activities. This may include acting as a local contact point for enquiries, co-ordination and liaison, organising activities, financial and other administrative work. Judith has taken a full-time job in the ACT Library and Information Service so needs to cut her additional job commitments. She will continue her valuable work as voluntary treasurer for ACTive ALIA. What is propaganda in times of war?On the bitter winter evening of 25 June over 40 people braved the chill to hear two interesting and contrasting papers on propaganda in wartime at the Australian War Memorial. Emma Jones from the War Memorial Research Library spoke about their extensive collection of the publications of the Far Eastern Liaison Office (FELO). This innocuous title was the cover for their true activities which was active combat propaganda in the Southwest Pacific theatre in World War II. Saved from destruction by one of their staff who thought that this part of history should not be lost, the AWM has thirty folders of FELO publications produced between August 1942 and October 1945. In this period a staggering 69 million leaflets were produced. Emma described how they were distributed, usually by air but sometimes by artillery shells and flare canisters. Some were designed to tell the local people of dangers that they might face and so keep their support. Others were aimed at the Japanese army. The greatest problem appeared to be in establishing what might be effective and appealing. The Australians were caught between believing that the Japanese were completely indoctrinated as a fighting machine, yet knowing that propaganda must aim at the individual. FELO tried to avoid outright lies, knowing that these were unlikely to make an impact but sometimes made errors in couching their publications with western images. Emma rounded off her talk by showing some very rare Japanese propaganda leaflets aimed at the Australian troops. These tried to create anxiety by painting the Americans as having sex with Australian women while their soldiers were far away, perhaps being horribly disfigured. Rob Hurle, a research student undertaking an MA at ANU has recently returned from six months in Vietnam, researching his topic on the materials produced between 1945 (the end of the Pacific War) and 1954 by the Viet Minh. He has found what remains in the National Library of Vietnam and the Museum of the Revolution in Hanoi. These publications were intended to teach the people and mould public opinion, especially in rural Vietnam, during the period of struggle with the French who were finally defeated. In effect, the publications aimed to develop a national consciousness rather than to be used as battle handouts. One of the most famous was 'The history of our country' by Ho Chi Minh, written in 1941, but reprinted many many times. It told the story of how the French and the Chinese and others had tried to invade Vietnam but had been repulsed. Generally, the intention was for these copies to be circulated in the community and for those who could read to conduct public readings. Produced under very primitive conditions in the jungles of Vietnam, using stencils and other simple means, often with paper they made themselves, sometimes from cardboard, their preservation life seems limited. Rob described how he photographs these very fragile publications for his research. Marie Sexton PEARLSPEARLS (Previously Employed Australian Retired Librarians) met at BOOKPLATE in the National Library of Australia on Monday 16 June. There was quite a big group of retired librarians at our meeting who enjoyed some of the gorgeous gateaux and coffees on offer. Conversation ranged over many topics including the present political problems and how the world has changed since the terrorist attacks over the last couple of years. One of our members is about to leave us to move to Sydney and discussed the joys of auctioning her house in Canberra. We touched on the question as to whether boys and girls should receive the same education. We noted with admiration that a group of retired librarians in the UK is travelling to Australia later in the year. These people have already had successful trips to Paris and Prague. The suggestion was made that we try to arrange a get together with them while they are in Canberra. Our next gathering will be Monday 11 August 2:30pm at BOOKPLATE. Eileen Mills Children's and Young Adult GroupOn 16 May many members of the new Children's and Young Adult Group for the ACT Southern NSW and Riverina dined together to welcome old and new faces from the school sector and public libraries. We completed all the formalities of a new group, deciding that the posts of Convenor, Treasurer and Secretary would rotate between Judy Brooker, Sarah Steed and Louise Oldham for the first six months. Our group is off to an enthusiastic start and will hold its next meeting on 13 September - more details soon.
Judy Brooker AIATSIS Library tour and talkDoreen Mellor, Director Development Public Programs National Library of Australia, will speak on 'Aboriginal Protocols' at the AIATSIS Library on Wednesday 13 August at 5:30pm. Barbara Lewincamp the AIATSIS Library Director is arranging a tour of the library to coincide with the talk. This will be the August meeting of the Library and Information Association ACT group ACTive ALIA, as part of the new policy of introducing library tours (which the Specials used to organise) and talks in various libraries in the Canberra region. Five years ago...Spare space in this month's issue gives us a chance to look back a few years, to the leading article in the July 1998 proACTive. What were the burning issues we faced then? Here is a look at some of those issues by the then Executive Director of ALIA, Virginia Walsh. Have they all now been resolved? Or are these still big questions to be faced? Having the edge in the 21st centuryFuture library and information professionals Virginia Walsh spoke to a well-attended breakfast meeting of the ACT Branch on 10 June, on the theme of 'How to make management take notice and learn to value our 21st century libraries'. She began by referring to a recent paper in American Libraries, in which the writer said that a new kind of 'Good Professional' would be needed in the 21st century, someone who gets the most patron service for the library's buck - meets deadlines - acts objectively - shoulders responsibility - keeps an open mind - welcomes learning from others - seeks new ideas - reads widely - wants to experiment - empowers staff - and inspires trust (Inter, 1998). The point Inter makes is that the Good Professional of the future will be different from the Good Professional of the past. This calls for innovation. As we move towards the millennium, library and information professionals are facing at least three major paradigm shifts (Marshall et al, 1996). The first shift is the transition from paper to electronic media as the dominant form of information storage and retrieval. Linked to this transition is the convergence of previously separate media, such as text, graphics, and sound, into multimedia resources. The second shift relates to the increasing demand for accountability, including a focus on customers, performance measurement, bench-marking and continuous improvement. All this in an era when the financial resources available for providing library and information services are shrinking. The third shift comes from new forms of work organisation, such as end-user computing, work teams, management delaying, job sharing, telework, outsourcing, downsizing and re-engineering. All three of these shifts are related to a combination of factors such as global competition, new computing and communications technologies, and the perceived need to measure the productivity of knowledge and service workers. Without knowing definitely what the future may bring, the best we can do is to develop a set of generic skills and recognise that the only thing that will guarantee librarians a secure future is an open mind and a willingness to adapt and be flexible (Jackson and Shirley, 1997). What if you ran your library like a bookstore? Brendan Smyth, the ACT Minister for Urban Services, made this suggestion at the opening of ALW last month, and he went to the opening of Australia's first book 'superstore', Collins Broadway. Barnes and Noble, the big US bookstore chain, runs its superstores for 30 per cent less than a comparably sized public library branch (Coffman, 1998). It uses on average 34 sales staff compared with the library's 30-32, but the wages bill is only $613 600 compared with $882 000. And a typical Barnes and Noble store now houses more books than most US public library systems: 175 000 (although the library will circulate 500 000-700 000 titles a year). It is open 7 days, 98 hours a week, compared to the library's 6 days and 63 hours a week. Central buying means that only 35 staff handle most of the buying for over 450 Barnes and Noble stores. They arrange their books by subject and genre, as their customers want. And the bookstores also have comfortable chairs, book talks, discussion groups, performances, story time and author readings - and community relations co-ordinators. What can we learn from such book shops? Future role for libraries and information services Librarians cannot ignore the necessity of responding to community and business enthusiasm for more colourful, animated, interactive and timely information (Walsh, 1997). Targeting the right information, developing information literacy and navigating the 'superhighway' will all be done through libraries just as we continue to meet the more traditional demands for library services. Librarians will need to recognise that, more and more, their clients do not want to 'borrow' but rather to 'browse without end' (Allen and Retzlaff, 1998). The library's role in a wired, digital worl is to provide services which in effect foster and improve the Internet itself, generating communities, publishing information, and providing access to the metainformational tools needed to navigate the Internet. So, where do we go from here? What is the most important thing you do? And will it still be there in the future? Virginia kindly gave the notes of her talk to proACTive's editor, who prepared this summary. She based part of her talk on these references:
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