proACTive

Number 236: July 2003

ACTive ALIA convenor's column

National Policy Congress 2003

The National Policy Congress, which will be held in Canberra on 19 and 20 September, is an important consultative mechanism to ensure that members have input into the policy-making process of the Association. We will be using the same two-tier model that worked so well last year.

The 2003 National Policy Congress is being held in two stages:

Stage 1: Regional meetings are being held. All groups are invited to send one delegate to the closest regional meeting.
Stage 2: One representative selected at each regional meeting will attend the National Policy Congress to be held at ALIA House, in Canberra, on 19-20 September 2003.

ACT Regional meeting

The ACT Regional meeting will be held on Wednesday 6 August in the National Library of Australia Conference room at 5:30pm. There will be two background papers for the regional NPC - these should be available shortly along with a draft agenda for the regional meetings. The construction of the National Policy Congress 2003 page is underway and will be available soon at http://www.alia.org.au/governance/nac/2003/.

Each group is asked to nominate one representative to attend the regional meeting. This representative must be either a current personal member of ALIA or the designated representative of an institutional member. Other group members may attend the regional meetings as observers.

National and multi-state groups are also asked to nominate one representative to attend the regional meeting closest to them.

Librarians in communities

On Wednesday 23 July there will be a lunchtime talk, 'Librarians in communities: the indigenous knowledge centre project' by Angela Barry from Indigenous Community Volunteers. Indigenous Community Volunteers Foundation (ICV), under a partnership arrangement with the State Library of Queensland, is inviting librarians to participate as volunteers in the development of the Indigenous Knowledge Centre (IKC) program in the Cape York and Torres Strait regions of Queensland.

Professional librarians will work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff in eight Indigenous Knowledge Centres (IKCs) in North Queensland under the Librarians in Communities pilot program. In the future, another twenty three IKCs will be established across the region.

IKCs, developed by the State Library of Queensland in consultation with local community councils, have already opened in North Queensland at Wujal Wujal, Lockhart River, New Mapoon, Erub and Mabuiag Island with a further three planned to open in Pormpuraaw, Arukun and Poruma. The Librarians in Communities project is a six month pilot project which involves the placement of librarians in communities where IKCs have been established to:

Ensure the IKC is open five days a week and during holiday periods.
Provide support for local IKC staff during Certificate II training in Library and Information Services being delivered in partnership between Cairns TAFE and State Library of QLD.
Act as mentors for local IKC staff.
Work alongside staff and community to help develop the organisational capacity of IKCs.
Work alongside staff and community to develop targeted programs and activities for school holidays and special interest groups.

I look forward to seeing you at the talk on Wednesday 23 July. I have watched a preview of the video on the indigenous community volunteers that will be shown during the talk. It seems an exciting and rewarding project for all involved.

Helen Roberts
Convenor, ACTive ALIA

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