proACTive

Number 239: October 2003

[12th ALIA National Library Technicians Conference | Terrorists in disguise? | ALIA National Policy Congress 2003: 'Celebrating success' | An Elusive Quarry | Young at Heart]

12th ALIA National Library Technicians Conference

The National Library Technicians Conference was held in Brisbane 9-12 September, with over 50 delegates attending from Canberra. The theme 'Bridging services: embracing reality' focused on customer service with speakers offering many views and experiences. The whole program was varied, busy and fun, with plenty for everyone.

Topics included (but weren't limited to) copyright, the labour market, customer service, information desk design, resume writing, genealogy, marketing, library architecture and on-line clients. The delegates (there were over 550) had a chance to participate in many different ways. These included giving poster sessions, presenting papers (the first time for many), giving reports, asking questions, going on library tours, attending workshops and browsing through the trade exhibitions.

As if this wasn't enough, there were all the usual things that technicians are known for, such as plenty of networking, eating, drinking and enjoying themselves. The Dunn and Wilson Scholarship winner, announced at the dinner, was Lothar Retzlaff of WA, who has just completed his term of office as convenor of the National Library Technicians Group. A presentation was also made to the Library Technician of the Year ( Jackie Williams, SA). Now for the next conference - Sydney in 2005!

Beth Clary
ACT Technician Convenor

Terrorists in disguise?

With the intriguing title of 'Librarians - terrorists in disguise?' Nerida Clarke, Telstra Business and Government Bid Manager, gave a Professional Perspectives talk at University of Canberra, on 24 September.

Nerida began by showing a slide of a stereotypical librarian and then compared it with a belly dancing librarian website: http://www.sonic.net/~erisw/bdlib.html
The title of the talk came from a quote by Michael Moore in his book Stupid White Men which refers to librarians as terrorists. The book had its publication delayed after September 11 until December 2001 by the publisher who said that the book was too controversial and critical of the government. Moore gave a talk to a group where there was a librarian in the audience who was quite incensed about the non-publishing of the book. She sent an e-mail to newsgroups criticising the publisher, accusing the publisher of censorship. As a result a lot of librarians sent e-mail and 'terrorised' the publisher into publishing the book.

Nerida outlined her work in Telstra, in the business and government sector where she deals with proposals to key Federal government clients, like Centrelink. She analyses customer requests and breaks down, e.g. a tender, to its component parts. She identifies the needs, finds information the customer requested, searches the Internet and intranets, and collates information, putting it into a sequence that is understandable to the customer, making sure that it is correct legally and within copyright requirements.

She also outlined what key competencies governments are looking for: customer focus - project driven - team based - technology driven - information aware - legally aware - respond to change - commercial.

She gave some examples of how the skills of a librarian can match these competencies and the variety of job titles on offer: document managers, database developers, client server administrator, information literacy trainers, knowledge manager, digital library manager, information brokers, information officers, information analyst, knowledge broker, systems analysts, webmaster.

Nerida offered some strategies to maximise employability:

sell yourself as an information and knowledge worker in the broadest sense - your skills will need replenishing to make changes;
recognise and sell your unique skills and apply them to the organisation;
do further study and back up your skills;
read and network;
be flexible and be prepared to move;
stay in touch with the profession;
look at the big picture, for example, look at government developments.

In conclusion, she stated that the most important things are what we say about ourselves and what we do with our skills. Whether we are likened to someone in a twinset or a bellydancer, we need to be the Ultimate Multi-tasker.

notes by Sevilay Esat

ALIA National Policy Congress 2003: 'Celebrating success'

The NPC 2003 was held at ALIA House in Canberra on 19 and 20 September, attended by 24 delegates including regional representatives, national group liaison officers, local presence officers ALIA Board and staff. The congress was well run and very well-organised - my congratulations to all those involved with this side of the NPC.

Early on, Ivan Trundle spoke about and demonstrated the new ALIA website, noting developments such as Research Exchange and Partnership (REAP), the e-print repository and the members-only areas (http://www.alia.org.au/members-only.html). We were all encouraged to explore these new areas and try the new services.

The main body of the NCP consisted of delegates reporting on behalf of their groups and discussion on the ALIA Towards 2010, all interspersed with the 5-minute segments of 'celebrating success' - the success story (or stories) from each group.

There were mixed reactions to Toward 2010, but the Board supported its stance, that there needs to be a longer time-frame to work to than just the 3 year business plans.

The reports from each regional group are now all available at An Elusive Quarry

Vic Elliott has recently taken up the position of Director of Scholarly Information Services and University Librarian at the ANU. It was in this capacity that he spoke to ALIA URLS on 24 September on the intriguing topic 'An elusive quarry: information resource management in the academic library'.

Vic began by explaining that he would be talking about uncertainties rather than certainties, provoking questions rather than giving answers. He asked "What has changed to make things so much more complex than in the past?" and pointed out that changes in technology mean that the library now contains two parallel environments. The print environment looks much as it always has, but the electronic resource environment requires us to question long-held views about archiving and permanence and we do not own most of the electronic resources that we link to.

The electronic environment has been grasped enthusiastically by those seeking information, leading to changes in user behaviour which again challenge old assumptions. Many users do not come to the library and are content to search the worldwide web and other resources which do not offer the structure and quality of a library catalogue. One implication of this is that libraries need to adopt mechanisms which lead users to search the collection as an integrated whole rather than as a number of parts. Vic also suggested that the gatekeeper role librarians had in the print environment may have passed to the vendors.

For the academic library, electronic access has revolutionised the service model and Vic indicated that as librarians we need to appreciate the view of all the resources now available through the eyes of the patron.

In attempting to look at what the changes might mean for academic libraries, he stated, 'in the past, when we built our print collections we validated their usefulness; something we are barely able to do in the electronic environment of the Internet' and noted that volatility of content is likely to be the major feature of the information environment in the future.

Vic identified a number of roles which he sees as appropriate for academic libraries and which require different partnerships and approaches. He spoke particularly of the library as a partner in the academic enterprise promoting scholarly communication and being publisher for the university.

In referring to more traditional library services Vic thought that 'it would be sad if we were to allow the main library catalogue to ossify'. In looking towards future roles for the academic library he indicated he thought that libraries are well placed to make their contributions to the management of the burgeoning eprint repositories, and also highlighted that XML will have a major impact and we need to understand its implications.

from notes by Christopher Dawkins and Margaret Henty

Young at Heart

The inaugural ACT, Southern NSW and Riverina Children's and Young Adult ALIA group seminar was held on 13 September at Queanbeyan Public Library. The excellent presentations confirmed the high standard of professionalism in this area of specialisation.

The morning session theme was 'Sharing Excellence'. Mylee Joseph, from Sydney, spoke of her many years as an active leader in children's services in NSW. Nicki Lo Bianco provided insight into multicultural services to children, with particular reference to the outcomes from a special ACT government Community Partnership grant. Lynette Sebbens from Queanbeyan provided an outline of a very successful program for organising story time for a community that has a combination of a lack of preschool places and a high need. Lynette and her team were also responsible for the inspiring book week theme scenes, 'Oceans of stories', that enhanced the seminar room.

Maureen Waterhouse from Merici College had us all in awe of her library and its technology focus. The insight into combining a library and a teaching career was particularly valuable. Catherine Carter is new to the National ALIA office and came along to share some outcomes and observances of 'Simultaneous Storytime' and enjoy the feedback. Georgina Dale, from national office, discussed continuous professional development and the review of the current ALIA program.

After lunch, Trish Barron gave an in-depth breakdown of the Club Cool and Bookstart programs in the ACT Public Library Service. Club Cool is an incentives program for use in public libraries to encourage reading and listening by children up to late primary school age, with badges, certificates and other rewards as the children progress through the program. The Cool Awards for children's books, held in co-operation with schools, are chosen by child readers as part of this program.

Bookstart is a program being run in the UK and other countries, which has been adopted by the ACT Public Library Service. Parents of newborns are given a library bag, a free book, a rhyming and song booklet and information about literacy and the very young. This is a new program and 4,500 bags will be distributed this year. Sarah Steed, Manager of Gungahlin Library gave a paper on 'Why YA's?'which analysed services to young adults and their particular needs. Her presentation incorporated the latest research in these areas. Hopefully this paper will be published on the CYS e-list.

The momentum and enthusiasm generated at this seminar will be continued in June 2004 at a pre-Book Week extravaganza. It was a valuable day involving people all around the region who are passionate about providing quality library services to children and young adults.

Judith Brooker

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