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ACTive ALIAproACTiveNumber 248: February 2005[ New Librarians' Symposium 2 | Information Online Conference | APSIG meeting | ALIA ACT New Grads meeting | ACTive ALIA and AGLIN ] New Librarians' Symposium 2Gwyn Wilding Aaaah Adelaide, Haigh's chocolates, Coopers beer and a few hundred rowdy librarians. This was my first conference and it was daunting but exciting. And a note to those of you who might want to attend these things, but don't want to go solo. Fear not. Like me, there were many others who went alone, but activities were built into the two days which enabled us to meet and enjoy the company of many different librarians. NLS2 attracted librarians of all ages, and backgrounds. My highlight was hearing the personal histories of both the speakers and fellow librarians. Not only did I discover that we are a very diverse bunch, some fresh out of school - some having come to the profession later in life, but what really came home to me over the two days was how many different career options we librarians have. For example, I met librarians from public libraries, TAFEs, universities, state and commonwealth government departments, special libraries, and librarians who are now working for companies who serve libraries, such as James Bennett and Civica, and the list goes on. Other highlights were hearing speakers like Jessamyn West, her talk was inspiring and hilarious - check out her website; making new contacts; and all the cool free stuff that the vendors give away! NLS 2 was inspiring, and empowering. NLS 3 is in Sydney in 2006 - I'll be there.
Information Online Conference, Sydney, February 2005Online conference: a meeting of friends Roxanne Missingham, National Library of Australia The Information Online Conference this year provided a forum for a meeting of minds for many people from libraries, IT and online learning. The conference is always one of the highlights in the library landscape as it brings new ideas, enables an enormous group of people to get together and network and also is a genuine sharing of activities and thoughts. This year it was a very stimulating experience, particularly speakers in parallel sessions rather than the keynote speakers. Two of these streams stood out to me as challenging and stimulating. The first was undoubtedly the rise of institutional repositories - though not many commented on the need for a better word to describe such an archive! There were many interesting papers presented on this topic, among them Tom Ruthven's paper on the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories and Geoff Payne's on the ARROW project. A second very interesting stream covered metadata issues. Some gave great food for thought - David Hawking's research took a swipe at the premise that metadata actually improved the search experience, while a panel quite openly discussed the limitations of metadata and the challenge of actually developing a demonstration of the value of the painstakingly created special data undertaken by those in the LIS field. Eleven presentations were given by ACT based speakers, and there were four from Charles Sturt University, so the region was very well represented. My personal favourite presentation was from Maxine Brodie who compared library and information service with a two stage model - using Dr Doolittle's push-me pull-you two headed llama. It was an excellent and engaging way to suggest that the 'new' librarianship is based on a whole new focus on user oriented services outside our four walls. When this is online I recommend that you walk through the slides! Impressions of Information Online 2005 Ian McCallum, Libraries Alive! Catch-up time. Familiar faces. Lifelong friends. Great trade exhibition. Knowledgeable suppliers dispensing higher quality information than many speakers. Patchy papers. Pleasant conference dinner, but punitive volume from the band. Sparkling Darling Harbour. You had to be there. For me, the standout paper was delivered by David Hawking from CSIRO's P@noptic search engine research team (http://es.csiro.au/Presentations/io2005.pdf [925kb pdf]). He argued that anchor-text (the embedded name or short description of the hypertext link to another document or web site) was more useful than metadata since it reflected the value of the 'target' and delivered a quality assessment on content worth linking to. Some of the other papers on web search engines left me groaning inwardly and counting down to the break. Several speakers seemed oblivious to the fundamental difference between the web as a commercial marketplace (how to get your organisation to the top of the hit list) and the web as a source of information (how to get your organisation the information it needs). And while I'm whingeing, I wished that some of the apparently obligatory imported speakers would learn to take it easy with the 'high level' stuff and share their detailed experience instead. Most of the good things were at the trade show. Boy, is RFID (radio frequency ID) progressing apace. System vendors are adding new chunks of functionality for federated searching, remote authentication and digital object management. And simple things work too - like a TV based message system for explaining services to library users. ALIA's stand was a handy crossroads for catching up with friends, and our indefatigable Madame Kinetica was the drawcard of the NLA stand and still managed to attend or chair all conference sessions. Did it change my life? Yeah, a bit. Try www.mooter.com as your home page - at least for a while. It's an associative search engine, presenting information in conceptual clusters. I've been surprised just how effective it is. [Papers and presentations from the conference: http://conferences.alia.org.au/online2005/papersandpresentations.php]
Transvestites and treasures of the Malay archipelagoALIA Asia-Pacific Special Interest Group lunchtime seminar, 8 February 2005. Discovering Malay world collections: around the world in 20 minutes. Anna Reid, information access officer Southeast Asia, ANU Library spoke on the riches to be found in Malay collections around the world. From tattered page to high-tech stage: I La Galigo, Indonesia's unknown epic. In her presentation Anya Dettman, Indonesian unit, national library, posed the following questions: 'What is the connection between the NLA's famous Treasures exhibition and pirates and transvestites in Sulawesi? And where are there not two but five sexes?' These are some of the intriguing questions behind possibly the world's longest and least known epic poem, 'I La Galigo'. This little known Bugis poem set in another middle earth with its own lord of the rings, has recently been brought to the world stage in a lavish production by Robert Wilson of 'Einstein on the beach' fame. Anya provided a visual and musical look at the cultural background and history of 'I La Galigo' in its literary and theatrical forms.
ALIA ACT New GradsNatasha Simons About 15 people attended the ALIA ACT New Grads event on 14 February. The group was very diverse and included students as well as those working in libraries such as Geoscience Australia, parliament, FACS, defence, AusAID and the national library. Discussions covered the closure of the library course at the University of Canberra; how to decide in which area you want to work in a library; challenging the 'bookish' image of librarians; whether library courses really prepare you for your job; and positive feedback about the New Librarians Symposium held in December 2004. The event highlight was a talk by Jan Fullerton, director-general of the national library, about the development of her career. We were inspired by her passion to make more of the NLA's collection available to Australians wherever they may live. Kinetica's sponsorship of refreshments was gratefully acknowledged. For more information about Act New Grads, contact Natasha Simons, ph 02 6262 1660. ACTive ALIA and AGLIN information sharing sessionsACTive ALIA and AGLIN, the Australian Government Libraries Information Network, have joined forces to present information sharing sessions for librarians in the ACT in 2005. A mixture of lunchtime and late afternoon sessions will cover a range of topics for enjoyment and edification. Each event is worth one ALIA CPD point per hour if you are enrolled in the ALIA CPD scheme. The venue will usually be the national library conference room, 4th floor (unless another venue is stated). Presentations include:
Since times and venues may change, please check the ACT events notices on the ALIA website for up-to-date details and new events. This ALIA/AGLIN programme has been put together by Karna O'Dea, Roxanne Missingham, Kym Holden and Sherrey Quinn. For further information please see the ALIA events website, or contact Karna ph 02 6121 6310 or Sherrey ph 02 6257 9177. Reports on the presentations will appear in subsequent issues of ProACTive.
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