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ACTive ALIAproACTiveNumber 259: December 2006[ Biblio Turismo 2006 | Nancy Pearl in Australia | ACTive ALIA / AGLIN Information Sharing Forum: Visit to ACT Heritage Library | News from ACT Library and Information Services | AGLIN AGM | Report on attendance at the New Librarians Symposium | More than 4,000 new titles are being added to ABS web site ]
Biblio Turismo 2006
Sherrey Quinn A group of librarians on motorcycles visited country towns in NSW and Victoria in November. The 1600 km motorcycle tour 'Biblio Turismo 2006 - Springwood to Cootamundra' was organised by Gosford City Library staff to help raise awareness about country libraries and encourage younger people to join the profession. Librarians from Gosford, Manly, Parramatta, Blacktown, Rockdale, North Sydney, Young and Canberra participated. The group visited libraries in Springwood, Bathurst, Orange, Cowra, Cootamundra, and Tumut, and travelled via Tumbarumba, Corryong (Vic.), Holbrook and Gundaroo, with overnight stays in Cootamundra and Wagga Wagga. All participants travelled in their own time and at their own expense. T shirts and posters were sponsored by Keith Ainsworth Pty Ltd. Our library colleagues were extremely hospitable - morning tea at Springwood Library, lunch at Bathurst Library, afternoon tea at Cowra, morning tea next day at Tumut. We met Regina Sutton, NSW State Librarian, at Orange. The Mayor of Cootamundra welcomed us to town at a sumptuous meal at the White Ibis. We toured the libraries we visited, met our colleagues, discussed their library buildings and services. At Bathurst, the route naturally took in a round of the famous Mt Panorama circuit. Community interest was aroused by items in library newsletters and local papers. Kids at Cootamundra, waiting for the library to open on Saturday morning, were impressed by the line-up of bikes, and astonished to learn that that most of the people in 'cool' leathers and motorcycle gear were librarians. An added benefit of the ride was rain - it showered or stormed in most of the places we visited that weekend! However, nothing quenched our enthusiasm or enjoyment of the tour. More information and photos at: http://biblio-turismo.blogspot.com/
Nancy Pearl in Australia
Sherrey Quinn Nancy Pearl, possibly the most famous contemporary librarian outside the library world, visited Australia in December 2006. Until August 2004 Nancy was the Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library. Nancy has written about the appeal of books, taught librarians how to determine which books individuals might enjoy, and is the author of the bestselling Book Lust and More Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood Moment and Reason. She is also the inspiration for the Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure, complete with a stack of books and a push-button shushing action. Nancy's Australian tour takes in visits to the State Libraries of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia and the Dubbo Public Library in NSW. Around 40 librarians from the central west and north west regions of NSW gathered at Dubbo Public Library to hear Nancy speak on Tuesday December 12th, an event organised by the State Library of NSW. Nancy gave two presentations. The first - on mood, appeal, and motivation in providing excellent readers' advisory service - discussed key aspects of readers' advisory work and appeal characteristics of books or, in Nancy's terminology, the different 'doorways' through which readers enter books - story, character, setting and language. In the afternoon session Nancy discussed book clubs, their role in positioning the public library in the community, and the 'dos and don'ts' of how public libraries might run book clubs. These were relaxed, informative and interesting sessions - participants enjoyed the opportunity to talk about books with such a knowledgeable and engaging person. More info about Nancy: Nancy's website.
Interview on ABC Radio, 10 December 2006:
ACTive ALIA / AGLIN Information Sharing Forum: Visit to ACT Heritage LibrarySherrey Quinn, Libraries Alive! Pty Ltd In November 2006 ACTive ALIA and AGLIN members visited to the ACT Heritage Library, which is located in Level 1, Woden Library, on the corner of Corinna & Furzer Streets, Phillip. Library Manager Antoinette Buchanan spoke about the Library's collection and the collecting policy and conducted a tour of the library, which was refurbished in 2004. The ACT Heritage Library is part of the ACT Library and Information Service. Antoinette explained that the ACT Heritage Library 'helps tell the stories of Canberra and its people'. The Heritage Library therefore collects, maintains and provides access to material relevant to the history and development of Canberra and the ACT. The Library's collection contains books, photographs, newspapers, manuscripts, maps and plans, ephemera and records of local organisations and individuals. It is an invaluable resource for researching the history of ACT places, people, events and organisations. Some items are available for loan under ACT Public Library lending conditions, but most material is not for loan and may only be viewed at the Heritage Library during opening hours. Some manuscript collections are subject to access restrictions. Resources are limited compared to those of the large national collecting institutions so the ACT Heritage Library tries to build its collection by negotiating donations from authors, publishers, local organisations and members of the community. Op shops, markets and second hand book shops are useful sources of documents. Whenever possible the ACT Heritage Library tries to work cooperatively with the national institutions; their collecting focus is national, but the Heritage Library's focus is local. The photograph collection is extensive, and an interesting selection was on display for us during the visit. Over 8,000 photos have been digitised and are available on Images ACT at: http://www.images.act.gov.au/ The digitisation program is continuing, and the Library welcomes the donation and loan of photographs for copying. The ACT Heritage Library catalogue is searchable on the Internet as part of the ACT Library and Information Services system. Frequently asked questions and links to external sources of information also assist local history researchers. More information is available from the ACT Heritage Library's website at: http://www.library.act.gov.au/find/history
News from ACT Library and Information ServicesMargaret Hyland, ACT Library and Information Services
Library Review Report The review was carried out as part of the ACT Government's Functional Review to reduce staff and levels of business across the ACT Government Departments. Dr Lunn was asked to analysis financial and statistical data to benchmark the ACT Public Library against similar library services in other states. The most immediate outcome has been the closure of the Griffith Public Library branch. Many other outcomes and a number of 'sub' reviews are outlined in the report. Implementation of the many other recommendations of the report will start in 2007 and will take at least one year to complete. With the closure of the Griffith Library, the Woden Library has become much busier, with daily averages of 1800 customers through the doors, rather than the 1000 daily average customers through the doors statistic prior to the closure of Griffith.
New Civic Library
AGLIN AGMThe Annual General Meeting of AGLIN, the Australian Government Libraries Information Network, was held at the National Library on Wednesday November 29, and attended by 33 people. Debrah Lewis presented the paper she and Mary Teague wrote for the CLICK06 Conference in Perth, which focussed on AGLIN's role in `connecting government'. This was an extremely interesting presentation, which helped raise awareness of both the Australian Public Service Management Advisory Committee's Connecting Government report and AGLIN's role in contributing to the work of Government agencies. Kym Holden outlined AGLIN's achievements for 2006; these related to the Strategic Plan developed in 2005. After years of preparatory activity a paid membership model has been introduced; this has been taken up by a significant number of Government libraries at all levels. AGLIN continued to offer a range of professional development activities; this included the 3rd Annual Conference and various courses and workshops. Other activities during the year included: raising of AGLIN's profile through the CLICK06 Conference paper and key speakers at our Conference new Website launched in July Development of partnerships with other organisations - this included the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with CAVAL and participation in Information Awareness Month Involvement in development of National Site Licensing A focal point of Mary Teague's presentation of AGLIN's future directions was a possible move to an alliance with AL under an MoU; one suggestion from a meeting was the development of an AGLIN stream at ALIA conferences.
The Executive Committee for 2006 was thanked for their work and a new Executive for 2007 was elected. The new Executive elected its office bearers at a subsequent meeting and it is:
The evening concluded with refreshments, kindly supported by One Umbrella.
Leadership and Inspiration at NLS2006
Ingrid Gascoigne The theme of the 2006 New Librarians' Symposium was Pathways and Possibilities, held in the beautiful Scientia Building at UNSW. Over two days I was challenged by my peers, and inspired that so many of them are leaders in their workplaces and bringing their own special brand of oomph to the profession. A panel discussion on the first afternoon brought together seasoned and new generation leaders. Alan Smith (State Librarian, State Library of South Australia), Kate Sinclair (Senior Liaison Librarian, Flinders University), Tania Barry (Children's and Youth Library Services Coordinator, Wyndham Library) and Andrew Wells (University Librarian, University of New South Wales) shared some of their insights. Alan spoke first of the need for positive opportunism and calculated risk taking. Leadership requires being very consistent about most things, but then having the courage to be inconsistent when the need arises. Kate named passion as the quality that inspires people. For Tania, a great leader is one who shares their vision and so brings the team along with them. Andrew commented that being a leader is not always about being nice. It means asking the hard questions and being prepared to answer the hard questions as well. Faithful to the symposium theme, the discussion soon turned to creating pathways and nurturing leadership potential. Andrew recommended trying things that you don't think you can do, by looking for things that extend you. Alan added that being uncomfortable is the only thing that stretches a person into growth, and Tania made the observation that in order to develop, this stretching needs to take place by seizing or initiating opportunities within your current position. Kate spoke of the enormous value of her ALIA experience and non-job activities in nailing a gruelling interview which unlocked a leadership position for her. Throughout the entire session the audience buzzed with the energy and obvious passion of the speakers. After two days at the NLS, I came away feeling that I had been made larger somehow, expanded by new ideas and enthusiasm. Now, I'm catching glimpses of possibilities for myself and my unfolding pathway as a Librician. My thanks to the organisers and to all who attended for co-creating an experience which will inform and inspire me for the next two years-until NLS2008 - I intend to be there!
Report on attendance at the New Librarians Symposium
Roxanne Missingham At the start of December, I took a holiday and attended the New Librarians Symposium. It was quite an inspiring event - over 200 bright, energetic and challenging new librarians and library technicians, including our own Shannon Ross, and some of us old things as well. The conference presentations will be up soon ) and I encourage you to browse. ACT Librarians gave great papers -Managing the retirement brain drain: A case-study from the Manuscripts Branch at the National Library of Australia by Beth Lonergan, Bronwyn Ryan and Renée Shuttleworth and whY generation? Millennials as managers, or the future of library management by Kate Davis. Saturday morning's keynote speaker was Joan Frye Williams on Information is Not Enough: Shaping the User Experience. Joan is a US based independent consultant specializing in innovation, technology, and the service needs and preferences of non-library 'civilians' who really challenged us to get out of our spaces and truly welcome the user - in the Library's physical space, online and more importantly in our attitudes.
More than 4,000 new titles are being added to ABS web siteThe Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has added more than 4,000 extra publications to its collection of free online publications. The set of mainly historical material includes all ABS publications, national and regional titles, released during 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 including the Australia and State Year Books. With the addition of this set, the ABS web site will now hold all ABS publications released from 1994 to the present day. This latest addition represents a 30% increase in the number of publications that people can view and download for free from the ABS web site at www.abs.gov.au. Head of the ABS Information Services, Kerrie Duff said the addition of the material was a large step forward in the ABS mission to encourage informed decision making in the community by making statistics available to the public. 'It's a massive amount of new information that is available online,' she said. 'It represents four years of the work of the ABS and it will provide a rich resource for students of Australian social and economic history." 'In a real sense, with this move the digital age has captured some of the pre-digital past.' Some of these publications have been converted from older scanned images to pdf files. These historical publications will appear with all current publication pdf files and are treated as past issues when accessing them on the web site.
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