July-December 2003

Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors

from ALIA Schools Victoria, November 2003.

Purpose and goals as stated in ALIA group application:

To encourage collegiality among its members
To promote the interests of school libraries and teacher-librarians
To provide opportunities for professional development for personnel in school libraries
To lobby for school libraries with state and local groups
To liaise with other professional groups in the field, for example SLAV
To identify and analyse current trends in teacher-librarianship
To maintain the profile of teacher-librarians within the ALIA structure
To hold regular meetings and to disseminate information in print and electronic format

Activities from 1 July to December 2003
...including an evaluation of the achievement of the group in relation to the purpose and goals.

On 25 October, ALIA Schools Victoria held a seminar on Evidence-based practice forum. This was a celebration of the Evidenced based practice forums that had been held during 2002 and 2003. All participants were invited to see examples of good practice that had developed following the previous seminars. The participants were most appreciative of the collegial support and found the seminars very valuable. This activity fulfilled the following goals:1,2,3,6, and 7.
The group held scheduled meetings on 18 July, 16 August, 25 October and 15 November. Following the meeting on August 18 the members received a mailout inviting participation in the October 2003 professional development session. These meetings fulfilled the following goals: 1,2,3,6,7,and 8.
A joint dinner was arranged with SLAV to celebrate School Libraries Day, 27 October 2003. This was a great success and covered goals: 1,2,3,4 and 5
Three members of the ALIA schools Victoria are members of the joint ALSIA/ASLA committees, Kris Johnstone is the ALIA representative on the Joint Issues Committee. Anne Girolami and Sandra Ryan are the ALIA representatives on the Joint Policy committee. Anne Girolami is the convenor of the latter group and the ALIA/ASLA Statement on Teacher-librarians in Australia has been approved by both Associations. In these ways ALIA Schools Victoria is fulfilling the following goals: 1,2,4,5,6,7 and 8.
ALIA/ASLA Joint Committee has also been developing a statement on Standards for Teacher-librarians. The draft format of this was presented at the CBC/ASLA Conference in Hobart, October 2003. Further work will continue on this document during 2004. This work related to goals 1,2,4,5,6,7 and 8.

This analysis clearly demonstrates that all of the group's goals have been covered by these activities.

Forward Planning for January-June 2004

13 March has been planned as a professional development session titled Note well! Notemaking in the electronic age. Covering the topics of plagarism and student skills in information literacy.
A further seminar titled Evidence-based practice is planned for 2004 to be run on a Saturday to give country participants an opportunity to further their skills in this area. This will be a spaced learning module in May and June 2004.
During Term 4 we will present an Online forum for teacher-librarians on current trends affecting the profession.

Barbara Bugg
Co-convenor
ALIA Schools Victoria

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