ALIA West

November Board of Directors meeting

Some of the major issues of the November meeting were:

• Development of sponsorship guidelines, designed to encourage other sources of income other than membership fees. ALIA is seeking sponsorship packages to cover more than just conferences and awards.
• Discussions have commenced for the development of a web based membership system, which should be available for renewal of memberships next financial year. The new system will allow members to update their own records, add their CPD records and the easier production of group e-mail details for officer bearers.
• ALIA to make a submission to the Broadcasting Services Act Internet Content Review. The issue of internet filters is back on the political agenda.
• ALIA/ASLA taskforce has identified 5 projects involving standards for teacher-librarians, advocacy, "telling our story", education for teacher-librarians and evidence-based practice. Further discussion will occur to establish how ALIA can support and participate in these projects.
• As part of the Board's program to review and update policies, the Board reviewed the statements on senior library appointments and ALIA's role in research.
• Development of membership growth strategies for 2003-04.

Update on ALIA's key initiatives

Key initiative 1: Develop and market new services for students/new professional members
Natalie Blanchard convenor of the New Generation Policy and Advisory Group presented a plan of the new Group's activities. The first step is a workshop to finalise their proposed initiatives that will be presented at the March Board meeting.

Key initiative 3: Achieve favourable purchasing agreements for institutional members for products and services, including licence agreements
An ALIA organised Forum on Purchasing Agreements was held in October and was seen as a successful initiative by the groups who participated. The Board gave in principle support for the development of a program for achieving favourable purchasing agreements for online resources for institutional members. ALIA is not forming a consortium but has a role to provide CPD training, an advisory service, advocacy and lobbying.

Key initiative 9: Identify central role of ALIA in the development of a research culture for the library and information sector
A research committee and research bylaws have been created to support the REAP project, which comes from the report "Promoting research and information sharing: report of the ALIA Research Initiative Project". The report will be available soon on ALIAnet and the project launched in 2003.

National Policy Congress (NPC)

Key Initiative 8 Develop a strategy for career long education for the knowledge age has become known as the Liseka framework and an update report was presented at the NPC. LISEKA stage 1 is completed and a final report on stage 1 by Mairéad Browne is in the November 2002 inCite. Stage 2 is being driven by a Board sub-committee and involves the:

• review and finalisation of the ALIA draft statement "the library and information sector: core knowledge, skills and attitudes",
• development of an educational framework linking entry level to the profession, work level guidelines, CPD and ALIA's membership categories,
• development of a model for future directions in course recognition,
• establishment of a CPD program for 2003, and
• pilot studies with organisations that already run library staff development schemes.

Draft policy plan
Most of the discussion regarding the draft policy plan was in agreement with the direction and activities outlined in the plan. There were some minor changes to the plan and the clear message that "members first" was considered a priority. The final version of the plan will be tabled at the March Board meeting.

Information Agenda
There was some discussion on the Information Agenda regarding what it is, means and what role does ALIA have to play. No firm decisions were made regarding the Information Agenda but it will remain an item of interest for the Board to pursue.

The Board and NPC meetings were productive and there are several new projects for the Board to implement during 2003-2004.

Australian Library Week (ALW) 12-18 May 2002

I am also part of the LIW reference group which decides themes and promotions etc regarding Library Week. If you have any good ideas of suggestions I would love to hear from you.

Silver membership pin

A new initiative to recognise members' contribution to ALIA is the new silver membership pin, which is available to all members who have served 5 or more years on an ALIA committee or group. This is self-nominating, all you have to do is contact membership ph 02 6215 8229 or e-mail membership@alia.org.au. Full details in the December issue of inCite. (I left the best bit to last to make sure you read the boring bits!)

Please contact me if you have any questions or require more information. My contact details are phone 08 9268 7138 or e-mail deanne.barrett@fedcourt.wa.gov.au

Cheers
Deanne