Events

Looking at library sectors function

The final event organised by the ALIA West CPD Committee was "Looking at library sectors", held on 21 July at Subiaco Library. We had six speakers from public, special, and academic libraries who gave interesting and entertaining presentations on what it's really like in their sector.

Susan Marie highlighted the perennial problem of getting sufficient funding to maintain an adequate collection. Carol Newton-Smith waxed lyrical on information literacy standards and almost convinced us that they were as exciting as the latest Harry Potter novel. Brigitte Glockner discussed current trends in health librarianship and mentioned her early days as a law librarian who thought that a tort was something edible. Jane Edinger let us know how much the mining resources sector is worth (now we know who to target for donations to a worthy cause) and how to be a good geoscience librarian. Jean McKay talked about the challenges of virtual reference and collaboration with other academic libraries.

Judi Willmott spoke on the pressures from local government for libraries to generate income and methods for this such as the bestseller collection (you can be reservation number 115 for the latest Harry Potter or you can pay $5 to get a copy now). Her tips included only buying popular books for the bestsellers as nobody will pay to read a Booker Prize winner. Judi also explained the need to develop DIY skills as sooner or later you will end up building shelving.

Harry Potter fans came out of the broom closet (or should that be the cupboard under the stairs?) and there was evidence that the gender imbalance in librarianship is not as bad as it was with a ratio of approximately 1 male to 11 females. (Is three males at a library function a record?)

It was a popular and successful function. Thanks must go to Susan Marie for letting us use her library as the venue, the CPD committee: Lisa White and Raima Briede for doing most of the organising, and Judy Allan for helping out on the night.

Camille Peters
Former CPD co-ordinator, ALIA West

Health Libraries informal get-together

The Hollywood Private Hospital Library will be hosting the next Health Libraries informal get-together on Tuesday 30th September from 5:30pm onwards in the Hollywood Hospital Lecture Theatre. $5.00 for catering

Terena Solomons will give an informal talk about the VALA Travel Scholarship she received to research PDA's (Personal Digital Assistants), the conferences she attended (MLA, CHLA and EBL) and libraries, visited in America and Canada in May and June this year.

Non-health librarians interested in hearing about the VALA Travel Scholarship are welcome to attend.

Please RSVP for catering purposes to Terena (please remove '.nospam' from address), 08 93466184.

ALIA West CPD Brainstorming session

Date: Wednesday, 10 September
Time: 5:45-7:00pm
Venue: Café Pages, Alexander Library Building

You are cordially invited to attend the ALIA West CPD Brainstorming session to decide what events we will be running during 2004.

This is your chance to have a say in what your group will be doing next year.

Committee members from other groups are most welcome to attend and discuss possible joint events.

If you can't attend in person we would still like to hear your suggestions or comments which can be sent to either of the e-mail addresses listed below.

RSVP to Camille Peters, ph 08 9490 1730 or ctpeters@safe-mail.net (please remove '.nospam' from address).

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