ALIA Academic and Research Libraries (WA) [arlwa]

January-June 2003 report

Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors

Purpose and program of the group for the past six months

ARL Student Awards

The ARL group was keen to keep the ARL Student Awards because the awards play a key role in fulfilling the objectives of our group. The awards always generate a lot of interest from new information professionals, and they provide a forum for interested individuals to learn about research taking place in library schools. We had three awards for the Best Research Papers courtesy of DA Direct, and one award for the Best Practicum Project in an Academic or Research Library, courtesy of Blackwell's. We decided that ECU, Curtin University and TAFE would each have an award for the Best Research Paper, and that the Best Practicum Project Award would rotate on a yearly basis amongst the three institutions offering library qualifications. The winners were:

• Julie Jalawadi (Edith Cowan University) who wrote on OPACs and their evolvement in the Web environment;
• Michael Klimek (TAFE) who wrote on using a Database to store local community information;
• Belinda Tiffen (Curtin University of Technology) who wrote a paper titled 'Co-operative Collection Development in the Digital Age';
• Paige Luff (Curtin University of Technology) who completed her practicum project at Murdoch University on Special Collections.

The event received a turnout of approximately 30 people, and we received positive feedback from everyone involved.

Virtual Reference Initiatives

Our second event for 2003 was Virtual Reference Initiatives. We received a very large turnout for this event (approximately 50 people), probably because many libraries have been investigating the implementation of virtual reference services. We had three presentations for this event.

AskNow

Gabrielle Reynolds from the State Library of WA spoke about implementing the AskNow online reference service run by NLA and State Libraries consortia group.

Online Librarian: real time/real talk

Murdoch University Library has collaborated with Macquarie University Library to produce an innovative online reference service. This service uses Microsoft's NetMeeting to enable real time conversations via voice-over IP (VoIP) between reference librarians and library clients. Janet Fletcher and Philippa Hair from Macquarie University Library, and Jean McKay from Murdoch University Library spoke about the developmental and implementation phases of the project; the experiences using VoIP and future directions;

'Ten Reasons Why Virtual Reference Sucks' by Ian Lee

Murdoch University Library's Psychology Reference Librarian and one of Murdoch University's Online Librarians, is currently researching virtual reference as part of his Master in Information Management at Curtin University. Ian's project is called 'Do Virtual Reference Librarians Dream of Digital Reference Questions' and he shared some of his findings in a presentation titled 'Ten Reasons Why Virtual Reference Sucks'.

Purpose and program for the next six months

We are currently planning two events and an annual general meeting for the second half of 2003. Our third event will be a Special Collections Evening which is scheduled for August. We are still discussing ideas for our fourth event during 2003, with ideas including online learning and ethics in information environments, and a possible venue for our Annual General Meeting at the end of November.

Group Communication

The ARL committee keeps in regular contact by e-mail, and schedules meetings when required at the State Library of W.A. coffee shop. Topics of discussion at our committee meetings have included planning for the 2004 Student Awards, the State Wide Marketing/@ your library Campaign which is currently in implementation stages in Western Australia, the recent changes to the ALIA website and the ways our group can utilise the Web space, and our e-mail discussion list (this has been hosted by the University of Western Australia, but we are investigating whether ALIA can offer us a mailing list). We have included publicity in Incite where possible, but we aren't usually left with enough time to publicise our events in Incite.

The group communicates with its members through the mailing list WAIN which is for information professionals in W.A., our own ARLEM mailing list, Biblia, and through regular conferences and events. We aim to improve our communication with the group through the ALIA website. Jodi Headlam (ARL committee member) has offered to help the group investigate the members only website. We would like to include documentation of our events, the student award winners papers, publicity for our events, and our six and twelve months reports.

The committee is having a meeting on 22 July to discuss the National Policy Congress. Jodi Headlam will be the ARL representative. We wish to discuss the direction of the website, partciularly the members only website and the public access website. Once we have clarified the use of the website we will be able to fulfil some of our aims regarding communication with our members.