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ALIA Information SpecialistsJuly-December 2001 reportALIA Information Science is effectively meeting its purpose and goals through providing a '...forum for demonstrating and presenting the application of emergent technologies to library and information agencies and the people who work in them'. In achieving our purpose we programmed and delivered three events during the period of this report. On 23 July we joined with ALIA (SA), and the Hawke Institute at the University of South Australia, to present a seminar by Professor Archie Dick, Department of Information Science, University of South Africa on 'Africa and the information industry: the impact of Mbeki's African Renaissance'. Over 30 people attended the event, and much positive comment was made on the intellectually stimulating talk by Professor Dick. On 5 October we joined with ARCoM, SA Public Libraries and the LEARN Network (TAFE) to present a full-day seminar 'PROJECTing the future: project management in libraries and information services'. This event was successful in that more than 60 people attended, and we have received very positive feedback from those who did attend. Of the 31 participants who filled-in feedback sheets 19 rated the overall event as 'excellent', 10 participants rated it as 'good' and no participants rated is as 'average' or 'poor'. On 7 November we presented 'The good OIL - online information literacy initiatives of Adelaide Higher Education Libraries' a panel discussion with speakers from the Flinders University Library, Adelaide University Library, the University of South Australia and TAFE (SA). This was an evening event, and attracted approximately 50 people. We also continue to operate an online discussion list (InfSci SA), and make use of our page on the ALIA website. There have been some variances in our budget - for example, we have been able to use venues for free (or at greatly reduced cost), we did not end up holding a half day seminar, costs for committee meetings and evening events have been kept down due to the generosity of committee members donating food and drink, and the full day seminar in the end did not require expenditure on a speaker's airfare or accommodation. Issues we would like referred to the Boards of Directors centre on concerns we have that the Board of Directors and the National Office staff sometimes do not seem to put enough effort into consulting with groups. For example in recent times we cite:
The Board may not realise that some groups only meet once a month (or even less often!) and this should be taken into account if comment is to be effectively sought from the groups. In addition we would also like the Board to take into consideration that for groups to support change (eg. in the situations cited above) broader conmmunication and consultation is required. We look forward to commenting on these and other matters at the National Policy Congress.
Stephen Leahy |
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