ALIA Information Science [SA]

January-June 2002

Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors

ALIA Information Science (SA) held 2 CPD evening events during the period - the first, our bi-annual VALA feedback event, and the second a Library and Information Week 2002 celebration.

The VALA feedback event on 14 February - e-VALAtines Day, attracted 42 members and other interested persons. Our guest speaker, Amanda Nixon, subject liaison librarian for law and legal studies at Flinders University, re-presented her and Ian McBain's VALA paper Electronic Reserve - the trial that exploded outlining their experiences with planning and implementing an e-reserve. Five other Adelaide librarians who attended VALA also reported on the highs and the lows of their conference experiences.

For LIW 2002 we planned another evening event Libraries in My Life with guest speakers Tom Shapcott, professor of creative writing at the University of Adelaide, and Caroline Treloar, director of arts industry development in Arts SA. Unfortunately Caroline fell ill the day before the event, and was unable to attend. However, the 28 people who attended were entertained by Prof. Shapcott with stories of his use of libraries for research in writing historical novels, although several participants challenged his not all together positive views of the internet as an information source.

Our planned June event Changing work environments - a joint event with ALIA ARCoM and SA Library Technicians - did not proceed due to the withdrawal of both other parties.

We continue to operate a discussion list, and make use of our pages on the ALIA website.

There have been some resignations from the committee, although it is pleasing to report new members have been recruited.

Stephen Leahy
Secretary
ALIA Information Science (SA)