July-December 2002 Report

Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors

Information Science (SA) presented two events during this period. The first was on 21 August and was called - Information Science (SA) Renaissance - dinner, drinks and discussion. It was seen as an opportunity for past, present and potential members to network, make contacts, eat, drink, ponder and profess.... The event was not very successful (in terms of the number of attendees) but it did give us an opportunity to plan future events.

The next meeting was very successful in terms of numbers attending, with over 50 registrations. 'Unwired - issues in a wireless world' was held on 25 October and was conducted in collaboration with the LEARN Network and TAFE SA. It was a half-day seminar looking at Wireless technology - where is it currently, where is it likely to go? What are the real world applications of wireless technology in library and information services settings? What's available now? We had speakers from most library sectors and industry, and participant feedback was very positive.

Planning is well under way for the first two events of 2003, a post-Information Online Conference feedback session in February 2003, and a joint ARCOM/LEARN Network/ALIA Information Science (SA) seminar in April 2003 on Virtual Reference Services.

ALIA Information Science (SA) continues to operate a discussion list, and makes use of our pages on the ALIA website. Because of problems with spamming, we migrated the discussion list from TAFE SA's majordomo software to mailing list software maintained by ALIA National Office. We currently have 49 subscribers to the mailing list.

Stephen Barnett
President
ALIA Information Science (SA)

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