TechNique: January 2006

From the editor

Welcome to the new look of TechNique for 2006.

Happy new year to everyone and welcome to the first issue of a new look TechNique for 2006. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Rob Thomson on board as assistant editor. Finding and recruiting writers to submit articles for TechNique has been a time consuming effort and the chance to share the workload with Rob is much appreciated. Many thanks also go to those who have submitted articles for this edition of TechNique.

The primary aim of TechNique is to share information about what is happening that affects library technicians and associated fields, to introduce and read about people in and beyond the industry and to give you an opportunity to share your stories, however it is impossible for us to do this alone. We rely on your contributions to keep going. Let us know what you would like to read about, your interests, what your group is doing and what your workplace has been involved in. TechNique is a great avenue for networking and knowledge sharing, so make sure you utilise it as fully as you can!

This edition brings us some great stories. Sharon Uthmann writes about a Charles Sturt University meet and greet and how to apply for research grants; Rob Thomson introduces his new column, the Magnificent seven websites and Gemma Willcocks tells us about her role as a library technician at Ballarat Health Services. There is also an interesting article from Fran Monaghan on succession planning.

Good Reading to you all!

Tania Barry, editor

Brief news items

See side bar for features...

ALIA National Library and Information Technicians Conference Darling Harbour 6-9 September 2005

Conference papers from the neXt 2005 Conference are now available for downloading!

The conference papers have been placed in the ALIA e-papers repository, click on browse by year and choose 2005: all the papers so far uploaded will then display.

Note: Not all papers have yet been received, and more papers will be progressively uploaded as the papers are acquired.

LT online chats

To date we have had three online chats. We had 17 people participating in the first one and five participating in the second and third. Although, there were only five for the second and third chats, providing an opportunity to members, active and not so active, to discuss issues or have a chat is important.

The details from the October and December chat will be on the website soonish. The November chat was just that, a chat, and we didn't get a copy of what was chatted about.

Some members are having trouble getting onto the chat site. It is important that members organise this well in advance and have a couple of practices at logging on. We are having another one on Wednesday 11 January. Stay tuned for further online chat dates.

Kevin Dudeney, group convenor

Follows and Leads

Due to holidays and work commitments those of you who are hanging out for a further instalment in the exciting life of Follows and Leeds, agents of LIBRA will need to wait just a little bit longer. However, rest assured, dear readers, that there will be another pulsating episode in their thrilling lives in the next issue of TechNique!