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ALIA Special Libraries (SA)July-December 2003Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors Special Libraries South Australia is committed to discussing and disseminating information on issues affecting those working in and associated with special libraries in South Australia. It offers a forum for professional and personal development, networking opportunities, promotion, and exchange of ideas and solutions through its active program. It raises members' awareness of new initiatives and offers support to those with an interest in special libraries. The committee consisted of:
At the end of December 2003, the group had 174 members. The committee meets every month to discuss local issues and plan events. Committee members volunteer their time to operate the group. E-listIn January 2003 we migrated our e-list to ALIAnet. The aliaSASPEC list has now been active for 12 months, and has 155 subscribers. The migration to ALIAnet has been a success, making it easier to share information and enabling members to communicate directly rather than via the committee secretary. Communication with membersThe aliaSASPEC list and new ALIA website have assisted in improving communication between the committee and group members. The difficulties with the new membership database were disappointing as for a significant period the Specials group was unable to identify, welcome and encourage new members to join the e-list, our main communication tool. The facility to view the membership of a group was an excellent development, and we look forward to improvements that will enable automatic counting of members and the ability to make group broadcasts. ..and with other groupsThe ALIA OBBL and listowners lists have been a source of useful information about what other groups are doing. However, OBBL particularly seems to be mainly a forum for communication from ALIA National Office, not between group office-bearers. This might be improved by regular reminders that the list can be used to share ideas and ask questions. WebsiteDuring 2003, ALIA Special Libraries SA used the ALIA website to advertise events, meetings and distribute minutes. This worked well, although there was the occasional delay with some content appearing on the site. The new website with the member lock on groups pages has been heavily used by the group office-bearers, but less by the general group. EventsAs the Specials Health and Law Librarians Conference was held in Adelaide in August, the group was conscious of concentrating our group efforts in the first half of the year. We therefore had a very busy January-June 2003, with the main activity in the second half of the year being the Conference and associated events. Other events held included:
Social events
10th Asia Pacific Special Health and Law Librarians ConferenceThe highlight for SA Special Librarians during 2003 was definitely the 10th Asia Pacific Special Health and Law Librarians Conference held in Adelaide, South Australia in August 2003. Group members were heavily involved with the conference, with Special Libraries SA members on the organising committee and all the sub-committees. Future of the group2003 ends with the departure of all the current office-bearers. Lucy Brown stepped down in September 2003 to go on maternity leave, and Kate Sinclair and Kristel Petrou will be resigning to focus their energies on the ALIA New Librarians?Symposium 2004. The 2003 AGM saw 10 members express an interest in being involved on the ALIA Special Libraries SA committee, many of them new faces. However, no office-bearers have been decided upon at this time.
Kate Sinclair
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