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ALIA Top EndInterface November 2005EditorialWelcome to the final issue for 2005 of the ALIA Top End newsletter. If you would like to contribute to the newsletter in 2006 please e-mail Jayshree Mamtora (please remove '.nospam' from address).
Convenors report
It's been a busy year for ALIA Top End and now it's already November and time for the AGM and Christmas dinner. We've had a varied, interesting and challenging year. Those activities that we just couldn't squeeze into the calendar this year will not be forgotten but held next year. The ALIA Top End stall at the Futures Expo in August went well with a steady stream of visitors, but it has been reported that ALIA National Office may change the focus next year. In September, there were two more workshops: the Presentation skills workshop run by Dr Roger Clifton, and Chairing a conference session workshop run by Ruth Quinn. Whilst the number of attendees remained low, both workshops provided very useful tips and it is hoped will be repeated next year. The National Advisory Congress consultation generated a lot of interesting discussion helped in part by some cheese and wine! In October, we hosted the 3rd ALIA Top End Symposium, Technology: Visions or Nightmares - True Stories in the Territory. Once again, it was a well-attended event with a great program and excellent feedback was received. And if that wasn't enough, the following week we had the entertaining dinner presentation by Andrew Booth at Tim's Surf and Turf. As reported at the symposium, ALIA Top End has seen an increase in membership this year - one of the few groups nationwide to achieve this, and national office is using us as a role model for other groups to follow, which we are really pleased about. We hope to continue the momentum next year! I'd like to take this opportunity to make a few acknowledgements - a big thank you to all our library hosts this year, our workshop presenters, the symposium organisers and most of all, you, our members, without whom the success of these events would just not have been possible. I'd also to thank our outgoing newsletter editor, Barbara Coat, for the great work on the newsletter this year. Many thanks to you all for your support and all the best for Christmas and the new year. We look forward to another full and entertaining ALIA Top End year next year.
ALIA Top End electionsNominations for ALIA Top End committee members for 2006 are being called for. Please consider being a committee member and encourage other interested people. Your participation is important. Nominations will be endorsed by a secret ballot at a Special Elections Meeting on Wedensday 7 December 2005, at Northern Territory Library. All welcome to attend meeting. Nominations are called for the following positions:
Nominees must be personal members of ALIA. Nominations are to be received by the Returning Officer, PO Box 41303, Casuarina NT 0811, or by fax to Melanie Bennett at 8932 3852 no later than Friday 2 December 2005. Download [56k pdf] the nomination form.
Top End Symposium - Technology, Visions or Nightmares: true stories in the Territory - 7 - 8 October 2005Report by Heather Filmer. Photo's by Stephen Barnett To view the full program go to the website. We were welcomed by Jayshree Mamtora, convenor, ALIA Top End, at the Charles Darwin University Palmerston Campus on Friday afternoon for the 3rd Annual Top End Symposium. Friday afternoon The Mayor of Palmerston, Annette Burke, who gave the opening speech talked about keeping up with the latest trends in libraries and the new public library to be built in Palmerston in the near future. Hayley Leaver of LexisNexis Australia then welcomed our keynote speaker Di Thompson, librarian and webmaster at the Legal Services Commission in Adelaide. 
Di's topic was Having an IT nightmare? Rescue your vision from the dark side. She asked the question 'why do IT projects fail?' She then stated that 31 per cent of projects do fail and another 88 per cent go over budget or time limits. She suggested that often there is too much focus on the technology, a lack of user involvement, a lack of management support, an inexperienced project team, a lack of communication, the wrong choice of contractor, a lack of resources, the requirements not stated clearly or changed before completed, as well as resistance by the users and unrealistic expectations. She told the history of her experience at Legal Services Commission, from the nightmare in 1988 to the realisation of her vision. She challenged us to focus on small steps rather than the larger project and to look at any changes as an opportunity. She left us with the message to be clear with what we want to achieve, to get passionate and to get things done. 
Next speaker was Brian Lloyd, a project officer at Northern Territory Library, who gave us an intellectual look at the old subject of print versus electronic with his topic What's our business: Book or wires? He discussed the presence of Google and Amazon.com and then asked 'how can we give the best service to our clients?' He suggested that we need to focus our attention on library business. Libraries are currently mixed-use facilities and he urged that this must be actively maintained. He talked of the cost of fuel possibly adding a cost to the delivery of print materials but also to the cost of paper for printing from the electronic resources. Paper supports reflective reading in a natural way. The perception that the electronic resources are more easily discoverable when sometimes really it is quicker to find it on the shelves. He talked of the discontinuity of electronic access versus the stacks and the cost of equipment and maintenance. We need to think critically about formats and technologies and to use the searchability of the electronic resources to compliment the print. It's not a matter of choosing one or the other, he said. We need to communicate this to our users. A five minute segment was given by Catherine Curry, executive officer of Cultural, Recreation & Tourism Training Advisory Council about skills shortages, skills gaps, recruitment industries and training packages within the library industry. 
Matthew Griffiths, Jayshree Mamtora, Anastasia Govan and Linda enjoying morning tea 
Dianne Wilcox and Valmai Hankel 
Stephen Barnett, Valmai Hankel and Felicity Williams We then had a break for 30 minutes or so during which we checked out the trade stalls. Following a delicious afternoon tea we listened to three more speakers. Viki Chmielewski, manager of library services for Darwin City Council Libraries talked about a pilot project - e-books and public libraries in the Northern Territory which began at the Darwin City Council Libraries and was launched in October 2002 with TV, radio and newspaper coverage. She showed us what a 'softbook' was like by handing one around for us each to use. There has been varying interest in these e-books, initially there was great interest but then this was met with mixed response. Some of the problems faced are a lack of titles available, a lack of exciting titles for purchase as mostly they are titles out of copyright, customers afraid of breaking the e-books and lack of technical support in the Northern Territory. Jo Carmody, now a librarian at the Richmond Tweed Regional Library Service, talked of her experience whilst librarian at the Mount Gambier Public Library in South Australia of digitising the communities memories. A local historian bequeathed his collection of 16 000 photographs plus many texts and other items to the library in 1999. The photographs were dated as far back as 1860 and needed to be rephotographed and then digitised for archival preservation. Each photograph was reproduced in black and white and stored in a compactus. The archival process was:
This was launched on 16 December 2004 along with a book of the history of Mount Gambier to commemorate a 50-year anniversay. Oh, for a crystal ball! : A tall tale of technology transforming our traditional image was presented as a story by Frances O'Reilly who is the children and youth services librarian at Darwin City Council Libraries. The story was about the introduction of Play stations and X-boxes, an idea to encourage young people to come into the library. A few problems that had to be met were how to secure them, how to get games that were not M15+, the lack of use if they were not violent or gruesome enough, and some kids wanting to replace school with going to the library to play games. Kids are coming in to the library though and it has become a social meeting place! There is a self-booking system of half-hour sessions and there are kids are coming into the library that are not library members and otherwise would never have come into their local libraries. Friday evening 
Frances O'Reilly - MC for a fun night 
The delightful Valmai Hankel sharing her explorer stories and her own travels 
Pauline Ferguson, Nikki Vanderaa and Ruth Quinn 
Melanie Rodda, Kathy Ryan, Jill Heffernan 
Frances O'Reilly and Merv and Trevor 
Dianne Thompson, Heather Filmer, Barbara Coat and Frieda Evans 
Leigh Walker, Liam Casey and Pat Bradley 
Di Sinclair and Jayshree Mamtora 
Ann Ritchie and partner David 
Impromptu song for the crowd by some of our sponsors Merv and Trevor At 7:00pm we had a superb symposium dinner at Kantilla's, Marrara, where we listened intently to Valmai Hankel PSM about touring the outback of Australia with four lesser known explorers interwoven with her own travels and life. Saturday morning On Saturday morning Jayshree again welcomed us and Frieda Evans introduced our next three speakers. 
Linda Marchesani, heritage services manager at the Northern Territory Library, enlightened us with her paper on Digital archiving: Northern Territory Library's experience. The dream was to provide greater access, the nightmare was trying to find web addresses that had been removed or relocated. She told us how the library was preserving online publications using the database PANDORA developed by the National Library of Australia. She discussed selection criteria and procedures, the Legal Deposits Act 2004 which commenced on 1 March 2005 and includes internet publications as well as the system itself. Apparently the Northern Territory is the first State or Territory to include internet publications in their legislation. Quality checking has been the most time consuming, but to date 57 online publications are archived. They have had no additional staff to complete this project. 
Promoting the vision and avoiding the nightmare: lessons in marketing new technology from small and not so small business was the topic Richard Sayers, CAVAL Training manager brought to us. He asked 'how would you sell your vision?'and talked of the parallels with shopkeepers saying we are 'shopkeepers conveying new technologies to our clients'. He asked 'Do you remember when you received your first CD?' He talked about 'library business' and enticing our clients to enter. This is done by teamwork and everyone has a stake in this, he said. He talked of personalised service which he called 'hold the beetroot, Shirley' or knowing what our clients want. He brought to our attention these five points:
If you are disorganised your business will be disorganised. Ask yourself 'what can the technology do for you'. Keep your customer space clean so that whatever they see is kept clean and tidy. He urged us to create events into a selling opportunity and talked about starting a newsletter to sell our vision to our clients. 
Cathy Hilder read a paper by Ann Williams titled Computers with assisted technology for people with disabilities talking about the experience of Darwin City Council Libraries and the technologies used and changes made to allow the disabled in our community to use their computers. After morning tea we broke up into two groups. I attended the group in Building B and heard the following three papers: 
Learning curves in building a learning precinct: visions in realities - Anne Wilson and Nicholas English from CDU presented this paper on the new Learning Precinct at the CDU Casuarina Campus, where the whole ground floor of the library was transformed into a virtual library. They told the story from the planning stage to gutting the library and then rebuilding it to accommodate a wireless enabled flexible learning space. It was a story with a happy ending. We were encouraged to come and have a look at it. 
Tracking the past to improve the future of reference services - Ann Ritchie and Susan Davidson from the Northern Territory Library explained their online reference database RefTracker. They talked about the screen design and layout and how easy it is to interact in, the online inquiry form used and how the notes and history collated has become really valuable to their daily business. Their data show was very explanatory. Some of the problems encountered has been the lack of clarity about the boxes on the screen, not always knowing what the client received ie what it looked like when the answer was e-mailed to the client, being tied to the computer when doing reference work, as well as it being a barrier to conducting the client interview, the loss of personal contact when the inquiry is solely by e-mail plus the need for more than three licences (which is what they currently have). However advantages included being able to structure your time for reference work, the visibility of questions and answers which gives a shared responsibility especially to weekend-only staff, learning from others within the staff (but can feel foolish too), structured questions and structured answers because it is written and because more thought is put into it, more accountability and responsibility, and also being useful for training, review and feedback. They agreed that RefTracker had improved reference work at the Northern Territory Library. 
Technology challenges in distance education - Giselle Pryer talked on how politics shapes and melds the way technology goes, how technology has an effect on student learning, how technology can improve communication and information and how she has dual enrolled students for specific subjects, ie they go to school as well as do distance education, and those who enrol for social or medical reasons as well as those who live in remote areas. 
Organising committee - Frances O'Reilly, Frieda Evans, Dianne Wilcox, Stephen Barnett and Liam Casey We were farewelled with the drawing of prizes and the thanking of those on the organising committee. It was a really worthwhile symposium. I am glad I didn't miss it. National Policy Congress. A chance to have your say on how ALIA runs...ALIA local liaison officer: Anastasia Govan (please remove '.nospam' from address) mb 0401 118 193 Regional ALIA National Advisory Congress (NAC) meetings are held annually culminating in the November gathering of local representatives in Canberra. The aim of regional meetings is that they be informal and provide ample opportunity for members to participate in discussion on policy, planning and any topical issues relevant to the association. This year local face to face meetings in the NT were held in Nhulunbuy facilitated by local liaison officer Ana Govan and local Librarian Shirley Shepherd and Darwin facilitated by board director Ann Ritchie. This years discussions were focused on:
Jayshree Mamtora and Vicki Williams will be representing Darwin and Nhulunbuy in Canberra in November. For a report on discussions please contact these local representatives or Ana Govan (please remove '.nospam' from address) mobile 0401 118 193.
ALIA awards and research grantsAre you aware there are several ALIA awards and research grants that you can apply or be nominated for? The awards:
There are four self nominated research grants of up to $5000 available to librarians and library technician members.
Membership benefitsAt a recent Top End ALIA meeting I found that some members were not aware of what services are provided. Below is a snapshot:
Join our e-list!aliaNT is the ALIAnet e-list affiliated with the ALIA Top End group. Subscribe to aliaNT by heading to the e-list and entering your e-mail address and a password. You'll be sent an e-mail asking you to confirm your subscription. Just follow the instructions and you'll be communicating with the rest of the group's members in no time at all.
Important ALIA Top End dates 2005Christmas dinner 7:00pm Wednesday 23 November, Asian Gateway Thai restaurant, 58 Aralia Street, Nightcliff AGM and elections5:00pm Wednesday 7 December, NTL
Moving up moving on
Trish Olsson of CDU Palmerston Campus Library was named vocational student of the year runner-up at the Australian Training Awards in Perth. Earlier this year Trish received the ALIA 2004 Student Award in recognition for being the most outstanding student in the Diploma of Library and Information Services, and after being nominated by her lecturer Kaye Bartlett, she went on to win the NT Training Awards vocational student of the year in September. 
Congratulations to Jayshree Mamtora and Julie Fawcett for being the first Territorians to complete the requirements of the ALIA professional development scheme, and for being awarded the disctinction of Associate Fellow of ALIA. Pauline Ferguson has joined the CDU liaison team for a nine month contract as science and IT liaison librarian. Pauline was previously a reference librarian at Australian Catholic University in Ballarat. Jessie Mahjouri has been appointed as education liasion librarian (half time) at CDU. Barbara Coat leaves the CDU liaison team on twelve months maternity leave from 16 December. Bernadette Royal has commenced as access services officer ILL at CDU and Melissa Watson has commenced as assignments officer in the access services team. Robyn James leaves the library at William Forster Chambers. She and her husband move to Perth. Bronwyn King has left the Courts Library for twelve months while she tries out the library at William Forster Chambers. Deirdri Hurwood has resigned and her position at Police, Fire and Emergency Services Library - the position is in the process of being advertised.
Dinner with Andrew Booth
Adapting or mutating? Future prospects for the librarian species Twenty-four members and friends attended the ALIA Top End Dinner at Tim's Surf and Turf Restaurant on 11 October. Dinner guest, Andrew Booth of evidence-based librarianship fame made the pre-dinner presentation, entitled Adapting or mutating? Future prospects for the librarian species. The talk was lively and thought-provoking, and well-received by the Group. Andrew Booth is an information professional/lecturer/researcher with experience of a wide range of aspects of evidence-based practice. He is a chartered librarian and has very recently been promoted to become a reader at the University of Sheffield, where he was previously the senior lecturer in evidence-based healthcare information. Andrew has co-edited and contributed to many publications on evidence-based practice, including co-editing Evidence-based practice for information professionals: A handbook (London: Facet Publishing, 2004). See his homepage. 
Evidence-based librarianship - Andrew BoothThe objectives of the workshop were for participants to:
Evidence-based practice provides a framework for the evaluation of work practices, for improved service delivery and better outcomes. It stresses the need for making informed decisions, by gathering evidence from various sources to ensure that work practices are effective. The process of evidence-based practice is:
An example of a literature search was used to demonstrate these steps. Step 2-4. Information was gathered from 36 published studies. Studies showed:
Work place procedure changed from automatically searching by author, to searching via journal title and year combinations, as researched showed this to be the most accurate. Skills for developing questions, which are the basis of the process, were developed. The SPICE technique (setting, perspective, intervention, comparison and evaluation) was practiced. This assists in being clear about what issue you really want to address. We began the process by identifying issues, from our current workplace, that we would like to address. We learnt skills to evaluate the validity of research material. A checklist of screening questions was provided as a framework for evaluating research articles. We looked at the various types of research and how to select the best research design for the question. Andrew Booth predicts that once people adopt EB practices, this will become an automatic approach and integral to the workplace. It was a very inspiring workshop, and really stressed the need to work reflectively to save time and work smarter and for continuous improvement and better outcomes. Julie Adams, project librarian, Northern Territory Library, November 2005
ALIA Central Australia Regional GroupA very successful quiz night was held on the Friday 27 May of ALIW at the Charles Darwin University Library in Alice Springs with all proceeds going to East Timor Libraries. All the bells and whistles of a normal quiz night were in evidence with games, - heads n'tails (of course) and 'who can fly a paper plane right across the library' - raffles and an auction. There was also a 'bring and buy' bookstall for the book lovers who came along. A continuous powerpoint presentation showed throughout the evening with information about our sponsors, East Timor libraries and local Central Australian libraries. The MCs, John Chisholm from Alice Springs Public Library and Bev Ellis from Dymocks Booksellers kept the evening moving along and a lot of fun was had by all. The sum of $1337 was raised towards the rebuilding of East Timor libraries - for further information visit the website. We made the donation to APHEDA (Australian People for Health, Education and Development) and got a mention in their newsletter - Solidarity Partnerships.
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