21 April 1999

ALIA fellowship awarded to Helen Hayes

Australia's librarians have honoured Ms Helen Hayes, the vice-principal (information) and university librarian at the University of Melbourne.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has elected Ms Hayes to a Fellowship of the association.

The ALIA citation said her leadership had played a significant part in the development of the university library. The university had recognised this with her appointment as vice-principal (information services).

Ms Hayes had also had a national leadership role in the profession as a member of various professional bodies. She was president of the Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services (ACLIS) from 1994 to 1997, and vice-president of the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) from 1993 to 1997. She was elected president of CAUL in 1998.

She began as librarian in 1970 at the Yarra Valley Boys' Grammar School, and then moved to International Computers in 1972. She moved to academic librarianship in 1973, working at the University of Melbourne and Melbourne State College until 1986.

She was chief librarian at the then Melbourne College of Advanced Education from 1986 to 1988, associate librarian in the University of Melbourne from 1989 to 1993 after the college and university amalgamated, and acting university librarian from 1991 until she was permanently appointed to the position in 1993.

The ALIA citation said one of Ms Hayes' major priorities had been quality of services and better access to resources worldwide in the new technological environment, and in 1996 the library had won an award for business excellence from the Australian Quality Council.

ALIA has conferred its highest honour, the HCL Anderson Award, on the editor of the Australian Library Journal, Professor John Levett. Professor Levett is a former director of the Department of Librarianship in the University of Tasmania and chair of the Department of Librarianship, Archives and Records in Monash University.

ALIA also has elected to a Fellowship of the Association Mr Alex Byrne, the Pro Vice-Chancellor (information resources) at the Northern Territory University.