Report of the Far North Queensland Regional NPC Meeting

30 August 2004

Roll

Mary Ann Irvin, Frances Utzinger, Felicity Watsford, Kerry Muston, Brigitte Dostie, Shannon-Lee Elcoate, Tracey Cunningham, Margaret Morris, Alice Logan, Beth Thomas, Lee Finkelstein, Shibani Sinha

Election of one delegate to attend Canberra NPC

Alice Logan

Celebrating success

Visit from Jan Fullerton for the Future of the Book seminar (April 2003)
The e-list (which isn't actually an ALIA list)

Enhancing the involvement and engagement of members in ALIA

Strengths of groups

This was a concern at the regional level, as groups tended to have an area of shared or common interest, but in small centres such as Cairns, there were not enough people for group-based activities.
Need for locally-hosted CPD events - but how to best achieve this at the very local level?
Cohesion was fundamentally achieved through the shared dimension of working in the library and information sciences industry.

Effectiveness of groups compared with other Association structures and activities

As noted - hugely challenging in this situation.
Main activities were:
The e-list.
Having inCite as the main channel of communication - and Quill (trying to get regional reporters has been a problem).
Possible occasional social events for networking.

Succession planning and encouraging involvement

Not highly relevant
Feeling that a lot more was possible in a metropolitan areas by mere fact of numbers
Time and potential levels of commitment were the big issues
What could be done by local liaison across the state, to feed into regional areas?

ALIA 2005-2006 draft plan

Sharing the vision

Initiatives
Lobbying and advocacy were seen by the meeting as a core role of National Office.
Concerned about people in the regions undertaking effective lobbying - especially in terms of justification of services to local governments
Measures of success
Regional areas need closer links to local liaison for whole of state needs, to then have closer links to ALIA National Office
Measures of success need to be measurable. Each initiative requires at least one method of measuring outcomes.

Skilling members for the future

Initiatives
Dialogue between educators, employers and practitioners viewed as relevant to the profession as a whole - but no immediate relevance locally
Developing a co-ordinated national CPD program
Significant interest in this.
How would this be run? Who would run it? Would it tour around the country? Logistical issues? Concern over the on-costs of being in a remote area - adds to costs with flights, accommodation etc. Harder to organise it all in far-flung spots.
The local co-ordination of CPD can be demanding on groups (and the same people within the groups). Lack of awareness over ability to have ALIA National Office take bookings via website. Online form rather than fax would be appreciated.
What use can be made of technology (videoconferencing, videostreaming) to bring more content to the regional areas?
Interest in mentoring resources that would support individual pairs or a small group mentoring scheme.
Interest in CPD issues needs to be developed - again, take the ideas to them to encourage participation. Strategies for this?

Promoting library and information science as a career

Initiatives
Not an immediate issue in FNQ - just a few external library and information science students
Concern about the lack of positions available in regional areas (eg new grad who has just moved to Cairns)
Need to encourage employers to encourage them to value graduates' potential rather than absolute experience

Promoting innovation

Initiatives
REAP program - seems a good idea on paper but it has no focus or physical reality. Where is the research being done, why isn't it being written up?
Encourage partnerships between library and information science schools and industry, to have students join projects and write them up as part of their course requirements
How much consortial purchasing does ALIA do? Mention was made of the CIPS consortium which is mainly for special libraries
Ideas presented - 'training and support for acquisition of online resources' - not fully understood.
General support for the Stars program
Measures of success
Implementation: links to REAP - all rather vague
Who will manage the Stars program? Local liaison? National Office?

Communicating well

Initiatives
Can ALIA create a weekly/monthly digest of new additions to the website?
Needs a communication strategy to inform members about content on the site (site of the month idea). People too busy for a fully 'pull' driven strategy of web use.
Relationships with institutional members: idea of a contact person within each institution to send information about ALIA wide. Whose role to establish and manage this - Local Liaison?
What happened to the marketing person? Concerns about staffing continuity in national office, and communication over positions changing
The value of print is good. E-stuff can be easily deleted, while fliers can be left on coffee tables etc.
Have we streamlined the communication process too much, to be too reliant on electronic only.
ALIA is heavily dependent on people joining e-lists, is this a good mode of communication?
Members-only issues (Discussed in greater detail later)
More cohesive role of Local Liaison required - enabling real commitment to the role to really welcome to new members to the association [GH - I acknowledge I have had a huge workload in recent months, which has made it difficult]
Measures of success
Really important that information should come out on time - for example NPC documentation and review of member participation, with repeated delays (impacting on local credibility for members directly involved).
Membership growth and retention depends on real work and real communication.
Need for meaningful success measures: 'increased' means what specifically? What are the base points we should be working from?

Professional practice

Marketing of information services
Return on investment (local government)
Changing face of reference
Service for virtual/remote users
Information literacy issues for e-resources (especially with virtual access)

How can we ensure that substantial information addressing issues of professional practice arise from ALIA symposiums and the work and priorities of ALIA self-nominated and advisory groups is better captured and disseminated?

There needs to be a culture change to encourage publication as a professional activity.
There is not the same incentive to publish as in the USA, for example.
Public libraries face an even more difficult path in researching and publishing their research.
Time is a huge factor.
Collaboration should be encouraged as it gives motivation for completing and writing up research.
Writing up research is a skill. This is a possible area for CPD courses.

How can ALIA help groups to:

identify areas of professional practice where resources and published information are lacking? What is the role of REAP?
Undertake and/or propose approaches for addressing the gaps? Where does REAP fit in? Encourage collaboration to undertake targeted research

Group communications with members and non-members of ALIA

How can we encourage groups to make better use of the ALIA website in order to communicate their purpose and activities to members and non-members of ALIA?
This was beyond the scope of the discussion at this meeting, as there were no groups represented, or active in FNQ.

With the wide number of options available for groups to communicate with members and non-members should group newsletters be made freely available to non-members of ALIA?

Would like to see some local input into Quill. Further work needs to be done to get an active correspondent at the local level.
Should be seen as a marketing tool, to encourage library and information science professionals to be involved in activities beyond the workplace

Questions on notice

None.

Any other comments from the meeting?

The meeting wanted to see steps taken to overcome the isolation of the area - and this is not limited to Cairns. How can ALIA best engage those who are not in metropolitan areas? What is the role of the local liaison officer?

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