The Australian Library Journal
volume 48 issue 1
[editorial] John Levett
When worlds collide - the dangerous impact of the past upon the future
Phillip Adams
'Books are fatal', opined Benjamin Disraeli, the well-known novelist who dabbled in British politics. 'They are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The
greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.' More capricious than blasphemous, Disraeli was perhaps right about the majority of books which are of landfill rather than library quality. Some writers spend a great deal of time
prevaricating before putting pen to paper or digits to keyboard. They sharpen pencils, straighten pads, or find other forms of ritual procrastination. But not Herman Melville, who's on record as crying 'Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater
for an ink stand.' But then, Mr Melville was an author of leviathan ambition. Compared to his Moby Dick, most of the novels publishers send me aspire to the dimensions of the toadfish or sardine. Even without considering the dross at an airport
bookshop, it's clear that Benjamin Disraeli was right. Nonetheless he went too far when describing the invention of printing as 'the greatest misfortune that ever befell man'. But whilst that is true of books, The Book remains sacrosanct and though a
disbeliever in other theologies, I'm with John Milton when he says 'He who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God.'
This paper was read at the Opening Session of the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference, Adelaide, October 1998
Threat or promise? The information society and the information profession
Mairéad Browne
I feel privileged to have the opportunity to speak to you today and thank the organising committee for inviting me to deliver this plenary. When I accepted the invitation I had no idea that the timing of this conference would co-incide for me with the
start of a period of deeper involvement with ALIA at national level. So this is a very valuable opportunity not only to address delegates to this conference but also to give a flavour of some of the views and ideas I would like the Association to explore
in my period as president in the year 2000.
The title for my paper could suggest that my task is a pretty straightforward one of commentary on a well-understood phenomenon, the information society, and the implications of this for the information profession. That it is not a
straightforward task is largely a function of the fact that the idea of an information society is a very confused one. It has captured the collective imagination and been seen by politicians and bureaucrats as a way of justifying many of the changes in our
daily lives, especially in the workplace. But the trouble is, that like so many popular phrases, the term information society is fraught with ambiguity. Effectively, we have little by way of a shared notion of what the information society is. We can mean
very different things when we use the term, depending on the situation in which we speak or write. And by 'we' I mean not only the community in general and information professionals, but also writers and commentators on the information society and
information economy who, it might be thought, should know better.
This paper was delivered to a plenary session at the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference, Adelaide, October 1998
HCL Anderson Award 1998
Dr Hetzel, Lieutenant Governor of South Australia and until last month the out-standing and much loved Chancellor of the University of South Australia, Mrs Hetzel, other distinguished guests, John Shipp, president of ALIA, fellow HCL Anderson award
recipients attending this conference - Harrison Bryan, Jim Dwyer, Warren Horton, Ira Raymond and Eric Wainwright; Ruth Cameron Library Manager of the Year; Ursula McDermott Library Technician of the Year, and colleagues all.
Henry Charles Lennox Anderson MA, alumnus of the University of Sydney, fell victim in the 1890s to what we tend to consider uniquely endemic to the 1990s - restructuring. For after a career as a grammar school teacher, chief examiner in the NSW
Department of Public Instruction, and head of an embryonic Department of Agriculture, 1893 found him on the senior redeployment list in the New South Wales Public Service. Fortuitously, this was to be of enduring benefit to the libraries, the general
public and the scholars of the nation-in-waiting.
Acceptance speech by Dr Alan Bundy, university librarian, University of South Australia on receiving the HCL Anderson Award conferred at the ALIA Biennial Conference Pathways to knowledge on 25 October 1998 at the Adelaide Convention Centre
Future work-family links and the new community library
Don Edgar
It is always dangerous to predict the future, in fact it is impossible. All we can do is look at current trends and spin out the likely scenarios that could develop, given certain assumptions. I can't profess to any special understanding about
libraries, but I see them as playing a central role in a future that will depend more and more on information that needs to be sorted and presented more responsively; a future where life-long learning and retraining is the norm rather than the exception;
and where the links between government, private enterprise and the community change in nature.
Let me summarise at the outset what I plan to say.
- First, both the size of government and the way government operates will change. The nation state will be smaller, less in control of either the national economy or the way regional systems operate and local community networks will become more
significant in social life.
- Second, because change in the economy will be so rapid and unpredictable, employment will become more insecure for the majority of the population, businesses will form and reform in regional and international alliances, home-based work and small family
business will replace a secure job for many people and we will see a renewed interest in the quality of local and regional community services.
- Third, schools and other educational institutions will have to open their doors to life-long learning activities and the whole range of community resources brought to bear on the learning and skills training process.
- And finally, all of this constitutes a challenge to the way local services such as community libraries operate, because they will have to become part of a network of information and support services for families and individuals living vastly different
lives from those lived now by current library users.
This paper was delivered to a Plenary Session at the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference, Adelaide, October 1998
New libraries, old values
Michael Gorman
Values and value
We live in an age of uncertainty. Despite economic prosperity and the end of the Cold War, most of us, though happy enough with our present circumstances, fear the changes we see and, even more, the changes yet to come. This uncertainty pervades our
working lives. Controversy swirls around the future of librarianship and libraries and it is hard to deal with the various futures that are foreseen by pundits, especially as most of them seem to question the very existence of our profession. The
discontinuity between academic theorists, information scientists, many library educators, and all the self-appointed leaders of our profession on the one hand, and working librarians and library users on the other becomes ever more obvious. While the
second group laments declining materials budgets; run-down, overcrowded libraries; and the terrible pressures of always doing more with less, the first group publishes incomprehensible papers about digital libraries, issues fantastical reports, holds
conferences that float on an abundant supply of hot air, and generally basks in the delights of shooting the rest of us in the foot. The gap between the elitists and the workers in and users of libraries has never been greater. Those of us who believe in
real libraries serving real people need, now more than ever, to reaffirm our values and value.
This paper was delivered to a Plenary Session at the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference, Adelaide, October 1998
Library users - clients or citizens?
Jane Lomax-Smith
I am delighted to be here today, although the City of Adelaide is not a manager of major libraries. In the city we only manage about 1400 square metres of library with 128 000 items. We do have a library which is visited by 1500 people each day so
you might argue that we are a manager of library resources. Management in a 'client focused' environment is, to me, something of an anathema. I am fond of the English language but have problems still with the word client. I am sufficiently old as a doctor
to remember the days when I learnt to treat patients before they became customers and I am still bemused that our major prisons no longer keep prisoners within the wall but have clients! So the idea that libraries deal with clients as well makes me feel
uneasy.
I suspect that as a library user of many years, and I have calculated that I have actually been a member of fourteen libraries, where I thought I was either a member or a user, possibly the analogy with prisoners reflects my history in the fact that
some of you in this room want to get your books back!
This paper is an edited transcript of Dr Lomax-Smith's presentation to the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference, Adelaide October 1998
Is my team ploughing...?
Vicki Wilson
Is my team ploughing where I once used to lead?
[AE Housman A Shropshire Lad]
This paper describes the experiences of the writer during a two-year secondment to the Library and Information Service of Western Australia as a team leader in the JS Battye Library of West Australian History. It provides a detailed examination of the
implementation and ongoing development of team structures and team ways of working within this library and explores what promise the extended concept of 'self-managing' teams has for improving productivity, customer service and employee satisfaction in
large Australian libraries.
This is a refereed contribution based on a paper presented at the 5th ALIA Biennial Conference Adelaide, October 1998
|
