ALIA general councillor portfolios

ALIA General Council met formally in March, July and November in 1998. General Council uses a portfolio allocation system to ensure that all sectors and special issues and skills have the specific attention of at least one councillor. The portfolio holders and their responsiblities were allocated as follows:

New peak body

The Leadership Committee, established in 1997 by ALIA and ACLIS to work towards the creation of a new peak body for the library and information sector, met on several occasions before it was wound up in July 1998. Consultants engaged by the Leadership Committee reported on services to members. This led to ALIA General Council developing a Charter of Renewal for the Association which would also embrace members of ACLIS. The Charter of Renewal was formally adopted by a general meeting of members in October 1998 and a Renewal Working Group was established by General Council to provide advice on the implementation of the Charter and the establishment of the new organisation.

International activities

Part-sponsored by the Australian Embassy, ALIA sent representatives to the American Library Association conference in Washington DC in June. With the National Library of Australia and RMIT Publishing, the Association mounted an attention-getting display of publications, posters and Australian artefacts and answered questions from some of the 25 000 delegates attending. The Incredible library posters were especially popular. The executive director, Virginia Walsh, gave a Lobby for libraries presentation and 1998 ALIA fellowship recipient Maxine Rochester gave a paper on new ways to serve the rural library user.

ALIA also participated at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) meeting in Amsterdam in August. At a workshop on education and training, the deputy executive director, Jennefer Nicholson discussed with overseas colleagues opportunities for student interchange, extension of reciprocal recognition of qualifications and other aspects of education, training and continuing professional development. Virginia and Jennefer also met with representatives of the American Library Association at IFLA and Library Association staff in London.

The International Relations Committee met in April to discuss contributions to sector conferences held in the Asia-Pacific region and guidelines for funding research projects.

ALIA national office

Corporate divisions within the national office reflect the nature of core ALIA business. There are four main areas of responsibility:

• Policy development and support
• Promotion and communication
• Administration
• Expert advice and special projects.

Membership

In 1998 the Association experienced a 1.9 per cent decrease in total membership which is reflected across most membership categories. However, membership of retired categories - especially Associates - continued to grow, which indicates that many of our retired members welcome the opportunity to maintain their links with the Association. In general, member retention rates continue to remain strong with 88.09 per cent of personal members, 94.19 per cent full institutional and 91.28 per cent of voucher-only members maintaining membership in 1998.

In moving towards a new peak body for the library and information sector the Association offered member services to all financial ACLIS members. This enabled 250 ACLIS members who had not previously been members of the Association to experience benefits of ALIA membership. It is expected that many of these will take up ALIA membership during 1999.

Some 110 divisions were active during 1998 which highlights the variety of interests of ALIA members. Sections continued to offer a broad range of activities. Active sections include acquisitions, cataloguing, children's and youth services, education for library and information services, health libraries, information science, library technicians, local studies, public libraries, reference and information services, school libraries, special libraries, TAFE and university, college and research libraries.

After a period of inactivity the South Coast Regional Group was reinvigorated. A total of twelve special interest groups operating within the Association indicates the wide-ranging interests of members.