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Mark
Twain said of Australian history that
it did not read like history at all, but
like the most beautiful lies; and all of a
fresh sort, no mouldy old
stale ones. It is full of surprises and adventures, and incongruities,
and contradictions
and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened. [1]
Isolation
The
phrase the tyranny of distance
encapsulates many of those surprises and adventures. But it is also the
reason
Australians understand immediately the joke inherent in the claim made
by the
Irish Club in Mt Isa that it is within walking distance of Melbourne, a
claim
based on the fact that the explorers Burke and Wills made the journey
on foot.
The
tyranny of distance is a
phrase which was coined to emphasise
the isolation
of our island continent from the rest of the world, rather than the
isolation
experienced by much of rural Australia relative to the urbanised
coastal
fringe.
It
is in the bush that we really come to
understand what isolation can mean. When young teachers are posted to
remote
communities in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, their
employment
package includes an "insanity flight". The Ministry of Education has
decided that more than one annual flight out is needed for a teacher to
survive
a full stint in a place with few facilities, intense heat, and perhaps
one or
two other teachers for English-speaking adult company. Residents of
places like
Fitzroy Crossing, though the town is large enough to support a District
High
School, have to go to Broome, 400 km away, to do their banking.
Isolation
is one's sense of the difference
between here and there. The longer it takes to bridge
the
intervening gap, the further apart here and there are in time, the
greater the
potential isolation. The world's most remote public telephone is at
William
Creek, South Australia. But once you make it to that phone and put
through a
call you have cancelled out the distance between William Creek and
Washington,
Warsaw, Wuhan or Wilcannia.
Developments
in transportation and in
telecommunications have progressively diminished our isolation.
Nonetheless a
combination of other factors has contributed to a drift from rural to
urban
areas, even in our most decentralised state, Queensland, which also has
the
largest habitable area of any state in Australia. The driving factors
include
rural mechanisation, economic recession, drought, and the creation of
effective
road, rail and air transport corridors between the coastal centres.
Rationalisation
has seen the closure or
downgrading of post offices, branches of banks, and schools all over
the
country. When the bank and the post office go, says the conventional
wisdom,
towns start to die. As one wag put it:
People are capital on legs. If they aren't
properly attended to, your
business will simply walk away. [2]
The
drift is the result of a perception that
the quality of life is better in the city, that opportunities exist
there which
do not exist in the country.
I
want to pause here to caution you against
reacting to this drift as if it is a crisis. Culturally Australians are
funny
people, and, despite the apparent homogenising cultural influence o f
the
American sitcom, culturally very different to Americans when it comes
down to
what motivates us.
The
way to energise a group of Americans is
to have a crisis. But Australians are more likely to be demotivated by
a
crisis, which is why when Australian managers latch on to American
solutions,
such as Tom Peters' Thriving on chaos, totally suspend their
capacity
for critical disbelief, and attempt to introduce these solutions into
Australian organisations, the results are invariably extremely
disappointing.
Australians
are motivated more by a (small
c) cause. As a nation, we are very generous in our giving to others in
trouble.
For us, the primal (small c) cause is that of mateship, of egalitarian
treatment, of fairness; all those things that make up a true community,
as
opposed to a conglomeration of people who just happen to live in the
same
locality.
The
Rand Committee has reported to the National
League of Cities that the perceived attractiveness or quality of life
of a
community is its most cost-effective community resource [3].
Rural
areas have
to compete with cities to attract growth, jobs, economic development.
The
quality and availability of information and educational resources in a
community are assets which enhance its ability to compete.
But
are our assumptions about where
advantage really lies, valid? When reviewing organisations or
developing
strategic plans, I have always found it useful to identify assumptions.
Changing a way of thinking changes reality. For example, the Heinz
company was
able to put a perceived disadvantage to advantage. Because its ketchup
was a
lot slower than others it had a problem. Heinz ketchup was harder to
pour
because it was thicker. Therefore it was thought that the ketchup must
taste a
lot better. By advertising this point of view. Heinz turned a potential
disadvantage into an advantage and market share rose from 19 percent to
50
percent [4]
.
It
is particularly useful to examine our
assumptions about what is beneficial and what is not, and to ensure
that we
take a systems view in reaching a conclusion. It is imperative that we
routinely take a systems view to overcome the inclination to embrace
either/or
thinking and its attendant search for a single answer.
The
basic tenet of that which is referred to
as systems theory, though it is in actuality not a theory but a fact,
is that
everything is a system. Even the atom, not so long ago thought to be
the irreducible
element of matter, is now found to be a system whose complexities
nuclear
physicists have hardly begun to unravel. On a level more macroscopic
than atoms
or individuals, all of us are component parts of the fabric of human
society.
And we are now coming to understand something Aboriginal people have
known for
many thousands of years - that the whole of that society is connected
to the
waters, to the land, to the forests, to the atmosphere. Nothing happens
in
isolation, and on multiple levels everything affects and is affected by
everything else.
Regional
Australia has to rethink current
concepts of comparative advantage and disadvantage. It has to grasp the
significance of the information industry and recognise that while the
information society is well and truly upon us, and the learning
society, a
situation in which people are empowered and enabled to learn what,
where, when
and they like, throughout their lifespan, is for the most part an
unrealised
dream, the learning community is eminently more achievable.
Paul
Hawken suggests that:
If every company on the planet were to
adopt the environment and social
practices of the best companies ... the world would still be moving
toward
degradation and collapse. [5]
The
paradox is that creating a profitable
company puts an intolerable strain on the natural world. The same
paradox
applies to cities and towns. In part, this results from the way we
define
profit. Think about the way we construct the Gross National Product.
Because we
add to the GNP the profits on vehicle repair, medical expenses, funeral
costs
and re- insurance, car accidents are actually assumed to be good for
the
economy.
Enjoying
enhanced quality of life embodies
reclaiming an understanding of what it means to live an ethical life.
The foundations
of an answer lie in a reconstruction of our sense of community. The
sense of
ethics has always been, inescapably, a social sense. We have always
needed the
experience of living in a community to develop an understanding of what
is
right and wrong. All the important moral questions arise from trying to
live in
a social context, and it is only from a sense of mutual dependency that
we
learn to appreciate the force of mutual obligation. [6]
Ethics
develop more easily in small
communities where people can see the immediate implications of their
actions.
It stands to reason that in big cities, where as individuals we are
anonymous
in many settings, we do not feel the same moral links. So a sense of
community
is an important part of a sense of quality of life and maintaining it
should be
a prime consideration in all development.
Living
an ethical life means having a
quality approach to every aspect of life. Hawken argues that we are
being
moulded for corporate markets, not the future [7].
For example, the
typical
adult can recognise a thousand brand names and logos, but fewer than
ten local
plants, yet understanding the process of biology is essential to our
survival.
Let
me emphasise what I mean by a systems
approach to quality of life, ethics and community advantage, by
describing to
you one of the most beautiful small towns on earth. Perched halfway up
a
mountainside it overlooks the vast expanse of a river valley. Pine
forests back
it and sandstone canyons of gorgeous colour surround it. It has a
delightful
climate, a highly educated populace, nice housing, good public
education and
other public facilities. Yet, for all its apparent lifestyle benefits
nothing
would induce me to live in Los Alamos, New Mexico because it is a town
in the
business of manufacturing nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It is
also a
town in which to discuss the ethical issues relating to this is
generally
considered impolite [8].
Access
Most
mornings I waken to the sound of
kookaburras laughing. You will assume, therefore, that I live in a
fairly rural
environment. Kookaburras evoke the Australian bush. It is one of the
contradictions alluded to by Mark Twain that, although Australia is a
highly
urbanised country, we have always imagined that the essence of what it
is, is
rural. It was the kookaburra's laugh that echoed through darkened
cinemas at
the beginning of newsreels which reinforced this idea to audiences who
predominantly lived in cities and large regional centres. The newsreel
kookaburra laughs no more but his descendant laughs in digitised form.
When
Apple executives in California want to demonstrate the power of
electronic
networks they hook into a data base at the National Botanic Gardens in
Canberra, and a kookaburra's laughter rings through the boardrooms of
Silicon Valley.
Linking
to the global network through the
Internet ended forever Australia's isolation from the rest of the
world. But
just as our population is clustered on the coast, so it would seem are
our
Internet users.
There
has been a great deal of discussion of
the Internet in the media in recent months. Much of it has been
focussed on the
so-called Yellow Brick Highway, the electronic superhighway. Electronic
highways, though not the superhighways of the future, already exist.
The vision
of an international information superhighway is one that is shared by
many in
the information community. This Yellow Brick Highway would carry all
forms of
human communication that can be reduced to electronic form, from
written
messages (electronic mail) to interactive television. It would replace
telephones, fax machines, and other communication services.
The
superhighway is not just another
technology-driven vision. The concept of transfering information
electronically
was conceived well over a century ago. Alexander William Bell, the
inventor of
the telephone, designed the Photophone - a device that could transmit
information by light. The Photophone worked in a clear line of sight,
so of
course the signal was obscured by weather and smoke. It took the
invention of
laser light (1960) and fibre optic cable (1975) to make Bell's dream a
reality.
Basically,
the Internet is not a planned,
cohesive network but rather a network of autonomous networks, which has
been
largely the domain of universities and research institutions. The
Internet is
also a chaotic cornucopia of information. You can plunge into
cyberspace,
forging deeper and deeper and forget how you arrived and how to get
out. In the
words of a columnist in the New York Times:
Information exists on Internet, but one is
likely to hear a giant
sucking sound as the Internet user is drawn ever deeper into the
network in
search of it [9]
Australian
access to the Internet is via the
Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet). Tertiary
Institutions,
government departments, both Federal and State, CSIRO and sources of
major
online research resources such as the National Library are entitled to
membership of AARNet. The Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee
manages
AARNet. It has had a policy of restricting membership to organisations
involved
mainly in research, but these restrictions are being eased. Indeed
Geoff
Huston, AARNet Manager and Chair of the Internet International Planning
Group,
has a clear vision of a future in which the Internet will be accessible
to all
Australians, as ubiquitous as the telephone.
Dennis
Griffith of the Northern Territory
Department of Education has advanced considerably the work on the
measurement
of accessibility to services with his development of the Griffith Ser
vice
Access Frame. While important in this model, geographical location is
not the
sole determinant of relative access status, as the model includes an
index of
Economic Resources (a standard ABS derivation). The underlying
assumptions to
the GSAF are
- there is a
direct relationship between the level of service available and the
population size of the centre
- access to
services is dependent upon the distance between the location of the
client population and point of service; and
- access
to services is dependent on the economic power of the community to meet
the costs of overcoming distance [10]
The
deregulation of the Australian
telecommunications industry will be a two edged sword for remote
communities.
Profit will be the watchword in the battle to win the right to deliver
perso nal
communications services to the nations home's, including cable
television,
infotainment, and many other interactive computer-based services such
as
banking, bill paying and shopping. Already there are suggestions that
cross-
subsidisation will cease and thus ordinary phone services will cost
much more
in the bush. There is a rush to install fibre-optic cables in the
suburbs of
Melbourne and Sydney while rural centres struggle along without even
ISDN
lines. Without access to fibre-optic networks or, at worst ISDN, the
range and
format of information available to rural communities through the
computer
networks will be limited and the cost of access considerable.
We
are also in danger of confusing
mediaspace with cyberspace. Mediaspace is more encompassing, if for no
other
reason that we have been using electronic media for a long time now.
Mediaspace
is a passive medium, merely communicating signals from A to B. When you
are in
mediaspace, for example, using the telephone, you're simply talking to
another person,
using a seemingly passive communication tool. On the Internet, on the
other
hand, you' re clearly entering shared space. Thus, in cyberspace, it is
you who
enters the computer's realm, while in mediaspace the technology becomes
ubiquitous and invisible, and it is more of a case of technology
entering into
our realm. This is why cyberspace w ill evolve into virtual reality,
while
mediaspace will evolve into 'augmented reality'. In augmented reality
computers
disappear into the physical surrounding, which becomes enhanced by
embedded
intelligence [11].
Access
to information will be critical to
the survival of rural communities, and if those communities do not
ensure that
this access is affordable they will be seriously disadvantaged. In t he
coming
battle for control of the marketplace there is a danger that, for rural
communities, mediaspace will win.
Democracy
Access
to information and the opportunities
it brings can be the way to give the country the edge over the city.
Taking a
community approach will ensure that the venture is affordable,
successful and
democratic.
The
New England town meeting is the most
democratic form of local government, a form which has grown out of a
real sense
of community. As towns get bigger, people become more disenfranchise d.
Smaller
towns have an advantage in that local politicians and municipal
employees are
more accessible to the populace, though one rarely sees this point made
in
publicity aimed at attracting new businesses and residents. But like
their
counterparts in larger centres, they often have to depend on the media
to get
information to the residents. I do not need to outline the hazards
thereof, nor
the expense of the alternative: paid time on electronic media, paid
advertisements in print media or direct mailings.
Bill
Clinton now publishes his media
releases electronically so messages from the White House can be
accessed via
Internet. The information is conveyed without commentary and without
editing.
Both he and the Vice-President can be e-mailed direct
[12].
When you
email them an
autoresponder immediately sends an acknowledgment of receipt along with
some
useful information about the state of development of the White House
System,
how e-mail is dealt with, and information about accessing White House
information sources. Can you imagine how much time and money is being
saved by
elimination of paper-shuffling and stationery and postage costs alone.
Any
local authority adopting a similar system would therefore be able to
offset
such savings against the cost of the system.
The
ability to eliminate the difference
between here and there, to operate in an information
world in
which there is only here, allows people to have both a sense of
th e
world community and an enhanced capacity to act in the interest of that
community.
Green groups have realised that the Internet lets them think and act
globally.
Eight years ago, it took a Danish group eight months to organise
worldwide
protests over Indonesian destruction of rain forest. John Seed, of
Lismore's
Rainforest Information Centre, says that when the Malaysian government
was
accused in November 1993 of breaking an anti-logging blockade in
Sarawak
demonstrations were held outside Malaysian consulates in Australia and
the
United States the next day [13].
Resource
sharing
Many
organisations tend to look at their
information resource vertically instead of horizontally, in an
integrated
fashion, and regard their information resources as a necessary expense,
the
cost of doing business, rather than as a capitalised asset.
One
approach to reducing the expense of
delivering library services has been resource-sharing. The movement to
create
larger units of service rests fundamentally on two claims. The first is
that it
is more cost effective. The second is that, through resource sharing
and
cooperation, better service can be provided to the community. Resource
sharing
largely depends on formal relationships for borrowing books. Such
networks are
a variant form of the "larger unit of service" concept [14].
The
theory of the larger unit of service has
its foundation in three unproven assumptions:
- that many valuable
services requiring special training and education can only be provided
by a library with resources of sufficient size to provide staff with
specialised expertise.
- that no individual
library can possibly acquire the collections necessary to meet
adequately the demand that exists in its community; and
- that economies of
scale apply in libraries.
The
first assumption is easy to dismiss.
Multi-skilled staff can provide the full range of services. To the
third we can
respond that there are also diseconomies of scale, as well as
economy of
variety.
Let
us consider in more detail, the second
assumption, that no library can possible hope to meet the needs of its
own
clients. It is true that there is no library in Australia that is
sufficiently
large to meet all the needs of its users. However, if a library has its
collection development policy right, it will be seeking to ensure that
its
collection will meet some reasonably large percentage of demand,
particularly
for subject requests. For the bulk of all requests from its users, it
should
not be assumed that a library cannot be independent and meet the needs
of its
user population.
In
public libraries, the research reported
confirms what observation suggests. If a library does not have what is
needed
by a user, few are willing to wait for delivery from another source.
The great
majority of patrons never use any library other than the one closest to
their
home, no matter what its size.
Demand
for convenience
Library
users stubbornly insist on
convenient access to books. Reflection on what we know about human
nature, and
observation of service trends in business, should confirm that
convenience is
becoming more rather than less important to customers, whether they be
of
libraries or any other type of service or business. In fact, the thrust
of
business change in this country has been to further this
convenience-seeking
behaviour.
The
principal characteristic common to all
manifestations of the larger unit of service concept is inconvenience.
Patrons
are asked either to go further to a better facility or to accept books
that
they have not been able to examine after a delay of varying duration.
What
people want, however, is immediate
access to a wider choice of books among which to browse. Immediate
access
involves two things - that the library is geographically accessible and
that
the books are on the shelves of the library. Therefore the expected
level of
use should not be a factor in either the quality of the collection or
in the
decision to serve a certain area. In any branch system there should not
be a
great imbalance in collection size anywhere in the system, and the
placement of
these libraries should be decided almost entirely on the distance
factor and
without any regard for the potential of some larger collection,
remotely
located, to meet any collection deficiencies.
The
availability of the Internet has made
possible the concept of the virtual or networked library, a generic
library which
has no defined boundaries, no administration, no staff, and no budget.
The
virtual library is one where the user has the illusion of access to a
much
larger collection of information than is really present, immediately or
simultaneously [15].The
virtual or Internet library
belongs to nobody,
rather it
belongs to everybody. Nobody is in charge, and it is impossible to
budget what
cannot be defined. No group or organisation can control this virtual
library,
but any group can affect the Internet library by contributing or
withholding
influence or access. We must therefore view the Internet library from a
perspective of influence rather than control.
This
virtual library, however, must not be
seen as a replacement for the paper library, but as an opportunity to
enhance
it so that the library holds a collection which is
...an accumulation of information-bearing
objects - printed, aural,
graphic, digital - housed within the physical library, and also
indices,
abstracts and catalogs through which, using electronic channels, the
library
user has access to pre-identified resources held by other libraries and
information providers [16].
Competitiveness
Competitive
advantage comes from not only
having timely and informed knowledge about your environment, but
understanding
the implication or actions that are necessary as a consequence of this
knowledge. Having the right information at the right time is often the
difference between success and failure. In today's globally competitive
marketplace, for an organisation or a community to succeed, it needs to
act
more intelligently with its environment.
Competitive
intelligence is all about
knowledge and concerns an organisation's market competitiveness. It is
the
ethical and legal gathering, evaluation and interpretation of
information,
based on data located in the public arena and communicated to an
organisation's
management, to allow for informed, strategic choices concerning the
organisation's future. It is the capturing and processing of
information flows,
within an environment, that will play a major role in an organisation's
or
community's ability to develop a sustainable competitive advantage.
Part
of the competitive edge is your
efficiency or productivity. Utilising electronic communications
networks to
allow citizens to communicate with politicians, with bureaucrats, with
each
other, to gain access to community and other information, can provide
equity of
access to and distribution of information at a fraction of the cost of
paper-
based systems.
Access
to better library and information
services has benefits which contribute to the competitive edge of a
community.
These include higher productivity in libraries - better return on
investment in
resources, buildings, equipment and staff; increased information for
decision-making;
and increased capacity of the community to attract and hold businesses
because
competitive intelligence will be accessible to rural entities and
overall the
community will be better able to compete on quality of life issues with
large
cities.
While
individual libraries have recognised
the potential of modern advances in information storage, retrieval,
communications and copying to locate original documents and transmit
copies in
a timely and efficient manner quick automatic dialling, high speed, no
usage
charges other than the annual connection fees and the ability to reach
anywhere
in the world. Imagine also that this tool enables those residents to do
unlimited online searches of international academic and research
libraries,
exchange files of documents, and access the views and advice of the
masses
through news discussion groups.
Imagine
that the gateway to all this is a
community information system which uses an electronic city model and
provides
two-way communication with local government officials. Registered use
rs log in
and can access services with titles like Administration Building,
Business and
Industrial Park, School, Animal Hospital, Hospital, Courthouse,
Television
Station, Courthouse and Library and well as being able to access the
Internet.
Guests can l ogin and read local community information. In one fell
swoop you
have given your residents access to the world while you have emphasised
their
sense of their local community.
Imagine
the local government authority or
other government department being able to survey the residents quickly,
cheaply, and electronically. Electronic questionnaires have been found
to b e
extremely useful and accurate. Researchers in the corporate world have
discovered that people respond more honestly to questionnaire in
electronic
format, possibly because of the perceived anonymity of the computer. [17]
Imagine
that all this costs something in the
order of $10 per person per year, of which a large proportion is
returned to
the community in savings in the administration of the community.
Imagine
now that this community information
system is coordinated by people knowledgable about navigating
information (i.e.
skilled librarians), so that every resident can take advantage of
expert
liaison between himself and the world's burgeoning store of information
and, if
desired, can have those skilled knowledge navigators obtain needed
information
on his or her behalf or, alternatively, assist him or her to develop
information discove ry skills.
Traditionally
libraries have been defined by
their clientele. Most of us understand, more or less, the difference
between
school libraries, university libraries, public libraries and the li
braries in
government departments and corporations.
Joint
use public-school libraries have been
one approach to meeting the needs of sectors of small communities which
could
not sustain viable dedicated libraries. It is my prediction that th ey
will
become increasingly common in communities which currently have neither.
The
Minister for Education in Queensland is committed in principle to joint
use
libraries and I have been proposing a proactive approach to their
development.
But I believe th at we could go further and take a collaborative
approach to
delivering the library and information services provided by State and
Commonwealth Departments, by education and by local authorities from
one site
in rural communities. That site could also inco rporate a telecentre.
The
Department of Primary Industries and
Energy (DPIE) has provided assistance to interested community groups in
rural
Australia to establish a telecentre. Telecentres are locally controlle
d and
locally staffed computer information centres designed to support the
economic,
social, educational and training opportunities of rural communities
through
better access to telecommunications and information technologies.
History
has demonstrated that only
government actions can create equitable distributions of information
resources.
To achieve this the initiative will have to come from the rural
communitie s.
As
I've already described, Australia's
access to the Internet is via AARNet. The preferred method of
connection to
AARNet is via a leased line direct to the relevant AARNet regional hub.
AA RNet
regional hubs are located in each Australian state and territory
capital city.
Where a link to the regional hub is impractical a link to a local
AARNet AVCC
member or CSIRO site may be considered by AARNet. However, as the
Affiliate
Member would then be sharing common capacity with the host AARNet
member, this
method of link may not be possible in all cases. And many towns do not
have a
local higher education campus or CSIRO site. It is imperative therefore
that
local government lobbies for fibre-opt ic connections and for
coordination of
access.
There
are a number of opportunities which
may be used to support the case for integrated services.
The
report of the Task Force on Regional
Development (Kelty Report) has recommended that the Government
should explore
ways in which public libraries can have cheaper access to on-line
information [18]
.
There is also a climate of
regionalisation, with various
government departments, including all Queensland state government
department,
focusing central offices on policy issues and increasing the service
delivery
functions of regional offices. But, as Peter Wilenski has pointed out,
regionalisation itself does not guarantee participation.
At
worst, regionalisation can simply amount
to the development of mini-bureaucracies within a local context, devoid
of
community participation [19]
and bureaucrats are
often concerned that
regional
offices do not become completely autonomous and co-opted by their
region, a
phenomenon sometimes referred to as going "feral" [20].
Nonetheless,
regionalisation of state and
commonwealth government information and other services will continue
because of
political commitment.
The
Department of Education in Queensland,
for example, favours a regionalised organisation capable of responding
to
differences in clients' needs and resources over a centralised system
which
emphasises uniformity of resources. To achieve equity, or fairness,
higher
staff/student ratios at small remote schools have to be coupled with
the
application of communication technology. Projects such as telelearning,
where
students at remote school s "join" classes at larger schools, and the
use of access to networked information are underway. The Department is
at the
moment running two studies of the use of the Internet to support
effective
learning and teaching and is spending millions of dollars each year to
ensure
that every school child in Queensland has access to a computer at
school. What
is missing is statewide access to the high speed networks. This
deficiency
limits the capacity of schools in more isolated communities to fully
exploit
the potential of networked electronic information sources for
educational
purposes. Here is an opportunity for coordinated effort. Increased
educational
opportunities within a region would both meet the Department's goals
and
improve the quality of life and thus the competitive edge of that
region.
Conclusion
Even
after the passage of a century Mark
Twain's view of Australia still holds true, and will continue to hold
true as
long as Australia hangs on to one of its great hidden resources, the A
ustralian "bushie".
I
came across an intriguing definition of
the word idiot a few months ago. In a travel article, author Jacqueline
Swartz
remarks: "Solitude is for idiots: the ancient Greek word idios means
private, outside society." [21]
No one who has
lived in a rural
environment
in any country can fail to be aware of the various not very flattering
epithets
that have been applied since time immemorial to country folk by
city-dwellers -
country bum pkin, local yokel, peasant, hayseed, to name but a few. The
underlying definition of all of these is someone who knows little about
the
world and is relatively unsophisticated. In other words, someone who is
regarded
by his or her urban neighbours to be little more than an idiot.
Despite
this less than flattering press, the
reason that I refer to the Australian bushie as one of our great hidden
resources has less to do with my own small town background than it has
to the
fact that a real bushie is someone who is not too sure about the
meaning of the
word impossible. Real bushies address all problems with a mix
of faith
and improvisation that helps them overcome the most impossible odds.
Developing
integrated library and
information services which provide access to the global community while
still
emphasising, supporting and enhancing the sense of the local community
struct
ure, will require a deal of improvisation and a belief in the
importance of the
community as a definable entity. It will also require enough faith for
communities which are essentially competing with each other to work
together to
lobby other levels of government in order to ensure that the
infrastructure
required to enable a community based integrated solution to information
isolation is speedily put into place.
References
-
quoted in
Thoeming, Peter The most beautiful lies Smart woman, October/November
1993 pp 91-96, p 91
- Nirenberg, John
The living organization:
transforming teams into workplace communities.
San Diego, Pfeiffer 1993 p 133
- quoted in
McNulty, Robert The economics of amenity Meanjin
47(4) Summer 1988 pp 615-624
- Sculley, J Odyssey London,
Fontana 1987 p 45
- quoted in
Neville,
Richard Creative edge: capitalism's secret plan The
Hames report 2(6) February 1994 pp 61-62
- Mackay, Hugh. Point of
view: heeding the
wisdom of the elders. The Hames Report
2(6) February 1994 pp 62-63
- quoted in Neville,
Richard Creative edge:
capitalism's secret plan. The Hames report 2(6) February 1994 pp
61-62
- Peck, M
Scott, A
world waiting to be born:
civility rediscovered New York, Bantam,
1993 pp 231-232
- Lewish, Peter H. Business Section 3. New York Times December 12 1993 p 7
- Griffith, D A
Quantifying
access to services in remote and
rural
Australia in Education, equity and
the crisis in the
rural
community ed J M R Cameron and D A
Griffith Proceedings of the Rural Education
Research Association
Conference, Alice
Springs
1992
- Bauwens, Michael Cyberspace,
virtualisation, and the role
of
cybrarians Antwerp,
Information
Department
BP Nutrition
January 1994
- President@WhiteHouse.gov
and
Vice-President@WhiteHouse.gov
- Button, James Around the
world in eighty
seconds Time, December 13 1993 pp 52-59 p
56
-
Ballard,
Thomas H The failure of resource
sharing in public libraries and
alternative strategies for service Chicago, American
Library
Association 1986 p 5
- Harley, A J Towards
the
virtual library in The
nationwide provision and use of
information Sheffield, Aslib ISS LA Joint
Conference 15-19
September 1990 pp 163-166
- Ghikas, Mary W Collection
management in the
twenty-first century Journal of library
administration 11(1/2) pp 119-135
- Sproulle, Lee and
Kiesler, Sara Computers,
networks and work Scientific American
265(3) 1991 pp 84-91
- Developing
Australia: a
regional perspective
Canberra, AGPS 1993
- Wilenski, P Public
power and public
administration Sydney,
Hale and Iremonger
1986.
- Sargent, John P
Regionalism & economic
development: propping up or strategic
choice? - II: a state
government perspective.
Canberra
bulletin of public
administration no 70
October 1992 pp 98-101
- Swartz, Jacqueline
Solitude is for idiots Saturday
night September 1990 p 73
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