First Timers' Breakfast

ALIA Sydney is proud to be a part of the upcoming ALIA Biennial conference this week.

Myself and two other committee members, Sophie MacDonald and Vikki Bell will be speaking at the First Timers' Breakfast to share our tips and tricks for getting the most out of the conference for first time delegates. The breakfast is sponsored by the University of Wollongong Library, and University Librarian Margie Jantti will be opening the proceedings.

If you're going to be at the first timers' breakfast, we'll see you there!

- Crystal
ALIA Sydney Group Convenor

ALIA Biennial 2012

I’ve just taken a stroll through previous posts on the ALIA Biennial blog and have learned so much.   So much stuff out there to help you through life!   Fides and I are looking forward to talking more about these developments at the Biennial Conference.  Only a couple of weeks to go now.  It is has been an interesting journey putting this conference together and we hope that for those who attend and/or who follow us through social media, that you will discover and re-discover all sorts of interesting things.  The key feature of an ALIA conference is that it brings together all sectors and we encourage you to explore the inspiring work that other libraries and colleagues in Australia and overseas are doing.  The program is exciting, wonderfully diverse, and should lay the seeds for many conversations during and beyond the conference about reimagining, re-envisioning, and discovering ourselves as a profession.

One comment about the conference we’ve regularly heard is that the conference is expensive because it’s being held at the Hilton.  Not true.  Conferences are costly events to host as yes, you do have to pay for a venue that’s large and flexible enough to hold the estimated number of delegates, concurrent sessions and exhibition space, plus you need to supply catering, ensure IT support, attract interesting speakers etc.  However, the cost of having the conference at the Hilton was extremely competitive compared with other venues, particularly as there are no hidden costs as most of what we require is already available at the hotel.  Being in the heart of the city means that getting to the conference is easy for delegates and once at the hotel, plenty of options for dining.  Of course there is the lure of the QVB with its upmarket shops, not to mention the new Westfield city complex, but we trust that our delegates and their accompanying family and friends, will shop each day after the conference has finished.  After all, there is only so much you can spend in three days!  The Hilton is not too far from the NSW Art Gallery where we are having our conference dinner, and there is also the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Sydney Museum and, of course, the iconic Sydney Opera House.  So there’s a lot on offer within walking distance to keep delegates and accompanying family and friends well occupied. 

When planning the conference dinner, it was clear that delegates wanted something different to a traditional sit down dinner but wanted to be all together rather than separating into smaller groups.  A few of the Conference committee members explored options and felt that the NSW Art Gallery would do the trick.  The menu looks delightful and there will be plenty of opportunity to chat with one another and enjoy the beauty of art.  There will be time for dancing too!  Volunteers at the Art Gallery have kindly offered to show delegates around, our very own personalised tours.  You can’t get better than that. 

Another important social event of the conference is, of course, our welcome reception party.  This is because it is the official opening of our exhibition.  Our sponsors and exhibitors are essential for having a successful conference, they all put a lot of effort into putting together their stands and are keen to talk with delegates about their products and services.  At the Biennial Conference the exhibition will be set across two floors and we encourage everyone to visit EVERY stand.  Our sponsors and exhibitors are crucial to the holding of the Conference and we encourage everyone to check out the massive exhibition space.  You will be amazed at what you see and who you meet!   

Looking forward to meeting you at the Biennial.

Best wishes,

Janet and Fides

Janet Fletcher and Fides Datu Lawton

Co-Convenors, ALIA Biennial 2012

*This post was cross-posted on the ALIA Biennial blog.

“Living Books” at CQUniversity Melbourne

During Library & Information Week this year we introduced the concept of “Living Books” to the Melbourne Campus Library of CQUniversity. Interesting members of the community came along and talked to students and staff about their life. Each “Living Book” chose a title and wrote a blurb. A copy of the blurb was posted outside the meeting room where the book met “readers”. For Melbourne's international students talking with the “Living Books” gave an insight into some Australian characters and an opportunity to practice English.

Gamil Abou-Lehaf  gave himself the title Why I call Australia Home:

Gamil Abou-Lehaf’s coming to Australia in 1966 was to be for a temporary period while he saved enough money in order to study in France.
Things did not work out this way and he had no choice but to go on making a living and try to settle in.
He thought when he left Egypt, that he had an open, liberated mind as a result of his French educational background in Cairo and his enjoyment of listening to foreign music and watching foreign movies.
Instead he encountered a totally unexpected cultural shock that made him despair. He was at a loss as to how he could achieve any successful outcome. It was not the language he couldn’t understand but the delivery of it and the directness of people’s opinions that he couldn’t handle.
A very patient Australian wife and many years of teaching children at secondary school to helped him come to terms with the situation and sort out the mixed cultural bag that he carried from Egypt. Getting rid of double standard attitudes, impractical beliefs helped him adjust and become a very satisfied and happy citizen of Australia.

Gamil Abou-Lehaf and students

David Cherny called himself King of the Homewares:

David Cherny is the Director of Tabletop Homewares. The company imports and distributes leading kitchenware brands across Australia and New Zealand. Customers include Coles, Woolworths, Target Kmart and smaller gift outlets.David is an Australasian Business Council Member for Gresham Lehman, Austin, Texas. In this capacity he advise overseas investment companies regarding investing in Australia companies.David was educated at Scotch College until year 8, he transferred to Kingswood College for year 9 and 10. Despite not completing secondary school David is the Director of thriving import business.

David Cherny and students

Roger Wilson’s title was To Live a Life Upon the Ocean Waters:

Roger Wilson was born in 1930 at East St. Kilda. He went to sea shortly after the 2nd World War at the age of 16. By 21 he had travelled the high seas and been around the world. He’d worked his way up from deck boy to Able Seaman.
The philosophies of equality, fair play and fair pay became important to him. In 1949 he joined the Communist Party of Australia and in 1950 he attended the 2nd World Peace Congress which took place in Warsaw, Poland.
Roger worked as the Assistant Secretary of the Seaman’s Union of Australia between 1959 and 1984.
He continues to work to improve the living standards of people with the national “Fair Go for Pensioners” coalition. “Fair Go for Pensioners” seeks to influence all levels of Government concerning the lives of senior Australians.

Roger Wilson and students

The experience and my Halal compliant cake were both a huge success with students and staff.

Jane Wilson

Library Manager, CQUniversity Melbourne

Photographs by Barb Watson
Library Technician, CQUniversity Melbourne

Creative & Critical Archives

I’d like to piggyback onto my 17 June 2012 blog posting about re-imagining the archive through the recognition of the complexities that exist there and within our own stories and contested histories.  With this in mind, let’s look closely at the Stories of Arizona’s Tribal Libraries: An Oral History Project, which I am co-directing with Sandy Littletree, Knowledge River Program Manager through the University of Arizona.


Stories of Arizona's Tribal Libraries ~ shortened highlight video from Knowledge River on Vimeo.

The Stories of Arizona’s Tribal Libraries: An Oral History Project is the first of its kind to collect the stories of the development and impact of tribal libraries within tribal communities.  This project was designed in collaboration with tribal librarians throughout Arizona in order to embody the relevance, respect, and reciprocity that each tribal community desired and found necessary throughout the entire process of proposal approval, oral history question development, interview scheduling, oral history acquisition, and continued virtual dissemination.  Since storytelling is a valuable and shared process, this project re-imagines how each tribal community’s unique perspectives can enhance the broader understandings of the roles of libraries, archives, and museums in community contexts.  Utilizing Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s “25 Projects” from her 1999 book, Decolonizing Methodologies:  Research and Indigenous Peoples, as a guide to understanding the possibilities, pitfalls, and potentials of working with and for nondominant communities, the key to this project’s success is its emphasis on respectful and reciprocal collaboration with Arizona’s tribal librarians themselves. 

Now in its second year, the purpose of this unique oral history project is to directly address the need to capture the history and the development of tribal libraries as well as demonstrate that these libraries are indeed a vital and valuable part of the community and the state of Arizona.  Advocacy for libraries of all types often includes a way to inform stakeholders and community members about the value of libraries.  While many resources and media have been developed for mainstream public libraries, few have been developed to specifically address the value and role of tribal libraries.  The Project was envisioned to be useful for educating the public about the value of tribal libraries, to capture the history and development of these libraries and their service to their unique communities, and to encourage a new generation of Native Americans to consider librarianship as a future profession.

Between September 2010 and September 2011, we traveled to four tribal nations to conduct the interviews: San Carlos Apache Nation (09/30/10); Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation (04/18/11); Colorado River Indian Tribes (08/26/11); and Ak-Chin Indian Community (09/12/11). We hosted one tribal librarian in Tucson, who gave a presentation of the history of his library on the University of Arizona campus. We have interviewed 18 people and collected over 14 hours of video.  All clips have been edited, compressed, and are streaming through our Vimeo channel for online viewing.  We currently have 294 video clips streaming that highlight the challenges and successes each library has in terms of programming, language revitalization, technologies, patrons, place, location, collaboration, working with U.S. government entities, and much more.  Just in the past week, we have had 339 loads/plays of this streaming video oral history collection.  

Our next steps will be to transcribe all oral history interviews and work with each tribal community to establish a comprehensive web presence that meets the needs of the tribal communities while also fulfilling our goals to educate people about tribal libraries and their roles in our communities.  By increasing the visibility and availability of these unique oral history interviews streaming on the Internet, tribal communities are able to tell their stories while also sharing in other’s storytelling processes.  This exchange goes beyond the tribal communities and into the general population.  As a starting point, this project can open up new conversations about the value of all historical records to tell our unique stories while also promoting awareness about the importance of preserving our heritage.  The Stories of Arizona’s Tribal Libraries: An Oral History Project can help to demonstrate the ways that knowledge is produced and consumed within communities while also imparting the need for underrepresented communities to tell their own stories and have a clear role in the process. 

BIO:
Jamie A. Lee is currently a Doctoral Student in Information Resources and Library Science with a Gender & Women's Studies minor at the University of Arizona where she is actively and passionately studying archives.  (www.sirls.arizona.edu) and (www.sirls.arizona.edu/kr/)

Here's to a successful Blog Every Day of June!

What an incredible month of blogging! ALIA Sydney’s second Blog Every Day of June project was indeed a wonderful success, due to the plethora of contributions from our incredible guest bloggers, the regular ALIA Sydney Group committee and of course due to you, our readers.

We had posts encompassing a wide ranging list of topics, which I hope you found thought-provoking, inspiring and interesting. We had a huge readership over the past month and you can see that it has spanned across several countries (even when we take into account the bots that are bumping up our stats!) I do want to particularly thank our international guest bloggers for their contributions as they had to deal with time differences and the like, when submitting their blog posts to us! 

It’s indeed a wonderful time to be an information professional- there are so many interesting facets to our work to explore and learn about, so I thank you all for your posts, comments and readership. I do hope that the ALIA Sydney #blogJune effort sparked some new ideas and discussions amongst your colleagues.

In fact, due to the overwhelming support that we’ve had from our guest bloggers, and to celebrate the lead up to the ALIA Biennial conference in the second week of July, we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be extending Blog June into the first few days of July.

So please, keep reading and continue commenting.

Thank you and happy #blogjune!

Crystal

(ALIA Sydney Group Convenor)

Research, frogs and free thinkers

For the last day of the June Blog, here is my plain and bold statement: Librarians need to do research. It is necessary for us and good for the rest of the world. And here are six reasons why.

3 reasons why practice-based research is good for librarians

1. To save our skin. At a recent teacher-librarians’ conference, Di Laycock argued for the importance of research in school libraries and showed us a picture of a frog. If you throw a frog in hot water, she said, it will jump out immediately. However, if you gradually increase temperature while the frog is in water, the adaptable animal will boil alive. In a demanding information world, librarians are a bit like frogs. In order to save our skins, we need to monitor our environment regularly and systematically to be able to act accordingly.

2. To evolve through evidence based practice. In the complicated and sometimes dangerously hot information environment, we can’t afford to rely only on our experience and impressions. We need rigorously gathered evidence to inform our constantly changing practice. Gathering reliable evidence takes time but it is still faster than guess work. It is a bit like asking locals for directions – you stop the car, but get to your destination faster or make an informed decision about how to continue your trip. (I acknowledge that asking for directions is an impossibly difficult thought for some people.)

3. To broaden our career options and strengthen reputation. We already apply research skills in a number of careers outside our main domains. An ability to do primary research may open some new options such as participation as equal partners on research teams, particularly cross-disciplinary ones. Numerous possibilities will open as the demand for innovation and evidence-based practice in many professions increases. At the same time, benefits for our individual and collective professional reputation will be substantial.

3 reasons why librarians’ research is good for the world

1. To keep saving the free thinking world. In our information world domineered by a few big players and swamped by many smaller ones who are trying to get their piece of profitable pie, who is going to defend the right to free information? Librarians and Friends, of course. Knowing about information trends first hand and using that knowledge to be the best we can is something we owe to nothing less than Democracy and Free Thought. Librarians existed well before googles of the modern world, kept the record of civilisations dead and alive, and survived as one of the last civic places. At the time of tremendous changes, we are not going to trust you-know-who to tell us about information trends, are we?

2. To contribute insights from a unique perspective. By serving everyone every day, we have unique insights into the information world. We have been great curators of knowledge records, but now we have a special position to become great ethnographers of the fast-changing world of information and knowledge. We have unparalleled access to potential data about information needs and behaviours on a daily basis - and we have a reputation and tradition to be trusted curators and interpreters of that information. Our perspective is valuable.

3. To enhance our academic field. Academia traditionally saw itself as self-sufficient and all-knowing, but it increasingly recognises the value of connection with practice. This connection is particularly important in the library and information studies which, like it or not, is predominantly an applied discipline. Some important lessons can be learnt from other applied fields. For example, there are good reasons why most academics in faculties of medicine are practicing clinicians and why they have a well-developed system of university hospitals. The sooner our field recognises advantages of different types of research and practice, the sooner it will benefit from a stronger reputation, better career paths, an improved position in negotiating research grants, and increased enrolments in postgraduate courses.

If you agree with the 6 reasons in answer to ‘why research’, the next question is ‘how’. A beginning of a big answer may be just around the corner. On 10 July, the ALIA Research Committee is organising the workshop Research for practitioners: in a nutshell at the State Library of NSW. Due date for registrations has been extended. Check it out! http://www.alia.org.au/training/brochures/2012/ALIA.Training.Research.Comm.In.a.Nutshell.2012.pdf

Suzana Sukovic

Head of the Learning Resource Centre at St.Vincent’s College, Potts Point

Research Associate, The University of Sydney

Five reasons why the Art of Library Management is like the Art of Baking

I know what you’re thinking; what do Library management and baking have in common? I guess the answer is me. Last month I was successful in becoming the acting Library Manager for the City of Sydney Library service. I went from running a single branch at Surry Hills with a staff of 7 to overseeing the 9 branch libraries of the City of Sydney with approximately 120 staff.

Just before I was successful in getting the role, I found an old CWA cookbook on the library shelves and even though I had never baked before, I decided to try and make sultana scones. It was a complete success and my love for baking was born.

As I started to learn about my new role and more about the art of baking, I noticed the weird synergies between good management and good baking.

1. Study the masters - enrich your palette

I don’t believe people are born managers; anyone can become a good library manager with the right skills. Most managers (like me), completed a University course, others paid their dues studying how the organisation works and rising through the ranks to become managers.

Whether your masters are information theorists, like Brenda Dervin or Elfreda Chatman, or existing staff who have been with the organisation for years, both groups can teach you so much about how a library works. It’s through both types of learning that you learn to push yourself and your talents and as a result become better at what you do.

It’s the same with baking. You can’t start baking without a recipe. Whether that recipe is from a famous chef’s cookbook or from your Granma’s handwritten recipes, either way you need to start from somewhere.

2. Respect those who came before you

When you first start a new job, especially a management position, it’s a natural tendency to want to shake things up and make your mark on the position. I know I did. However; you first need to have an understanding of the organisation and how it runs, before you can start the process of change. It’s a fact of life that most people fear change and the quickest way to get everyone offside is to start changing things without an understanding of the service you  currently manage.

It’s the same with baking, very few would start to change a recipe before you have tried it out, tasted the results and seen if what has occurred is a gloriously sweet confection or a sour flop. Respecting the collected knowledge of those who came before you is an essential skill in both library management and baking.

3. Develop your own style

Every manager manages in a different style. The secret is making your style work in your workplace. I must admit I adopt a more consultative approach using active listing and communication with staff, as I find this instantly promotes dialogue and helps to work through issues. However, there comes a time when all managers will have to implement, do or say something that not everyone likes. It’s in these cases your management skills will really kick in.

This is where active listing and communication help to find out what the problems are and to solve them as best you can without getting staff offside. Of course you can’t keep everyone happy all the time and you need to fight the urge to get upset if this happens. Always remember you are the manager and the buck stops with you. If you think a decision is the best one, then run with it, but be open and listen to any feedback as it’s through discussion and debate that the famous middle ground is usually created.

I like to think I bake with my own particular style. I add more of what I like and less of what I don’t with all my baked goods. However I don’t always bake for myself so I always have to keep who I bake for in mind. What they like and what they don’t, so the result, what eventually gets eaten, will be a complete success.

4. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

Trust me you’ll make mistakes, everyone does. The trick is to learn from them and not let them define your career. It’s from these mistakes you learn more than with any of your successes. From the errors you make you are forced to re-examine how you work and this will give you a new perspective that you may never have thought about before. The only real mistake is making the same mistake twice.

Most chefs will tell you baking is a science and you need to have everything just so before you start. Don’t listen. Feel empowered to add or try new ingredients or make mistakes. It is from this experimentation new creations are born.

5. Remember you are part of a community

Always remember there is a community of professional librarians and managers out there. So go to the conferences, attend the lectures and do some library visits. Get on blogs, explore the internet, and follow others on Twitter/Facebook; this will all help to enrich your knowledge and skills. This will keep you open to the plethora of different ways of managing and running a library. And always remember to share your knowledge with others. Be a part of the information web that binds us all together.

It’s like Jamie Oliver says about recipes: if you get a good one ‘Pass it on’. Go share a recipe that worked on the internet, look at the blogs, and talk to those at work about your baking.

As my first manager said to me when I started my career, ‘Knowledge is power’. So share the knowledge you have and be open to the collective knowledge of those around you. Always be willing to grow and adapt. Remember that if you manage a library or bake a cake there are always possibilities to become better at what you do by learning and developing your own skills through a combination of networking, ideas sharing and hard work.

Paul Garbin is the Library Manager, City of Sydney Library Network.